Note 3 — Chapter XIV · —(Continued).

The Dahomans, like other Yorubans, and the people of the Gold Coast, bury in the house, choosing a room which is afterwards kept locked. So Alexander ab Alexandro informs us that, before the Laws of the Twelve Tables, the Romans interred corpses in their habitations, using as coffins large casks and other vessels—whence arose the lares, or ancestral ghosts. Gezo, I am told, is inhumed at the Komasi Palace in a small room under a temporary thatch and matting shed, which will be replaced with swish when there is blood enough to make it. According to some authorities, the Tansi-no are all women, and descendants of kings, who attend upon the royal graves, whilst these broad-brimmed personages are called Bassaji, great fetish women representing the ghosts of former monarchs.