Stephen Ellis
In large parts of West Africa, traditional secret societies, whose officers appear in public as masked dancers known as bush devils, are acquiring real political power once more after decades of decline.
Some rural areas of Liberia and Guinea are dominated by leaders of the male secret society called Poro. In war-torn Sierra Leone, hunters organised by Poro have been armed and trained by the South African security company Executive Outcomes — many of them veterans of Special Forces and 32 Battalion — and are now working with the Nigerian army to overthrow the military junta of Johnny Paul Koroma.
The Poro society is reckoned by historians to be hundreds of years old. Similar secret societies, sometimes associated with particular animals like the Leopard society or the Crocodile society, were also religious groups. Even today in large parts of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, all boys are expected to join the Poro of their local town or village when they reach puberty. Initiation takes place after a seclusion of several weeks or months in a remote part of the forest, during which boys have intricate patterns of scars applied to their bodies. They re-emerge as men. Women undergo similar ceremonies in their own secret society, called Sande.
Since in many parts of these countries every single adult male is a member of Poro, it is a bit odd to call it a secret society. The secrecy is attached to the fact that its rituals may not be told to non-members. Ceremonies are controlled by dancers wearing fantastic costumes made of rafia and extravagant wooden masks, said to represent the spirit of the forest.
Until the 20th century, Poro was both a religion and a form of government. The old men of a village, meeting in secret as elders of Poro, could appoint or dismiss chiefs and could inflict punishment on people who broke their rules. Wrongdoers could be poisoned, or they would be slaughtered with special three-bladed knives which made their murder look like the work of a leopard. People very often did not know whether a victim was killed by a four-legged leopard or by a man masquerading as one. Although every village had its own Poro society, senior priests would meet with their opposite numbers from other villages to co-ordinate activities over large distances.
Now, after years of war and anarchy in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the society is making a comeback in the villages. Last Christmas I sat with elders in one village to discuss the return of Poro. They will not talk about the society directly with a non-member, but it is possible after a few days’ stay to gather some information on the subject.
Elders worry that the younger generation no longer respect age as they used to, but in the absence of any central government, the society is often the main form of public organisation in the rural areas.
During the harvest time, masked dancers appear in the villages and force non- members to stay out of their way. They are quite capable of inflicting beatings on anyone they think has broken the rules of their society. Who is going to complain? The nearest police station is more than an hour’s walk away, and the police are not likely to respond to the suggestion that someone was beaten or even killed by a masked dancer. In any case, many local police officers are themselves members of the society.
Similar secret societies are common all over West and Central Africa. Politicians like to use them, like Liberia’s ruler, Charles Taylor, who has had himself initiated in the Poro and now likes to call himself Dakhpanah Dr Charles Ghankay Taylor, the first name being the title applied to senior priests of the Poro.
But this use by politicians bears little relation to what goes on in villages throughout the region. There, all government is run by the Poro. If the central governments of the area remain in turmoil, we could witness the return of a powerful local tradition which most people had assumed would gradually disappear before the forces of economic development and centralised power.
Will it fade away if peace is restored, or is one of West Africa’s oldest institutions set to return?