Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/220

 2oS Journal of American Folk-Lore.

��VARIOUS ETHNOGRAPHIC NOTES.

African Masks and Secret Societies. — Secret societies and leagues belong to the most difficult historic topics to treat scienti- fically, because, as the name implies, they are founded for the purpose of acting in secrecy, and therefore have to be necessarily exclusive and opposed to publicity. " Mum is the word " is their motto, and if it was not for their symbols many of them would be entirely hidden from the knowledge of fellow-men and of posterity.

All this holds good also for other human races than the white, and, as far as Africa is concerned, the researches pursued for the last hundred years by Clapperton, Bastian, Golbery, Zenker, Spieth, Buttikofer and others have succeeded in discovering only discon- nected facts pertaining to this recondite but highly interesting feature of African life. A number of European museums had their ethnographic departments stocked with masks, symbols, and curios, evidently festive garments and other toggery, long before plausible explanations were or could be furnished for their use and origin. The nations inhabiting the western coasts and slopes of that vast continent have furnished more of these implements than those of the obverse side, but that mask-wearing was here intimately con- nected with secret societies has become apparent but recently. The African mask, whether it is an imitation or a caricature of the human face, or a reproduction of an animal's head, constantly undergoes certain modifications by custom or by reflection ; it is inseparable from certain ceremonials enacted by secret societies, and also appears with regularity at funerals. After the dissolution of these societies in a tribe, the mask-symbols of the tribe in- crease in variety and in composing elements, the motives remain- ing closely associated with religion. In Western Africa the human mind is thoroughly imbued with the influence and working of the deceased, coming near to what is commonly called ancestor worship. When rain fails to appear in time, sacrifices are offered to propitiate the dead ; sickness of people and cattle-plagues are due to the spiteful influence of some one deceased, and this influence has to be removed. These "manistic" views direct the veneration and wor- ship of their genii : the souls of those who perished are called upon to appear in wooden images and to be consulted as oracles ; their spirits must be made serviceable ; parts of their bodies are carried around to serve as amulets.

But, besides this ancestral and funeral tendency, secret societies will favor also ideas more intimately connected with public life and containing educational views. Ascetic views are inculcated by some

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