Bkkky — The Sierra Leone Cunnihals. 31 



like tattooing. The older men have the perpendicular blue band from the 

 hair down to the tip of the nose, and the triangle is filled in with blue, 

 and assumes a shape somewhat like a barbed-stone arrowhead. These marks 

 have been discontinued for about two generations. 



The Mandingoes, the Washulan mostly inhabiting Senegal, and the 

 Munderi, who are known as the " pure Mandingoes," have two, three, or four 

 cuts down the cheek from the eyebrow to the cheek-bone. The Temne have 

 two or three small perpendicular blue lines rather nearer the eye than the 

 ear. The Mendi sometimes have a mark like the Temne, sometimes the 

 perpendicular marks below the temple are crossed by horizontal lines, 

 occasionally there are two perpendicular lines and a cross. The Sherbro, 

 as a rule, have the same marks as the Mendi, but sometimes they show two 

 perpendicular marks ; there is often a cross accompanying them. Occasionally 

 the Sherbro have no marks, and the Bulloms have none. 



Of all these people, from the point of view of this paper, the Sherbros, 

 who are the lowest, are the most interesting, and next in order the Mendi 

 and the Temne, all of whom file their teeth. Sherbro lies south of Free- 

 town, and consists of an archipelago, of which the largest island is named 

 Sherbro, and the smaller are nothing but mangrove swamps. Across the 

 Sherbro Eiver, on the mainland, lie the Imperri and Temdale countries, part 

 of Mendi-land. All of these countries are covered with bush, the roads 

 are bush-pathways, more or less wide ; and the waterways are the main 

 highways. Before the present Protectorate was taken over by the British 

 Government in 1896, and until after the 1898 rising, it was the scene of con- 

 stant inter-tribal war ; and as a result the native slave trade was in full force. 

 The bodies of the dead, and sometimes the living prisoners, were eaten, and 

 all runaway slaves were, on recapture, killed and eaten. But the Sherbros 

 were not the only cannibal people; the Beri tribe, on the Liberian border, 

 openly professed cannibalism, and Mendi, Temne, Limbas, Mandingoes, 

 Creoles, and other tribes have participated in it from time to time. In fact, 

 cannibalism extends all along the coast from the Senegal to Old Calabar, and 

 beyond it southwards. From time to time it has been especially rife in one 

 or other of the districts along the coast. It is still common in Liberia, and 

 from time to time recurs in French and British territory. 



Cannibalism and human sacrifice appear to be innate with the Sherbro, 

 the BuUoni, and other branches of the Mampas. The Sherbros have the 

 Human Leopard society ; and the Bulloms generally practise their cannibalism 

 through the Alligator society ; but both societies are common to all branches 

 of the Mampas. All accounts say the Alligator society is exactly the same 

 as the Human Leopard society, except that the human alligator covers 



B.I.A, PBGC., VOL. XXX., SECT. C. [5] 



