CHAPTER III

MINOR OFFICIALS
Variety of Appointments — Official Dress — Cham- pions— Executioners — Law Officers — Messengers — Magicians — Astrologers — Diviners.
VARIETY OF APPOINTMENTS
The infinite variety and number of the officials in most of the societies is bewildering ; yet it must be remembered that the African is not singular in his ability to multiply office. Even such a list of officials as that known to Ekkpe can be more than rivalled by that of the American Ku Kluk Klan and by similar associations in Eur- ope. Their queer titles and queerer duties may be also rivalled outside Africa, as may be remembered from what Sir Walter Scott in Waverley calls the " tail " of a Scottish gentleman. " There is," said Evan Dhu, " his hanchman, or right- hand man ; then his bardh, or poet ; then his bladier, or orator, to make harangues to the great folk whom he visits ; then his gilly- more, or armour-bearer, to carry his sword and target, and his gun ; then his gilly-casfliuch, who
37
Ekkpe Mask.
38 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
carries him on his back through the sikes and brooks ; then his gilly-trush-harnish, to carry his knapsack ; then his gilly-constrain, to lead his horse by the bridle in steep and difficult paths ; and the piper and piper's man, and it may be a dozen young lads besides, that have no business, but are just boys of the belt, to follow the laird, and to do his honour's bidding."
The society officials include the following : Ambassador, Arbitrator, Caterer, Champion, Chief of the Spirits, Chief of the Youths, Conservator of Legends, Dancer, Doctor, Drummer, Executioner, Fag, Guardian, Heiress, Helper, Herald, Horn- blower, Jailor, Judge, Lawyer, Linguist, Magician, Marshal, Medicine Man, Messenger, Mistress of the Novices, Moderator, Mother of the Fatting House, Mother of the Kingly Man or Kingly Mother, Mother of the Spirits, Musician, Player, Poet Laureate, Policeman, Priest, Priestess, Princess, Revenger, Rubber, Shaver, Treasurer, Tutor, Undertaker, Water Carrier, and Wizard.
The officials, with or without the councillors, form a close corporation amongst themselves of great power in the tribe and district. They are also found banded for social amenities into clubs from which all others are excluded, as are the officers of Ogboni and the Tasso Deputies of Poro. During the times of celebrations and retreats, when communal life is the order of the day for the others, the officials eat and sleep secluded from all those holding lesser degress.
OFFICIAL DRESS
Visitors to some of the West Coast towns, especially the ports, may have seen bands of curiously dressed natives exhibiting themselves as the officials of the local secret society. Their performance invari- ably leads to a collection being taken up on their
MINOR OFFICIALS
39
Egungun Mask.
behalf. For several generations a family in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, has enriched its succeeding members by this play- acting. Sometimes they declare themselves to be PoRO officials and some- times those of BuNDu, and they have even been known to pretend to the rank and office of Egun- gun, an official of Egbo, and his satellites. But no real official would ever appear, or think of ap- pearing, in this guise and after this manner. They are not of the parish- beadle class who take, and make, opportunities of parading official plumage for whatever kudos may ensue. Their office is to them a dignity and an honour, and as such is preserved and guarded from the gaze of the merely curious. Only during the celebrations are the officers masked and costumed, and found carrying symbols that manifest their calling, such as swords, shields, spears, axes, whips, bladders, megaphones, and sandals. These pro- perties, like the masks, are often as ancient as the societies to which they belong.
The Woody a of Bundu wears a mask made from the husk of a cocoanut, the fibre left on save where a miniature face is carved and painted. An official of ToRMAi wears one of similar material, but the husk is scraped and painted red save for the flat, white face portion. The ears are large and pointed, and a single horn is mounted above. The Lakka of Ampora wears a great cane head-dress supported on his shoulders and crowned with upstanding
Tortnai Mask.
40 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
feathers. The Ambassador of the same society wears
a mask of carved and painted wood, the markings reminiscent of those of a Red Indian warrior, with the mouth protruded into megaphone shape. IzYOGA and Ukuku each have officials in masks sup- posed to picture the sense of " hearing," the ears being the most pronounced feature. Masks suitable to the office of Exe- cutioner, carved to represent " Death," are found in Kongold and other societies, and many- portraying the emotions of pain, joy, sorrow, justice, mercy, and vengeance may be found.
