JOSEPH CORRY.
[No. III.]
When the foregoing narrative and observations were prepared for the press, the original minutes from whence the following Appendix is compiled, had not come to hand, as they remained with a part of my papers, which I have since received from the coast of Africa.
The substance of these miscellaneous fragments I shall divide into sections, descriptive of the different subjects to which they allude, and it may be found that they illustrate more fully many of the foregoing remarks upon the Windward Coast of Africa.
[SECTION I.]
Of the Purrah.
Among the singular customs of the inhabitants of Africa, there exists in the vicinity of the Sierra Leone, and more particularly among the mixed tribes of the Foolahs, Soosees, Boolams, &c. an institution of a religious and political nature. It is a confederation by a solemn oath, and binds its members to inviolable secrecy not to discover its mysteries, and to yield an implicit obedience to superiors, called by the natives the Purrah.
As it is dangerous to enquire from the natives, and consequently difficult to procure information on this subject, conjecture must supply the want of oral and ocular testimony; but what I have here advanced I had from an intelligent chief, who was a member of the society, who, I am nevertheless convinced, preserved his integrity, in communicating the following particulars, as I never could induce him to touch upon any part of the mysteries, which he acknowledged to exist, but spoke of them with the utmost reserve.