Chapter IV

Superstitions.

The Negro tradition of the book and the calabash, cited by St. Pierre, is familiar to every native of these parts, and seems the source of their religious opinions. Impressed that the blind avarice of their forefathers inclined all the favour of the supreme God to white men, they believe themselves to have been committed to the mediating care of subordinate deities, necessarily as inferior to the primary, as they are to Europeans.

As the Ashantee manner of relating this tradition differs a little from that of the Fantee, I will repeat it, on the authority of Odumata and other principal men. In the beginning of the world, God created three white and three black men, with the same number of women; he resolved, that they might not afterwards complain, to give them their choice of good and evil. A large box or calabash was set on the ground, with a piece of paper, sealed up, on one side of it. God gave the black men the first choice, who took the box, expecting it contained every thing, but, on opening it, there appeared only a piece of gold, a piece of iron, and several other metals, of which they did not know the use. The white men opening the paper, it told them every thing. God left the blacks in the bush, but conducted the whites to the water side, (for this happened in Africa) communicated with them every night, and taught them to build a small ship which carried them to another country, whence they returned after a long period, with various merchandise to barter with the blacks, who might have been the superior people.

With this imaginary alienation from the God of the universe, not a shade of despondency is associated; they consider that it diminishes their comforts and their endowments on earth, but that futurity is a dull and torpid state to the majority of mankind.

Their fetishes or subordinate deities, are supposed to inhabit particular rivers, woods, and mountains, as the imaginary deities of the Celts. They are venerated in proportion as their predictions (always equivocal) chance to be realized. The present favourite fetish of Ashantee is that of the river Tando. Cobee, a river in Dankara, and Odentee on the Adirree, are two of the others.

The kings, caboceers, and the higher class, are believed to dwell with the superior Deity after death, enjoying an eternal renewal of the state and luxury they possessed on earth. It is with this impression, that they kill a certain number of both sexes at the funeral customs, to accompany the deceased, to announce his distinction, and to administer to his pleasures.

The spirits of the inferior classes are believed to inhabit the houses of the fetish, in a state of torpid indolence, which recompenses them for the drudgery of their lives, and which is truly congenial to the feelings of the Negro. Those of superior wisdom and experience, are said to be endued with foresight after death, and to be appointed to observe the lives, and advise the good of those mortals who acknowledge the fetish; their state corresponding, in short, with that of the first race of men after death, as described by Hesiod. Those whose enormities nullify the mediation of the funeral custom, or, whom neglect or circumstances might have deprived of it, are doomed, in the imagination of others, to haunt the gloom of the forest, stealing occasionally to their former abodes in rare but lingering visits. Those who have neglected the custom, or funeral rites of their family, are thought to be accursed and troubled by their spirits.

There are two orders of fetishmen. The first class dwell with the fetish,[77] who has a small round house, built generally at a distance from the town. They question the oracle respecting the future fortune of a state or an individual, convey its advice, and enjoin the attention of the audible spirits of those, any member of their family would question respecting property or domestic circumstances:

“Auditur tumulo et vox reddita fertur ad aures.” Æn. vi.

The inferior class pursue their various occupations in society, assist in customs and superstitious ceremonies, and are applied to as fortune tellers or conjurors are in Europe; especially in cases of theft; when, from a secret system of espionage, and a reluctance, frequently amounting to a refusal to discover the culprit, or to do more than replace the property whence it was taken, they are generally successful. The magical ceremony consists in knotting, confusing, and dividing behind the back, several strings and shreds of leather. They are also frequently applied to by slippery wives, to work charms to keep their husbands in ignorance of a projected intrigue, which they affect to do.

The primary dignity is hereditary in families, as the priesthood was in Egypt, celibacy not being enjoined; their property is also hereditary, and they possess other immunities. The latter order is frequently augmented by those, who declare that the fetish has suddenly seized, or come upon them, and who, after inflicting great severities on themselves, in the manner of the convulsionists, are ultimately acknowledged. The fetish women, generally preferred for medical aid, as they possess a thorough knowledge of barks and herbs, deleterious and sanative, closely resemble the second class of Druidesses as described, I think by Mela: they seem licensed prostitutes, before and after marriage.