The Ndembo one for "Pain" being particularly
graphic.^ In construction they take many forms, e.g.,
a face shaped like the masks known to English
bonfire boys or a complete
head and shoulders. These
may be left plain or painted
in startling colours, or covered
with bead-work or metal. A
PoRO mask, seen in 1 921, was
of beaten brass, the features
of the face being distinctly
ancient Egyptian. They may
be crowned with feathers or
verdure, this last being some- times piled to the height of
several feet, and the material f
ranging from a single branch Ndembo " Pain " Mask.
or a few blossoms to a big
bush of massed foliage. One made with more
attention to design than some of the others is
worn by the Mahammah-Jamboh Messenger. It is
MINOR OFFICIALS
41
of basket-work, hive-shaped, with a tray-like arrange- ment mounted above on two sticks, upon which are
blossoms, and from which descend rib- bon-like streamers. This may be worn above an enshroud- ing fibre petticoat or above a body nude save for a girdle and armlets and anklets of reed and flowers. The skill with which many of them have
Mahammah-JambohMask. ^^^^ ^^^^ j^ ^^_
deniable. The ancient ones of hard woods, some of the woods being foreign to Africa, if weirdly fashioned and painted yet forcefully declare the intentions of the carvers. Okonko has some made from the friable aron and ebzvu woods, and one of these, the work of a modern artist, is as curious as it is unexpected. It represents the up- turned, spectacled face of a white man, the hair being grey fur closely fitting the skull, and the very full neck bearing a conventual pattern carved in relief. It is worn above a gown of white cord. The frequency of white faces in these masks has been noticed and commented upon by many travellers,
as also have been the recurrence of European features ; the long, straight, narrow nose, the small, thin-lipped mouth, and the shapely, regular and tiny teeth. On
Okonko Mask.
42 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
the other hand, some of the most ancient masks bear carved features that resemble those seen in early Egyptian sculpture, and others have all the grotesque hideousness of the faces recently unearthed from amidst the ruins of Carthage.
Champions. An official of this title may be the " Orator " of the society, announcing events, pro- mulgating decrees, and interpreting dance actions. The Wuja of Poro raises a voice that " equals more than that of fifty men," and that would give him pride of place amongst the Town Criers of the Home- land. The two of the Tongo-Players look as import- ant and speak as boastfully as their names " Big Thing " and " Great Thing " suggest.
All dress the part, wearing menacing masks and carrying formidable weapons ; the Poro official just mentioned also making his body hideous with splashes of bright paint, as do the officials of Yassi. BoRi gives its Champion an Assistant, both carrying gigantic clubs. Yassi, a society of women members, has a Champion, called the Kambeh Mama, who imitates the men in carrying spear and shield.
Executioners. Officials called Executioners are found in Egungun, Ekkpe, Kinki, Naferi, Ukuku, Ogboni, and Yugu. They do police and sentry work in and about the society houses and the sacred enclosures. The position is now merely a picturesque reminder of the past, for the laws of white masters have robbed this office of its former " glory." Indeed, it is difficult to determine how they continue to main- tain the credit of the position, but that they are still feared there is no Poro Axe. doubt. They bear weapons, spears
and staves and swords and axes ; that carried by a kindred official of Poro being a double axe like those borne by the lictors of the Roman
MINOR OFFICIALS 43
republic. He of Egungun also has an axe, carried for him by Jenju^ his chief assistant. (This man, the chief of the Alagba, acts as the Deputy Head of his society, and is never seen without a following platoon of servants.)
Occasionally the Executioner is clothed in white raiment, or appears with his body whitened, as a re- minder not only that he was once a " ghost-maker " but also that he was in a continuous state of re- pentance and contrition for the results of his fatal work. It is said that they voluntarily underwent some bodily discipline, such as fasting or keeping their feet off the ground for some hours, or wearing the blood-stained garment of the victim, to " appease " the spirits of those they had dispatched in the course of duty. The Aiuaijale of Ogboni is known as " He who shows mercy in death."
