The Poro power association, 'Belli-Paaro', is but one example. Mediating disputes was one of the primary functions of the Poro power association in south-western Liberia, in addition to socializing young males into manhood and maintaining peace and security along trade routes. As the demographic, cultural and linguistic changes swept south-westward, the Mani initiated young men from Atlantic and Kruan groups into these South-Western Mande institutions (Brooks, 1993, pp. 74, 289). Young males speaking different languages were all 'incorporated into the society of Spirits' and instructed in 'causes which concern the Wars, Justice, and Government' took part in eating meat offerings made to the spirits, Jaananen (Dapper, 1686, pp. 402-04; Brooks, 1993 p. 304; Jones, 1983b, p. 39). Before they became men, the youth from different ethnic groups also took an oath '[swearing] by Belli-Paaro, that is, Divine Justice' that they would not cause conflict, disrupt trade routes or steal trade goods. If a man broke the oath, the Belli-Paaro spirits acted as a divine arbiter, prosecuting through painful ordeals and sentencing the wrongdoer to lay in a basket of thorns, 'be carried away by the Jaananen' or executed. By the recording of Dapper's account, men from Mande, Atlantic and Kruan groups in south-western Liberia were initiated into Belli-Paaro, enabling the small Kquoja kingdom to rule over its large territory 'more by wisdom, policy, than by power'. According to Dapper, the King of Kquoja was the 'head' of Belli-Paaro ruling over a council of elders, simmanoe, who all had been 'marked' by the spirits with 'some row of cuts, from the neck along both shoulder blades'. Poro power was centralized and institutionalized at a 'university' beyond Cape Mount, which may have been where the highest-ranking members of the society were trained (Dapper, 1686, pp. 38-40; Alvares, 1990, ff.138v-39; Brooks, 1993, p. 302). The power association formed the core of political power and kept the peace among multiethnic communities throughout south-western Liberia.