30 Proceedings of the Roi/al Irish Academy. 



the Kongo and Kakongo people much given to antliropophagy, who eat human 

 flesh as food in the strictest sense of the word — on the Congo herds of human 

 cattle are preserved and fatted for the table. The worst offenders are the 

 Fans, below Fernando Po, and the natives of the Welle basin. The Fans do 

 not eat their own dead, but barter them for those of their neighbours- 

 Captain H. D. Foulkes, a political resident in Bauchi province, Nigeria, tells 

 me that among the Tangales of northern Nigeria the dead of two families, as 

 a mark of esteem and friendship, are exchanged to be eaten — but, as a rule, 

 they are buiied ; also that a section of the Lingudas, a neighbouring tribe, do 

 not bury at all ; amongst them everyone is eaten, even victims of disease such 

 as small-pox. The Angass eat enemies slain in battle and criminals. The 

 latter are chopped into small pieces, which are sent round to the various house- 

 holders and put in the family pot. The Angass cannibal feasts are carried on 

 in a secluded spot in the " by-Gwon " thicket, and what flesh is available is 

 finished at one meal ; and if any is left over, it is taken home and cooked. 



Gwon is one of those shapeless, hazy gods one finds in West Africa, who is 

 worshipped among the Angass, Tangales, and Chip people at the leaf ceremony, 

 which seems to be a ceremony to keep their women in order. The men gather 

 in the Gwon thicket and clothe one of their members from head to foot in 

 leaves. There does not seem to be any ritual, but much dancing and shouting 

 are engaged in ; and Gwon is led through the town to punish people for stealing 

 and other offences. No woman may look on the leaf man ; as he approaches 

 she kneels down and hides her face ; if she disobeys, the penalty is death. In 

 the Gwon thicket, an ordinary mud hut with domed roof is erected, and called 

 Gwon's house. In Chip, a neighbouring territory, when the captured dead are 

 very numerous they are all cooked in one day, and the people return day after 

 day to Gwon's temple until all have been devoured. Women are not allowed 

 to partake of these feasts, and, among these people, women have, as far as is 

 known, never been eaten, except by a king for whose table they are fattened. 



In addition to other tribal peculiarities, all these people have tribal marks 

 on their faces, except the Susu and Limba, who do not mark themselves. The 

 tribal marks of the Kru people consist of a perpendicular blue band on the 

 forehead, about half an inch wide, extending from the root of the hair to the 

 top of the nose. On the Kru coast the band is broken by two uncoloured 

 bands, and the blue stripe becomes three blue dice. Kru men of Grand Bassan, 

 in addition to the three dice, have a horizontal band above each eyebrow. On 

 the temple a blue triangle in outline is drawn with the apex towards the 

 outside corner of the eye and base towards the ear. The marks are made in 

 infancy by a specially skilled woman, who uses a small knife, making incisions 

 into which a vegetable dye is inserted. There is no keloid ; the marking looks 



