The Bulu, sometimes spelled Boulou, are one of several related ethnic groups living in the forested south–central region of Cameroon, mainland Equatorial Guinea, and northern Gabon. Collectively, these peoples are referred to as the Fang. The term ”Bulu” is a loosely defined designation for one of the three major Fang subgroups, with the Fong forming one of the Bulu tribes.
The Ngui Secret Society (also known as the Ngil or Ngi Secret Society) is often called the Gorilla Society because its members wore gorilla masks during ceremonial rituals. Only the Fong used masks incorporating a real skull, as the gorilla was revered by them as a sacred animal and deity of fire. Other Fang groups employed stylized wooden masks in the ceremonies of the Gorilla Society, such as the famous white Ngil mask of the Fang: WIKIPEDIA or LÜBECK MUSEUMS.
The Ngui Secret Society likely operated in secrecy for many centuries. As a guardian of order and morality, it intervened in social customs and key aspects of community life, punished wrongdoers, and offered protection against witchcraft and malevolent spirits. Its members sometimes wielded more authority than local chiefs or even kings. It is easy to imagine that such a secret organization, operating under the symbol of the ”Sacred Gorilla,” was viewed as a threat by colonial powers and consequently suppressed. In 1910, the French colonial administration officially outlawed the Ngui Secret Society and its practices.
Between 1907 and 1909, the German ethnologist Günther Tessmann conducted an expedition to southern Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Lübeck Ethnological Museum to study the Pangwe people (now known as Fang). His 1913 expedition report provides a comprehensive account of Pangwe/Fang culture and is regarded as Tessmann's most important work, including the only and final description of the Ngui Society. In 1910, Tessmann attempted to deepen his understanding of the Gorilla Secret Society by searching the Cameroonian rainforest once more, but without success. Following this, all knowledge of the Society disappeared, and the cult was considered extinct.
However, the absence of evidence does not necessarily imply nonexistence—especially when secrecy is involved. A striking example is the Ngui Secret Society, which was rediscovered as a fully intact and functioning cult a century later.
In 2008, the ethnographer and photographer Henning Christoph located one of these Secret Societies in the forests of southwestern Cameroon. In his diary, Christoph wrote: ”From an ethnological perspective, I stumbled upon a sensation. As the first researcher, I was able to witness and photograph a ceremony that had been believed extinct for 100 years and had never before been documented. Thus, I was able to create the only evidence that this Secret Society both existed and still exists.”
As Tessmann had earlier described, the rediscovered Ngui Society continues to intervene in the lives of the Fong, sometimes protectively but most often punitively, and is regarded as a feared guardian of moral conduct and overseer of divine law. Its primary role, however, remains the fight against witchcraft and harmful spells. Rituals are conducted both privately among Society members and publicly, though during public ceremonies the specific roles of participants are rarely known. The rediscovered Ngui Secret Society of the Bulu–Fong is active only in a small region encompassing roughly 30 villages.
