The Ritual Differs For Each
In Its Detail, But There Are Broad Lines Of Agreement Between Them.
There Are Societies Both For Men And For Women, But Mixed Societies
For Both Sexes Are Rare.
Those that I have mentioned above are all
male, except the Lukuku, and women are utterly forbidden to
participate
In the rites or become acquainted with their secrets,
for one of the chief duties of these societies is to keep the women
in order; and besides it is undoubtedly held that women are bad for
certain forms of ju-ju, even when these forms are not directly
connected, as far as I can find out, with the secret society. For
example, the other day a chief up the Mungo River deliberately
destroyed his ju-ju by showing it to his women. It was a great ju-
ju, but expensive to keep up, requiring sacrifices of slaves and
goats, so what with trade being bad, fall in the price of oil and
ivory and so on, he felt he could not afford that ju-ju, and so
destroyed its power, so as to prevent its harming him when he
neglected it.
The general rule with these secret societies is to admit the young
free people at an age of about eight to ten years, the boys entering
the male, the girls the female society. Both societies are rigidly
kept apart. A man who attempts to penetrate the female mysteries
would be as surely killed as a woman who might attempt to
investigate the male mysteries; still I came, in 1893, across an
amusing case which demonstrates the inextinguishable thirst for
knowledge, so long as that knowledge is forbidden, which
characterises our sex.
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