JOHN FRASER, B.A"., LL.D. 



initiation, and not only bring a youth to a knowledge of his 

 country's gods, but qualify him to commune with spirits and 

 to hold civil power and authority in the state; all the un- 

 initiated are to him a "profanum vulgus," who, on the least 

 transgression of orders, are hurried away into the woods, 

 there to be destroyed by the evil spirits which the magical 

 power of the initiated can command and control. As an 

 assembly of this kind is convened but four or five times in a 

 century, and occupies a period of five years, only a small por- 

 tion of the male population can acquire the qualification 

 necessary for power in the state. The king issues, when he 

 pleases, an order for the holding of this assembly. The pre- 

 parations are committed to the care of those old men that are 

 known to be best acquainted with the mysteries. These 

 choose suitable places in the woods, and make ready there 

 every appliance which can produce surprise, awe, and chilling 

 fear on the minds of the novices. All women, children, and 

 strangers are warned from the spot during the ceremonies, 

 and the novice believes that, if he reveals any of the secrets of 

 the grove, the spirits, knowing his faithlessness and profanity, 

 will in some way or other bring destruction upon him. The 

 country for some three or four miles around is sacred and 

 inviolable, and the evil spirits will carry off those who 

 intrude. 



The essential idea prominent in the negro ceremony of 

 initiation is that of death and a new birth, a regeneration. 

 Hence the catechumen before he proceeds to the groves gives 

 away all his property and effects, as if about to die to the 



noise. It is a whistle made of hollowed mangrove-wood, about two inches 

 in length, and covered at one end with a scrap of bat's wing. For a period 

 of five days after initiation the novice wears an apron of dried palm-leaves, 

 which I have frequently seen. The initiation of the girls is performed by 

 elderly females, who call themselves Ngembi. They go into the forest, 

 clear a space, sweep the ground carefully, come back to the town, and build 

 a sacred hut, which no male may enter. They return to the clearing in the 

 forest, taking with them the Igonji, or novice. It is necessary that she 

 should have never been to that place before, and that she fast during the 

 whole of the ceremony, which lasts three days. All this time a fire is kept 

 burning in the wood. From morning to night, and from night to morning, 

 a Ngembi sits beside it and feeds it, singing, with a cracked voice, ' The 

 fire will never die out.' The third night is passed in the sacred hut ; the 

 Igonji is rubbed with black, red, and white paints, and, as the men beat 

 drums outside, she cries, ' Okanda, yo, yo, yo,' which reminds one of the 

 Evohe of the ancient Bacchantes. The ceremonies performed in the hut 

 and in the wood are kept secret from the men, and I can say but little 



about them During the novitiate which succeeds initiation the girls 



are taught religious dances ; the men are instructed in the science of fetich. 

 It is then that they are told that there are certain kinds of food which are 

 forbidden to their clan. One clan may not eat crocodile, nor another 

 hippopotamus, nor a third buffalo." 



