Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/221

 Various Ethnographic Notes. 209

of them on portions of the community, and exoteric persons have to be forcibly excluded. Such societies are of a sexual character ; some are formed of men only, others of women, both of whom are jealous of the other's influence.

Some spirit may be set up as a mummery god, like Mwetyi, the great " ghost " of the Shekiani, who lives underground. A " dark house " is set up by masked club-members as his oracular office. Feasts are celebrated in his honor on stated days, and the din, war, and noise heard on such days by shouting, howling, and all kinds of instrumental music is terrific. From the dark house Mwetyi's voice is heard to resound like the roar of a tiger.

There are others of these freaks in other districts, called Kioke, Amakhwa, Sowa or Mukish, who conceal their identity, but are known as rain-makers, medicine-men, jugglers, policemen, and ragamuffins, and are all accompanied by a number of young mas- queraders, intent on frightening slaves and especially women.

Mumbo Jumbo is by his very name an attraction to us. The above "character" is Mahammah Jamboh in his unabridged name, and he is a noisy man of the woods among the Mande or Mandingos in Western Africa. The traveller Moore was the first person to introduce him to white folks ; he is the savage man of the forest, and is more important through the noisy train of followers that accompany him than by any authority of his own. This mysterious personage always appears in a horrid disguise and at night only. The scope of his existence, or his raison d'etre" is that of frighten- ing the women of these West African settlements ; and, to tell the truth, they are terribly afraid of him. Nobody who hears him first will admit that the shouts and cries he emits are those of a human being. He wraps himself in a long dress made of tree-barks, up to nine feet in length, and crowned by a wisp of straw. When a man has a quarrel with his wife, Mumbo Jumbo is asked to interfere and pacify, but in nine times out of ten the husband is found to be right and the wife all wrong. Persons dressed in this queer suit are free to give any orders they see fit, and all present have to uncover their heads. When women see him coming, they run away to hide, but the man in the Mumbo Jumbo dress will immediately call them back, and make them sit down or dance. Should they remonstrate or resist, they are seized and whipped severely. His followers constitute a society or club, with strict rules and pledges of secrecy, to which they are bound by oath. One of these is not to divulge anything about the "order" to any woman nor to any man not initiated. Boys under sixteen years are not admitted. Any oath sworn to in Mumbo Jumbo's name is absolutely binding, and contraventions

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