June 19 , 1940 
STAR 
" 5 ’ 
Once again Dr. "William M. Mann 
las joined a lodge of jungle savages 
m Hates Dr. and Mrs. Mann 
fives to whom all animals are just ing place. There the gli, or wor-. 
so much “beef” for the cook pots. shipful master, and his right-hand. 
Too. the medicine men are in- man explained to us the-_value,j 
|\ 7 &shir 
nanied bv his wile, and the initiation 
* v . 
centered about a theme somewhat 
less disturbing than cannibalism, 
} Snakes, rather than cannibals, 
flayed leading roles when Dr. ana 
Mrs. Mann were ushered into the 
9 • _ 
Serpent Society of the Maho tribe of 
? ^ ; . _ , 
The medicine men were impressed. 
_I _ _ JHHt They held a solemn' pow wow and 
the Liberian bush in West Africa, concluded that the visitors were 
is iritectW an- sufficiently distinguished to be 
members of their own society.. Dr. 
and Mrs. Mann received a formal 
invitation to join the dread cult 
* _ <; „ _ „ , i « 
where Dr. Mann is collecting an- 
r, , - , r ' . •> w j 
imals. 
Word of the honor conferred on 
the leader of the Smithsonian-Fire- 
' stone expedition has just been re¬ 
ceived at the Smithsonian Institu¬ 
tion. While Dr. and Mrs. Mann were 
properly impressed with w X*X l $ 
their friends here are inclined to 
think they joined the lodge for busi- 
ness reasons. 
A - . *•*. - ««■ ; . 7 \ * v - ,• i ■ y* 
Members of the Serpent Society, in 
that particular part of Libera have 
access to information and specimen 
sources not available to less favored 
individuals. The explorers arrived 
at the jungle village after live days 
of jogging through the bush in 
palm-shaded hammocks slung from 
banners of the Explorers uiud ana | ««**«-* ~ : r ... 
the Women Geographers. Dr. Mann, j c ^ re snak f b ^ e ailQ 10 
through his interpreter, explained ! an "unwelcome guest by putang * 
ut 4 v.„ JL. hn „ .certain leaf m the fire that is-heat- 
about the societies and somehow j . , - u.iu «’otcr ,} -■ ■■ 
managed to get across the impres-, t, • t - f w 
** r* pret,y exc,asive JSI £S 
ou ' r ^ Mrs. Mann were told of a potenf 
magic which will cause a tKief^or |S 
debter who will hot pay, to wither; 
and-die. This presumably is a va¬ 
riation of the dreaded magic whic|te 
once was world-wide and still plays 
a part in voodoo rites. | 
iiHiuawvu . To Mrs. Mann alone, as the only- 
The snake doctors who brought the | woman initiate into the society, was 
invitation carried poisonous horned explained an even more useful bit' 
vipers and antelope horns full of of magic. If it works *she will be 
able to van any kind of an argu¬ 
ment. She was given the title of 
secret “snake medicine.” 
. ■ 
Dr. Mann, no novice at such cere- . - - 
Monies accepted the invitation with " Yangwa and presented with the 
1. while I horn filled with the sacred snake 
i . « • « a, * 
j with the live snakes used in the 
! ceremony and added them to his 
| collection which he will bring back 
! to the United States. 
Tire party is expected to sail for 
home late this month. 
‘ . - • • - ■ ” A' •’ r - 
The visitors, whose presence, was 
resented, were received in awe¬ 
inspiring silence. An interpreter, 
however, managed to break the ice 
bv explaining the reason for tne 
: visit—the collection of live animals 
some trepidation. In 1914, ^ ,, 
.collecting insects in the Fiji Islands | medicine. Dr. Mann was presented^ 
on a Harvard fellowship, Dr. Mann 
was initiated into a secret order of 
cannibal warriors. He went through 
the whole rite, and never revealed 
any of the secrets, although he 
baiked at being tattooed with the 
lodge emblem of a blue frigate bird, 
because the dye was extracted from 
'i ‘ . •- '• • - . ' ■ v 
a decomposed fish. -% 
Writing of his more recent Afri¬ 
can experience, Dr. Mann said: 
•‘It proved to be a real ordeal. 
We were initiated at night and in a 
weird three-hour ceremony we were 
told the passwords, signs and the 
symbolism of the various fetishes. 
Then, the next morning we were 
taken into a secret clearing in the 
forest. We passed through five 
. « _A ^ + 
'Wg. 
not intended for eating purposes. - m M RM 
[This aroused the curiosity of the na- palm-leaf portals to get to the meet-. 
V. 
