Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/465



The objects shown in Plates VIII., IX., and X., most of which were exhibited at the Society's meeting on June 19th, illustrate the appliances of some of the highly-developed secret societies and the fetish beliefs of the tribes in the Sierra Leone Protectorate. They were obtained from traders and officials who have travelled in the interior.

The most important society is the Porro, a detailed account of which is given in A Revelation of the Secret Orders of Western Africa (Dayton, Ohio, 1886, 99 pp.), by Rev. J. A. Cole of Shaingay, who was of pure negro blood and had been initiated. A description is also given by Mr. T. J. Alldridge in The Sherbro and its Hinterland. The society in its usual form appears to be a kind of freemason and benefit club for men only, and Mr. Cole describes signs, passwords, and seven grades which he compares to grades in European freemasonry. He explains Porro or Purroh to mean "the ancient and sacred laws of the fathers." The society trains, circumcises, tattoos, and re-names the boys of the tribes, and is substantially the native government of the country. The oaths of secrecy taken are enforced by fetish sanctions and ceremonies, and the society can put a rigid taboo on any person or thing. The mask shown in Fig. I was worn by a personator of the kriffi ka porro, or porro "devil," a spirit who may not be seen by women or non-members, and who is supposed to devour candidates for the society, and afterwards give them birth again, returning to the sky. The mask is carved from a solid block, and is