n6 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academij. 



attain this, the novice is separated in sechision, deprived of food and sleep, 

 and subjected to long-continned ordeals and torments, and the sight of the 

 new, the hori-ible, and the unexpected, until the nen'ous strain and reaction 

 produce a state of extreme sensitiveness, or partial hypnosis, wliich is often 

 increased to a death-like trance — a state the primitive mind is unable to 

 distinguish from actual death. In this condition, which is essentially 

 favourable to the reception of indelible impressions, the no^•ice is supposed 

 to receive his soul. 



The sign and token of the new life and the resurrection into it is the 

 giving of a new name ; but as the name is the expression of the soul in words, 

 and as this soul or new Kfe can be injured by magical practices, an outward 

 and visible sign is given as the seal of entry iuto tribal life ; and, as the 

 attainment of this new life and the awakening to manhood and womanhood 

 is the sign of sexual maturity, so the seal of fitness is made by some 

 mutilation of the sexual organs, usually ciicirmcision in the male, and 

 elitoricisiou in the female. 



Thus, initiation, instead of lieing a getting rid of life, a finding of a 

 receptacle where it can be safely stored, is a taking on of life, and an admission 

 into the co-operation of man, which is the coi-porate life of the tribe. But as 

 this co-operative life can be injiu'ed by war, so the individual life may Ije 

 injured by malice ; hence the name that is given with this new life is hidden. 

 Sometimes the primitive mind confuses the life that is dead with the re-birth 

 into the life of the tribe ; and we find amongst some peoples that after initiation 

 the birth-name becomes secret, while with others the new or initiation name 

 is the secret one. The fact is that primitive man is imable to comprehend the 

 power of co-operation and the function of reproduction : but he dimly realizes 

 that by subjecting the youth to the strains and ceremonies of initiation he 

 becomes incoi-porated into a life that goes back into the eternal past, and can 

 lie reproduced into an eternal future. 



Poro. — The puberty initiation amongst the Sierra Leone natives is known 

 as the Poro society. The word " Poro," according to Major Faiithlough, is a 

 corruption of a Spanish word, or perhaps a Spanish form of the Mendi name 

 of the society. A native never calls the society by the name of Poro except 

 when speaking to a Creole or to a European ; the Mendi call it " Poi," and 

 the Temne word is " Soku," both meaning a society which agrees (sets "one 

 word," i.e., unity) to do a certain thing or to pass a certain law. 



The Poro society is threefold in its functions — namely, religious, political, 

 and social In its political capacity it frames the unwritten law of the country, 

 to which all must bow, and decides on the making of peace or war. So power- 

 ful are its workings that in the old davs of inter-tribal war the interference of 