Law Officers. There are quite a number of officials set aside for the interpretation of the " laws " of the societies, known variously as arbitrators, jailors, judges, lawyers, marshals, moderators, policemen, and revengers. Sometimes two of these " law " officers act as counsel for the plaintiff (candi- date) and for .the defendant (society) at initiations. In Ampora the question of admission or non-admission is heard by the Moderator. Boviowah provides something like a session of the ancient German Fehmic Court, with a triple summons by the judges to the novice, and a prolonged argument, that may last more than one day, as to his suitability as a candidate. The Ogboni Arbitrator, the Alakatu, himself makes both speeches, let us hope with equal impartiality. The Judge of Ekkpe, the Ogbogrualabo, also does this, but, prompted with particulars by his assistants, the Oyemabinalabo (Jailor or Guardian) and the Osi or Policeman. Bundu employs two of its chief grade women, Digba and Diba, in this legal work.
44 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
Messengers. The Messenger, sometimes known as the Ambassador or the Herald, is the most im- portant official other than the Head and his Deputy. He is possessed of a multitude of duties, and can be reckoned, like the Abyssinian affa-negus, the " breath " or vitality of the society in ceremony and celebration. He is usually the custos of the ritual properties, and may be found as the actual caretaker of the Society House. As the time draws near for the festival and retreat he chooses the place in the bush for the sacred enclosure, superintends its clearing and the erection of the retreat huts, warns graduates of their duties, and novices to be ready, arranges with chief and parent the hundred-and-one small details consequent upon the absence (sometimes for a protracted period) from home of the candidates, and gives his guarantee that — no matter what rumour will assert — no harm will come to any of the boys and girls who accompany him into the bush. During the retreat he is more often than not the master of the ceremonies, appointing guardians and tutors, overlooking the provision of food, and acting as a combined brigade-major, adjutant, and aide-de-camp. At its close he sees to the clearing away of the cere- monial buildings, and the disposal of the site accord- ing to the law of never-to-be-broken immemorial custom.
Of their public appearance the following pictures, although ancient, are worth quoting. The Kongco- RONG Messenger " made his appearance in the after- noon, covered from head to foot with small boughs of trees, and gave notice to the girls that he would pay them a visit after sunset. At the appointed time he entered the village, preceded by drums, and repaired to the assembly place, where all were collected to meet him, coming with music and sing- ing. He commenced by saying that he came to caution the ladies to be very circumspect in their
MINOR OFFICIALS 45
conduct towards the whites " (meaning the men of Gray and Dochard's expedition), " and related some circumstances, with which he said he was acquainted, little to their credit, and threatened any lady who heeded him not with the usual punishment, that of flogging. All he said was repeated by the girls in a sort of sing-song, accompanied by the drum-music and clapping of hands. Every one made him a present." The next describes the Mahammah-Jamboh Messenger. " We observed hang- ing on a stake, outside the walls of the town, a dress composed of the bark of a tree torn into small shreds and formed so as to cover the whole body of the person wearing it . . . this hanging dress, left there a matter of twenty-four hours or so, is a warning of his coming. . . . There was a great shrieking and howling in the woods near by, and presently he appeared, about sunset, accompanied by other officials of this Mumbo Jumbo affair. All the in- habitants were drawn up to meet him, and the music and dancing and singing continued for some hours. The man wearing the bark dress appeared to have great authority over the people, and his appearance was a sort of oiBcial opening of the retreat life about to be undergone by some novices."
Not all make so noisy an appearance. The BuNDu Messenger creeps into the village like a drift- ing shadow, and acts as if dumb, pointing with a small bunch of twigs, her official wand of office, to what she desires, and silently indicating by a touch the novices who are to follow her to the edge of the bush. The Poro Messenger manages to be even more original, for he communicates all his commands by playing a flute. If those commands are anything like his tunes, they are of mournful import.
Ekkpe entitles its Messenger "The Singer," Oyeni calls him " The Linguist," and in Bori he is known as Dan Maiaba, the Little Flatterer.
46 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
Magicians. The magicians or wizards often come from special families long connected with the craft, in which from father to son, or from mother to daughter, the secrets are handed down. Magic is older than religion, it is as old as the world, and its African exponents keep inviolate secrets that date back to creational times. It is believed that famous magicians of olden days live again in actual reincarnation in some of the present society wizards.
To practise magic for a society is not alone a birthright ; it must be secured and placed beyond question of termination by long training and con- tinuous success. From his or her adolescence, to manhood and womanhood, and on to death, the magician knows the fatigue of close application to his or her calling. There are no holidays from it, and one failure ends all.
