hs are
necessary. The society combines a kind of freemasonry with political and
law-enforcing aims. For instance any member wronged in an Egbo district,
that is one dominated by the society, has only to address an Egbo-man or
beat the Egbo drum in the Egbo-house, or "blow Egbo" as it is called,
i.e. sound the Egbo horn before the hut of the wrong-doer, and the whole
machinery of the society is put in force to see justice done. Formerly
the society earned as bad a name as most secret sects, from the
barbarous customs mingled with its rites; but the British authorities
have been able to make use of it in enforcing order and helping on
civilization. The Egbo-house, an oblong building like the nave of a
church, usually stands in the middle of the villages. The walls are of
clay elaborately painted inside and ornamented with clay figures in
relief. Inside are wooden images, sometimes of an obscene nature, to
which reverence is paid. Much social importance attaches to the highest
ranks of Egbo-men, and it is said that very large sums, sometimes more
than a thousand pounds, are paid to attain these dignities. At certain
festivals in the year the Egbo-men wear black wooden masks with horns
which it is death for any woman to look on.

See Mary H. Kingsley, _West African Studies_ (1901); Rev. Robt. H.
Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_ (1904); C. Partridge, _Cross River
Natives_ (1905).

EGEDE, HANS (1686-1758), Norwegian missionary, was born in the vogtship
of Senjen, Norway, on the 31st of January 1686. He studied at the
university of Copenhagen, and in 1706 became pastor at Vaagen in the
Lofoten islands, but the study of the chronicles of the northmen having
awakened in him the desire to visit the colony of Northmen in Greenland,
and to convert them to Christianity, he resigned his charge in 1717; and
having, after great difficulty, obtained the sanction and help of the
Danish government in his enterprise, he set sail with three ships from
Bergen on the 3rd of May 1721, accompanied by his wife and children. He
landed on the west coast of Greenland on the 3rd of July, but found to
his dismay that the Northmen were entirely superseded by the Eskimo, in
whom he had no particular interest, and whose language he would be able
to master, if at all, only after years of study. But, though compelled
to endure for some years great privations, and at one time to see the
result of his labours almost annihilated by the ravages