they come forth from the wood, they wear four or five coils of twisted ferns round their waists in token of their being initiated members of the order.(650) Among the Soosoos of Senegambia there is a similar secret society called _semo_: “the natives who speak English call it African masonry. As the whole ceremonies are kept very private, it is difficult to discover in what they consist: but it is said that the novices are met in the woods by the old men, who cut marks on several parts of their bodies, but most commonly on the belly; they are also taught a language peculiar to the _semo_, and swear dreadful oaths never to divulge the secrets revealed to them. The young men are then made to live in the woods for twelve months, and are supposed to be at liberty to kill any one who approaches and does not understand the language of the _semo_.... It is said, when women are so unfortunate as to intrude upon the _semo_, they kill them, cut off their breasts, and hang them up by the side of the paths as a warning to others. This circumstance is perhaps less deserving of credit, because the Soosoos are fond of telling wonderful and horrid stories respecting this institution. They say, for instance, that when first initiated their throats are cut, and they continue dead for some time; at length they are reanimated and initiated into the mysteries of the institution, and are enabled to ramble about with much more vigour than they possessed before.”(651) (M202) While the belief or the pretence of death and resurrection at initiation is common among the negroes of West Africa, few traces of it appear to be found among the tribes in the southern, central, and eastern parts of that continent; and it is notable that in these regions secret societies, which flourish in the West, are also conspicuously absent. However, the Akikuyu of British East Africa “have a curious custom which requires that every boy just before circumcision must be born again. The mother stands up with the boy crouching at her feet; she pretends to go through all the labour pains, and the boy on being reborn cries like a babe and is washed. He lives on milk for some days afterwards.”(652) A fuller description of the ceremony was given by a member of the Kikuyu tribe as follows: “A day is appointed, any time of year, by father and mother. If the father is dead another elder is called in to act as proxy in his stead, or if the mother is not living another woman to act in her place. Any woman thus acting as representative is looked upon in future by the boy as his own mother. A goat or sheep is killed in the afternoon by any one, usually not by the father, and the stomach and intestines reserved. The ceremony begins in the evening. A piece of skin is cut in a circle, and passed over one shoulder of the candidate and under the other arm. The stomach of the goat is similarly treated and passed over the other shoulder and under the other arm. All the boy’s ornaments are