Most of the societies have magicians amongst their officials, those Pagan being as clever as those Muhammedan, although without apparent connection with the Moor and Egyptian conjurers. It was those of a Pagan society, Poro, who in 1827, at the coronation ceremonials of King George the Second of BuUom, raised a breeze on a calm day strong enough to sway the branches of trees and to scatter the blossoms piled on the altar before the king ; and who did it without any of the stage effects necessary to, say, a Maskelyne of London.
They take from their satchel or from the bosom of their robe a bit of wood roughly carved to re- present the body of a bird or animal. They fix to this a feather or so for wings, some sticks for legs and bits of creeper for a tail. They put it down on the ground, turn their back, call it, and it follows as if alive, feathers rising and falling, absurd tail wagging, and more absurd legs shuffling through the dust.
A Sembe man takes a small duiker horn loaded
MINOR OFFICIALS 47
with " medicine," puts it upright in the ground, covers it with a grass basket or a calabash, mutters an incantation, and the basket or bowl rises, sways, swings clear of the ground, and finally falls over, leaving exposed the still standing, still immovable, horn.
A man of Ampora puts water into a " bottle " calabash, scoops a shallow hole in the earth, balances within this the vessel at an angle, utters a word of command, and the vessel turns about, dips its neck, recovers, dips again, allowing the water to fall, drop by drop, according to the wishes of the magician or his audience. This trick is also known to BoRi and to Idiong, the last-named balancing the vessel on the smoothly rounded top of a stick planted in the sand.
An Andomba man dips his hand into a bowl of eleusine grains, draws it forth with many of the grains sticking to his skin, moves his hand in the air, and the grains run into a little heap in his palm. Then, slowly or quickly according to the utterance of his incantation, they move again, running up the spread fingers and thumb and clinging, some ringing the fingers, some in the form of a bracelet around the wrist, and some in a pattern on the palm. Again he speaks and again they move back to heap them- selves together. He will empty these back into the bowl, dip his hand again, and renew the trick with other grains.
A MuNGi ofiicial plants a hoe in the ground. It is the ordinary agricultural implement bought at the nearest store. It is thrust into the ground by the blade. A villager is ordered to pluck it out. He tries, and fails. He tries to pull it up, to draw it to him, to push it away from him ; tries until he sweats with exertion and fear, and has to acknow- ledge defeat. The official orders others to come to the man's assistance. They obey ; but all their
48 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
united strength is of no avail. The hoe remains immovable. But now another strange thing happens. The men find they cannot take their hands away from the " bewitched " thing. They are held prisoner. And they remain so until the official, with a touch of his baton or a pass or two of his hand, releases them. Then, with one hand, and with the least possible exertion of strength, he plucks the hoe from the ground.
A DuBAiA man breaks a twig from a dracasna tree and holds it up in his fingers. Its leaves remain erect. He lays it on his palm, and the leaves fold about the stem. Again and again he will do this, and at each movement the leaves fold and unfold, droop and stand straight. This trick is well known and frequently performed by magicians of other societies.
The Eturi man pours into his mouth a little water from a calabash that all the spectators have seen filled, and then spurts it out with ten or twelve living swamp fish, each two to three inches in length. A Nkimba man rubs his nose and from it proceeds a stream of ants, a shining red procession that seems to the amazed onlookers endless and altogether supernatural.
A Dou man, well known in his district, swallows a wide-bladed trade machette, and a Belli-Paaro man is noted for his appetite for spears. Others go through the like performance with bamboo rods or the walking-sticks of the spectators. A man of Penda-Penda has quite a " national " reputation in French Guinea for swallowing snakes of the poisonous species. An Ayaka man passes through his body an ordinary staff, as it is reported Simon Magus did, as though either wood or body was nothing but vapour. It is an aged but ever-fresh illusion, and requires considerable powers of sleight of hand to make it successful.
MINOR OFFICIALS 49
A BuNDU woman plays tricks with crocodiles. A strong and fearless swimmer, she dives amidst the reptiles and stirs them from sleep, calling to them as she flirts the water into their eyes, and making them follow her as she swims rapidly away down the Bunce Creek. Or she will stand on the bank, ruffle the water with the sole of her foot, and out from the mud will come one of the beasts, to be fed by her, and at her signal retire again to the stream. It is claimed that this woman can enter the water nude and with hair in disarray, swim for some time beneath the surface, and return with her hair coiffured and her body clothed in bands of beads.
