"King Obi. I always understood there were two," &c.

The Mpongwe "Mwetye" is a branch of male freemasonry into which
women and strangers are never initiated. The Bakele and Shekyani,
according to "Western Africa" (Wilson, pp. 391-2), consider it a
"Great Spirit." Nothing is more common amongst adjoining negro
tribes than to annex one another's superstitions, completely
changing, withal, their significance. "Ovengwa" is a vampire, the
apparition of a dead man; tall as a tree, always winking and
clearly seen, which is not the case with the Ibambo and Ilogo,
plurals of Obambo and Ologo. These are vulgar ghosts of the
departed, the causes of "possession," disease and death; they are
propitiated by various rites, and everywhere they are worshipped
in private. Mr. Wilson opines that the "Obambo are the spirits of
the ancestors of the people, and Inlaga are the spirits of
strangers and have come from a distance," but this was probably
an individual tenet. The Mumbo-Jumbo of the Mandengas; the Semo
of the Susus; the Tassau or "Purrah-devil" of the Mendis; the
Egugun of the Egbas; the Egbo of the Duallas; and the Mwetye and
Ukukwe of the Bakele, is represented in Pongo-land by the Nda,
which is an order of the young men. Nda dwells in the woods and
comes forth only by night bundled up in dry plantain
leaves[FN#14] and treading on tall stilts; he precedes free adult
males who parade the streets with dance and song. The women and
children fly at the approach of this devil on two sticks, and
with reason: every peccadillo is punished with a merciless
thrashing. The institution is intended to keep in order the
weaker sex, the young and the "chattels:" Nda has tried visiting
white men and missionaries, but his visits have not been a
success.