Poro is a men's initiation and governance institution found across the Upper Guinea Coast, most prominently among the Mende and Temne of Sierra Leone, the Kpelle, Loma and Gola of Liberia, and related peoples of Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. It operates through a hierarchy of graded lodges, each headed by senior titleholders who control access to the deeper levels of the society's knowledge. Boys are inducted during a bush school, a period of seclusion away from ordinary town life that can last months or, in earlier generations, years, during which initiates receive instruction in craft skills, oral history, moral conduct and the society's ritual language.
The society's senior grades historically functioned as much of the region's precolonial government, mediating disputes between towns, regulating trade and enforcing communal law with an authority that colonial administrations both feared and, in many districts, chose to work through rather than replace. Poro masking is central to its public face: carved wooden helmet masks, danced by trained performers, represent spirits that speak for the society in matters of judgment and instruction.
Poro's female counterpart, Sande, performs a parallel role for women in the same communities, and the two societies coordinate closely, often sharing a ritual calendar and, in some accounts, a common bush site used at different times by each. Twentieth century ethnographers, most thoroughly George Harley among the Loma and Beryl Bellman among the Kpelle, documented the society's ritual language and initiation practice through extended fieldwork. Poro lodges remain active today, operating alongside rather than in place of the state institutions of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Sources Notes on the Poro in LiberiaGeorge W. Harley with The Language of Secrecy: Symbols and Metaphors in Poro RitualBeryl L. Bellman