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The women and children keep one side of this screen, the men dancing on the other side to the peculiar monotonous Isyogo tune. Poorah I have spoken of elsewhere. I believe that these secret societies are always distinct from the leopard societies. I have pretty nearly enough evidence to prove that it is so in some districts, but not in all.
Egbo has the most grades of initiation, except perhaps Poorah, and it exercises jurisdiction over all classes of crime except witchcraft. Any Effik man who desires to become an influential person in the tribe must buy himself into as high a grade of Egbo as he can afford, and these grades are expensive, 1,500 pounds or 1,000 pounds English being required for the higher steps, I am informed.
The Egbo of Calabar is a fine type of the secret society. It is exceedingly well developed in its details, not sketchy like Isyogo, nor so red-handed as Poorah. Unfortunately, however, I cannot speak with the same amount of knowledge of Egbo as I could of Poorah.
The Poorah of Sierra Leone, the Oru of Lagos, the Egbo of Calabar, the Isyogo of the Igalwa, the Ukuku of the Benga, the Okukwe of the M'pongwe, the Ikun of the Bakele, and the Lukuku of the Bachilangi Baluba, are some of the most powerful secret societies on the West African Coast.
When their prayer, or, as they call it, their Poorah, was over, our people entered into a parley with them, telling them, that if they would lay by their lances and clubs, for some had one and some the other, they would come on shore, and trade with them for whatever they would bring: They agreed, but it was only upon condition that we would leave behind us our musquets: This was a condition which, however equitable it might appear, could not be complied with, nor indeed would it have put the two parties upon an equality, except their numbers had been equal.
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