Astrologers. The officials who are astrologers know what part of the body may be affected if, say, the sun is near an eclipse or the moon is in her first quarter. They can tell what stars rule and govern the head, the body, the limbs, the organs, and the character or disposition. They explain why stars fall, the path the greater lights travel, from whence the lightning comes and why it strikes some houses or cattle or people and spares others, what makes the noise called thunder, and the reasons of long droughts, heavy rains, tornado winds, and the pestilences of both darkness and noonday.
A Ndembo astrologer narrates the following : " The sun's journey is from his great winter house along to his rest-house, called his middle house or his little house, where he stays two days, then goes on to his great summer house, where he stays three days before going on. Now the sun is born in his winter house, for that is the house also of Mary, the universal mother ; and from his birth his life in progress of season is as the life of a man. It is not as the life of other heavenly bodies ; and all men's lives are not the same. The sun's life is strong and successful. Now the Pleiades are the sun's elder brothers, but they have never become suns. They
D
50 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
remain stars ; and their highest work is to be the heralds or messengers of their greater brother. In the first days they had their chance of becoming suns, and they did not accept that chance. So it is with some men." (The word used here for house is the Kongo word for dweUing-house or home. The influence of European mission-school teaching may be responsible for calling the sun's birth-house the house of " Mary.")
The falling stars are dying children (Ofiokpo) ; a babe that cries overmuch does so because the star under which it was born has faded out of the heavens (Gelede) ; when the stars are not pro- pitious no journey must be started or new work begun (Egbo and other Nigerian societies). The understanding white master acknowledges this last, and if he has to take sides against it is very relieved when nothing untoward happens. Nda teaches that the sun passes through five stages, and at each is responsible for the creation of an element, these being said to be fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. Ndembo include in the primordial elements, heaven, sunshine, rain, thunder, lightning, mountains, plains, vapour, and wind, and give each a ruling star ; and Nkimba add to the sun, moon, earth, sea, stars, the *' big things " or " symbolic things," light, darkness, tornado, and quietness.
DIVINERS
The officials who practise divination use augury, crystal-gazing, geomancy, haruspication, natural phe- nomena, prodigies, scapulimancy, sortilege, and many another method that has never been catalogued.
In the matter of augury they, like the officers of ancient Rome, who first gave the science a name, interpret the cry and flight of birds or the muscular spasms of an ailing child; read a message from the
AX Ul-1'ICIAL L>1\'INHK
(Photo : A. M. Diiggan-Cronin.)
MINOR OFFICIALS 51
roar or whine of a beast of prey or the automatic twitchings of a suddenly decapitated fowl ; and volubly tell past, present and future by the direction of a lightning-flash or the duration of a thunder- clap, or the swimming of berries in a bowl.
To the Afa diviner the passing of a hawk or an eagle means victory in a fight or success in a wager, but the hoot of an owl is unlucky. To her of Bundu a parrot overlooking a sleeping child or a playing babe means good fortune, but the same bird appear- ing near a woman who has laid aside her garment is the worst of omens. The same lady warns ex- pectant mothers not to walk under the shadow of a bird in flight, especially that of a vulture, nor step over a lizard running across the path. (Yet if these errors are committed, the juices of certain plants rubbed upon the forehead or around the nipples will avert the evil consequences.) At a birth the noise of animals is harmful (Agbaia) as is also the presence in the house or in the garments of the attendants of any knotted string or material (Chibados), but the flight of birds (Bundu) or butter- flies (BwETi) about the house is a cause for rejoicing.
The Eluku diviner has the habit, known to the Polynesians, of setting up sticks that by their stand- ing or falling tell the women of the village how their men are faring in work or sport. He of Jamboi finds a prediction in the flight of bees, and he of Ikung from the direction taken in the march of the driver ants, and the Ngbe man reads a presage of the future in the mutterings of the voice of a novice in a trance, even though his own ventriloquism has produced that voice.
The MuKANDA man has a writing stick; a bit of wood slung to a length of bamboo, like the " descend- ing pencil " of the Chinese, the bamboo being tied into arc-shape in order to leave the suspended stick free to circle and write at the will and wish of its owner.
