The members of this secret tribunal are under the supreme control of a sovereign, whose superior, or head man, commands by his council, absolute submission and authority from the subordinate councils and members.
To be admitted into the confederacy it is necessary to be thirty years of age; and to be a member of the grand purrah, fifty years; and the oldest member of the subordinate purrahs form those of the sovereign purrahs.
No candidate is admitted but at the recommendation and responsibility of members, who imprecate his death, if he betrays fear during his initiation into the ceremonies, or the sacred mysteries of the association; from which females are entirely excluded.
Some months elapse, in the preparation for admission, and the candidate passes through the severest trials, in which every dreadful expedient is employed to ascertain his firmness of mind, and courage.
The candidate is conducted to a sacred wood, where a place is appointed for his habitation, from which he dares not absent himself; if he does, he is immediately surrounded and struck dead. His food is supplied by men masked, and he must observe an uniform silence.
Fires, during the night, surround these woods, to preserve them inviolate from the unhallowed steps of curiosity, into which if indiscretion tempts any one to enter, a miserable exit is the result.
When the trials are all gone through, initiation follows; the candidate is first sworn to secrecy, to execute implicitly the decrees of the purrah of his order, and to be devoted to the commands of the sovereign purrah.
During the process of initiation, the hallowed woods resound with dreadful howlings, shrieks, and other horrid noises, accompanied by conflagrations and flames.
This secret and inquisitorial tribunal takes cognizance of crimes and delinquencies, more especially witchcraft and murder; and also operates as a mediator in wars, and dissentions among powerful tribes and chiefs. Its interference is generally attended with effect, more particularly if accompanied by a threat of vengeance from the purrah; and a suspension of hostilities is scrupulously observed, until it is determined who is the aggressor; while this investigation takes place by the sovereign purrah, as many of the warriors are convoked, as they conceive necessary to enforce their judgment, which usually consigns the guilty to a pillage of some days. To execute the decree, they avail themselves of the night to depart from the place where the sovereign purrah is assembled, previously disguising their persons with hideous objects, and dividing themselves into detachments, armed with torches and warlike weapons; they arrive at the village of the condemned, and proclaim with tremendous yells the decree of the sovereign purrah. The affrighted victims of superstition and injustice are either murdered or made captives, and no longer form a people among the tribes.
The produce arising from this horrid and indiscriminate execution of the decrees of this tribunal is divided equally between the injured tribe, and the sovereign purrah; the latter share is again subdivided among the warriors employed in the execution of its diabolical decree, as a recompense for their zeal, obedience, and promptitude.