[8]. This was owing to the fact that a society known as the Human Baboon Society had been discovered to exist in one of the Northern Districts of the Protectorate.
PORO DEVILS.
CHAPTER II
THE PORO, TONGO PLAY, BORFIMA, WITCH-DOCTORS, OATHS
The Poro
Although it is impossible to say that the Human Leopard Society is connected with the Poro, nevertheless any account of that Society would be wanting unless accompanied by some reference to the Poro, one of the secret societies by which the natives of the Sierra Leone Hinterland are educated and were, until the British Government took over the administration of the country, ruled. Mr. Migeod, in the Journal of the African Society for July, 1915, ventures the suggestion that Purrus Campus in Ptolemy’s map of the second century may be no other than the Latin for Poro bush; and everything points to the custom being of great antiquity. The earlier writers on Sierra Leone dwell almost exclusively upon the predatory habits of the Poro and the danger of trespassing into the Poro bush, but Major Laing (1822), who travelled amongst the Hinterland tribes to the north of Sierra Leone, also points to the fact that it was the Poro which governed the country. He says:
“Particular pieces of ground (generally eminences covered with thick wood) are consecrated to the Greegrees and held sacred. I have always seen those enclosures approached with reverential awe, and have been informed that the smallest encroachment upon them would subject the aggressor to the most awful punishment from the Purrah, an institution which is much dreaded by the whole of this unhappy country. Their power supersedes even that of the headmen of the districts, and their deeds of secrecy and darkness are as little called in question, or inquired into, as those of the inquisition were in Europe, in former years. I have endeavoured in vain to trace the origin or cause of formation of this extraordinary association, and have reason to suppose that it is now unknown to the generality of the Timannees, and may possibly be even so to the Purrah themselves, in a country where no traditionary records are extant, either in writing or in song.
“In the early ages of the slave trade (which particularly prevailed in this country) every nefarious scheme was resorted to by the headmen for the purpose of procuring subjects for the markets. It may be conjectured that where liberty was so insecure concealment not difficult, and the means of subsistence easy to be procured, and when the power of the headmen did not extend beyond the limits of their own town, many individuals, whose safety was endangered, would fly to the woods for protection; and as their numbers increased, would confederate for mutual support, and thus give rise to secret signs of recognition and rules of general guidance. It may further be supposed, that in a country divided amongst numerous petty authorities, each jealous of the other, such a confederacy may soon have become too powerful for any probable combination against them; and being possessed of power would at length employ it in the very abuses to which it had owed its own origin.
“The headquarters of the Purrah are in enclosures situated in the woods; these are never deserted by them entirely, and any man, not a Purrah, approaching them is instantly apprehended, and rarely ever heard of again. The few who have reappeared after several years of secretion have always become intermediately Purrah men themselves; those who do not again appear are supposed to be carried away to distant countries and sold. The Purrahs do not confine themselves always to the seizure of those who approach their enclosures, but frequently carry off single travellers, and occasionally whole parties, who are imprudent enough to pass from one town to another in certain districts without applying for an escort from the body. To ensure safety, one Purrah man is sufficient, who, while leading the party, blows a small reed whistle suspended from his neck. At the advice of Ba Kooro, I procured one of these persons as a guide from Ma Bung to Ma Yasoo, the intermediate country being thickly inhabited by the Purrah. As we passed along, they signified their vicinity to us, by howling and screaming in the woods, but although the sounds denoted their neighbourhood, no individual was seen.