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Among the singular customs of the inhabitants of Africa, there exists in the vicinity of the Sierra Leone, and more particularly among the mixed tribes of the Foolahs, Soosees, Boolams, &c. an institution of a religious and political nature.
The Foolah tongue, is different from that of the surrounding nations, and its accent is more harmonious. To the southward of the Rio Pongo, to Sierra Leone, lie the countries of the Bagoes, Soosees, Mandingos, Timminees, and Boolams, all idolaters except the Mandingos, who, like the Foolahs, associate in their religion a mixture of fetishism and Mahomedanism.
The Soosees, inhabiting the borders of the Rio Pongo, have a species of purrah, which gives its members great consequence among them; but their ceremonies are kept also with inviolable secrecy, and they are bound by horrid oaths and incantations.
In the Rio Pongo, and adjacent countries, especially in the Bashia branch of that river, the Soosees extract a fermented and intoxicating liquor from a root growing in great abundance, which they call gingingey, something similar to the sweet potatoe in the West Indies.
Besides the tribes of this people who inhabit the countries between the Soosees and Timminees, there are various others established in the country of Bambouk, and on the borders of the Gambia, but the great body occupy an extensive territory above the sources of that river.
Among the Foulahs and Soosees they have a kind of flute, made of a hard reed, which produces sounds both unmusical and harsh: but all the Africans of the Windward district are the most barbarous musicians that can be conceived. They have also a kind of guitar, formed from the calabash, which they call kilara.
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