52 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
The messages it writes may be in characters unknown to any of the onlookers. Other " planchette tools " able to work without conscious volition or effort of the operators are owned by the diviners of Malanda, Nanam and Okonko. Kindred work is done with branches of young palm-trees (that have not borne fruit) and sprigs of olive, pomegranate, apricot and tamarisk. By the shrinking or expanding, splitting or warping of metals and woods in the heat of the sun, by the curling of hoopoo and eagle or vulture and parrot feathers in the heat of a fire, and in a thousand other ways, these diviners unlock the door of fate and explain the good or bad luck of their clients and friends.
Crystal-gazing and stone-gazing, or " crystal vision," is common. This science is often the pre- rogative of the Head or his Deputy. The stones used are numbered amongst the sacred possessions of the societies, and are rarely seen outside the council house or the sacred enclosure. They are carefully guarded, and during thunderstorms are covered lest they attract the lightning and so bring harm to their possessors. White people do the same with looking-glasses.
PoRO has its " seven sacred stones," two being fragments of black lava, two being sea-rounded pebbles, the fifth a large stone that has the quality of porousness, and that has imbedded in it what looks like a fragment of black coral ; the sixth a piece of rock roughly carved by nature into the form of a skull, said to have been found at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, and the seventh a rounded flat shale of cryolite glass whose milky depths look fathomless. All have surfaces smoothed with oil and the constant use of generations of hands.
Both Ngbe and Nimm have stones that look like amber, and Org, Egbo, Ogboni and Orisha have stones roughly shaped by man or nature into
MINOR OFFICIALS 53
human form. That of Org may be a bcetylus, a meteoric bethel stone, perhaps once the prized pos- session of an early Semitic, migratory family or individual. Ndembo owns little stone and wood figures, each having a glass stomach, and Apowa also has images. Butwa has one about six inches long with a hole in the thorax, into which the operator inserts a finger when gyrating it for divination purposes. Most are enclosed in caskets of leather, metal or in " garments " of skin, some human, in leaves or other material, or in a bath of oil, and some have eyes of aggry beads ; an ancient ornament, known to the excavators of the old-world cities of Beluchistan and the tombs at Thebes, and some- times washed up or dug up from the earth of the West Coast. They are known in some parts as " rain- stones," because they are believed to come down with the rain. A few of them can be seen in the British Museum.
Haruspication, a science practised originally in Egypt, may be by the examination of bezoar stones or hair balls taken from the stomachs of animals, or as in Ayaka by placing the liver (Ofiokpo uses a piece of intestine) in a bowl of water. If it floats, the death that is being diagnosed is declared to have been a natural one.
PoRo, Ogboni, Oshorbo, and other society officials also share the Ciceronian doubt " if frogs by croaking and oxen by snuffing the air give us signs to foretell the weather, why should there not be omens in the fibres of a victim's entrails ? " As there are now no human sacrificial bodies, they do as well as they can with the less prophetic bodies of beasts and birds, finding missing clues that solve the cause of a tragedy, as did the Babylonians, or learn the names of criminals by the colour, the smell, the position or the condition of the organs, arteries or bones.
54 WEST AFRICAN SECRET SOCIETIES
Ampora and Mukanda diviners have scapulimancy amongst their arts, and gain all the knowledge they desire from the cracks and seams in bones.
Sortilege, or the casting of lots, is a frequent custom, the dice often being well-thumbed bones, and a calabash serving as the leather cap of Agamemnon. Kola and other nuts are used. The " dice " are scattered by a sudden twist of the wrist on the ground, or on a mat or cloth, and from the pattern they make the trouble of an invalid maybe diagnosed, or an answer found to a family or village problem. So skilful are the manipulators that five times out of six they can reproduce a special pattern. The implements used, whatever their nature, are by some officials divided into three groups, one standing for good, another for evil, and the third for the man or the woman desiring their use.
Afa use a string of eight pieces of bark, known as ekpelle\ fastened in two groups. This is thrown to the ground, and answers the questions asked by the combinations of the outsides or insides seen uppermost. An ingenious person has computed the possible combinations of the eight pieces at two hundred and forty-six. An official of the same society also divines with sand spread over a circular board. This is violently twirled and shaken, and the inter- pretation of the aspect of the sand, like that of the Nile mud by the Egyptians, explains the problem.