"The original Masons were Black; secret societies aren't new to Indigenous societies": tools, degrees and initiation in the Americas and Africa

SUMMARY"The original Masons were Black; secret societies aren't new to Indigenous societies": tools, degrees and initiation in the Americas and Africa (Nov 5, 2026). Tito, on the 1596 "Tartaro Cane" plate's coat of arms: "Similar to the hoe and pickaxe symbolism in most Masonic photos."
RECORD, the tools: the coat of arms on the Orlandi plate (P660) shows a wheel and a plowshare/plow; in the Royal Arch degree, the working tools are the crow, the pickaxe and the spade (Royal Arch ritual as printed in Duncan's Ritual, 1866; verify page). The Grange (1867) used farm tools as its emblems (P242).
RECORD, a Black Mason's own history (1853): Martin R. Delany, The Origin and Objects of Ancient Freemasonry; Its Introduction into the United States, and Legitimacy Among Colored Men (Pittsburgh, 1853), argued that Masonry's origins lay in Africa and Egypt and defended the legitimacy of Black Masons (verify the edition and quote from a scan).
RECORD, degree societies in the Americas: the Anishinaabe Midewiwin (the "Grand Medicine Society") initiates members through graded degrees, commonly four (sometimes eight), and records its teachings on birchbark scrolls; the Haudenosaunee have medicine societies such as the False Face Society and the Little Water Society; Hopi and Pueblo religious life runs through initiated kiva societies.
RECORD, in Africa and its diaspora: the Poro (men's) and Sande (women's) initiation societies of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea; the Ekpe (Leopard) society of the Cross River region; in Cuba, the Abakuá society, founded from Ekpe in Regla, Havana, in 1836

PATTERNinitiation by degrees, secret teachings, tools as symbols and sworn brotherhoods existed among the nations and in Africa, outside and before the 1717 London Grand Lodge

LENS (WW9)the original Masons were Black and Indigenous; the lodges copied a much older form

OPENdirect borrowing from these societies into European Masonry (no document found yet; needs deep research); Delany's sources.