A

Belli Paaro

A former secret society of Liberia, Africa, the cult of which consisted in a description of brotherhood with departed spirits. The seventeenth-century author Olfert Dapper, writing of this society, stated: "They have also another custom which they call Belli Paaro of which they say it is a death, a new birth and an incorporation in the community of spirits or soul with whom the common folk associate in the bush, and help to eat the offerings prepared for the spirits." This description is far from clear, but apparently those who joined the society wished to be regarded as spiritualized, or as having died and having been brought to life again; and that their society was a confraternity of all those who had passed through this training in common.