loyalties to one's class or academic unit that often provoked rowdy and violent "rushes." Promoting school spirit also partook of the boosterism common to U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Michigamua became well known chiefly through rites of initiation held before crowds of spectators every spring. The event was called "Rope Day." Junior men chosen as new members —"young bucks" — would be summoned to a central spot on the campus where the senior members — "fighting braves" — wearing faux-Indian costumes, with their skin stained red, would tie initiates' wrists to a long rope, then run them through the campus and subject them to physical ordeals, including being doused with water and smeared with red brick dust. Hazing on Rope Day varied in severity. One member reported in 1919 that "Rope Day used to be very impressive...unique and picturesque. But it...has degenerated until it has become the worst offender in the way of brutal and barbaric tortures." Early initiates were often "paddled" — struck repeatedly on the buttocks with a wooden paddle. Later cadres scaled back the ordeals. The smearing of red brick dust on the skin of initiates — an example of "redface" practices, which are widely castigated by Native Americans and others as the equivalent of demeaning "blackface" caricatures of Africans and African-Americans — continued into the post-World War II era. Michigamua was often called a secret society. That was true in some senses and in some periods but not in others. Meetings were private, and in some periods officers' names were kept confidential. But on Rope Day, members' identities were obvious to large crowds of spectators, and the student newspaper and yearbook often published members' names. Apart from Rope Day, Michigamua's activities consisted of weekly meetings to discuss campus affairs; outings and parties with dates; and reunions with alumni members, called "Old Braves." By informal understanding, the group refrained from any effort, as a body, to exert influence on student politics or university policies, though members often claimed to advance worthy aims as individuals working behind the scenes. The main exception to that reluctance to act as a group occurred in 1903-04, when Michigamua supported plans for a unifying social club for all Michigan men — students, faculty and alumni alike — partly in response to tensions between undergraduate fraternity members and "independents." Led by the Michigamua member Edward F. Parker,