h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This particular behavior is widespread on the campuses of colleges and universities in the United States.

Various fraternal organizations, which are widespread, some having more than 300 chapters, some of which are international entities, most of which are old, dating to the end of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th century, and just about all of which are quite wealthy, having generations of Alumni bestowing upon them various endowments. As such, they have established rivalries and alliances, which may vary from chapter to chapter, but are always deeply ingrained.

All of these organizations, having classical, religious, Hermetic, and Masonic heritages, have elaborate rituals, coats of arms, crests, paraphenalia, standards, crests, flags, badges, secret manuals, and other misceallany which could be construed as mascots.

Members of these bodies are typically perpetually drunken students between the ages for 17 and 25, depending upon their motivation to graduate, and as such their combination of hormonal urges and acoholic impairment causes them to be whipped into a frenzy of mascotry, especially at particularly important dates such as the homecoming of the favored sports team or the founding date of the fraternity.

It is an art form and a mark of respect to have procured the mascot of a rival and set it near the mascots of your own. It is the last outlet for the rites of the warrior code and primeval tribal heritage in such an edifice of higher learning and education.

For example, I am a member of the one such fraternty (with few exceptions, they are known by an abbreviaiton of a greek phrase which is secret, know only by initiated members). In years past, one of our Alumni captured a cattle skull, horns intact, which had been emblazoned with the letters and motto of a rival fraternity. This artifact is proudly displayed in one of the bedrooms of the fraternity's house. To this day, tales are still told about it.

Fraternities practice another form of mascotry against their feminine counterparts, the sororities. However, rather than being an ongoing war in which the sides are consistently trying to outmaneuver one another, mascotry as practiced against sororities takes on the form of indiscriminate banditry, with any and all fraternities pillaging any and all sororities, rather than the eternal struggle between well-matched, consummate rivals as in interfraternal mascotry. Sororities, however practice mascotry of the higher sort against one another, and have been known to successfully carry out an opportunistic raid against a fraternity when pushed too far.