The present state of these people referring them to a comparison with the nations of ancient Europe,[78] the close resemblance of many points of their superstition to relative particulars recorded of Greece and Gaul, recalls the following reflection of an eminent writer. “The truth is, there is hardly any thing more surprising in the history of mankind, than the similitude, or rather identity, of the opinions, institutions, and manners of all these orders of ancient priests, though they lived under such different climates, and at so great a distance from one another, without intercourse or communication. This amounts to a demonstration, that all these opinions and institutions flowed originally from one fountain.”

Half the offerings to the fetish, are pretended to be thrown into the river, the other half belongs to the priests. The King’s offering is generally ten ounces, and three or four slaves: that of a poor subject about four ackies. Children are frequently vowed to the service of the fetish before their birth. A slave flying to the temple, may dash or devote himself to the fetish; but, by paying a fee of two ounces of gold and four sheep, any person shuts the door of the fetish house against all his run away slaves.[79]

Every family has a variety of domestic fetishes, furnished by the priests, and answering to the Penates of the Romans; some are wooden figures, others of arbitrary shapes and materials; they receive offerings and libations at the yam custom, but are not brought out of the house.[80]

In Ashantee there is not a common fetish day, as on the coast.[81] Different families solemnize different days of the week, by wearing white cloths, abstaining from palm wine and labour, as they do the day of the week on which they were born, which is in fact their second fetish day. The King’s family keep Tuesday as their fetish day. Odumata’s, Friday. Saturday was the King’s birth day, when, as well as on his fetish day, he always sat on a stool placed before his chair as a foot stool would be. Some families never eat beef, others abstain from pork. Fowls and beef are the fetish of the King’s family, and consequently never eaten by it.

The Ashantees have their Fasti and Nefasti, or lucky and unlucky days, as the Romans had.[82] The former consecrated by some good fortune, the latter condemned from some national calamity, as Saturday, for instance, from the defeat and death of Saï Tootoo. They are also otherwise marked than by the week; for I was told, that our month of September contained fewer bad days than any other, and was besides deemed auspicious to travelling:

Ipsa dies alios alio dedit ordine Luna

Felices operum · · · ·

· · · · nona fugæ melior. Geor. I.

I have known Ashantees thirty days coming with dispatches from Cape Coast Castle to Coomassie, in August; and in September, to have arrived in twelve.

If the successor to a stool, or any rich inheritance is a child, they grind aggry beads into a powder, and rub him with it daily, after washing, believing that it hastens his growth and maturity. When any one denies a theft, an aggry bead is placed in a small vessel, with some water, the person holding it puts his right foot against the right foot of the accused, who invokes the power of the bead to kill him if he is guilty, and then takes it into his mouth with a little of the water, the rest being thrown on the ground, and crossed as he repeats the invocation: their superstition is generally superior to their resolution. I shall be expected to notice these aggry beads.

The natives invariably declare that the aggry beads are found in the Dankara, Akim, Warsaw, Ahanta, and Fantee countries, the greater number in the former, being the richer in gold; they say they are directed to dig for them by a spiral vapour issuing from the ground, and that they rarely lay near the surface; the finder is said to be sure of a series of good fortune. The plain aggry beads are blue, yellow, green, or a dull red, the variegated consist of every colour and shade. The Fantees prefer the plain yellow bead, the Amanaheäns the blue and yellow, for which they will give double the weight in gold; those of inferior beauty frequently fetch a large price, from having been worn by some royal or eminent character. Dr. Leyden, who writes, “the aigris is a stone of a greenish blue colour, supposed to be a species of jasper, small perforated pieces of which, valued at their weight in gold, are used for money,” (which I never heard of,) rather describes the popo bead; though that is semi-transparent, (of a bright blue,) resembling carnelian, (which is frequently found in these countries) and said to be obtained in the same manner as the aggry bead. Isert writes, “they are a sort of coral, with inlaid work: the art of making beads is entirely lost, or was never known in these parts: it is not improbable, that in the golden age of Egypt, she had communication with the Gold Coast; indeed, it has been thought, and perhaps not without some reason, that the Gold Coast is the Ophir of Solomon.”

The variegated strata of the aggry beads are so firmly united, and so imperceptibly blended, that the perfection seems superior to art: some resemble mosaic work, the surfaces of others are covered with flowers and regular patterns, so very minute, and the shades so delicately softened one into the other, and into the ground of the bead, that nothing but the finest touch of the pencil could equal them. The agatized parts disclose flowers and patterns, deep in the body of the bead, and thin shafts, of opaque colours, running from the centre to the surface. The natives pretend that imitations are made in the country, which they call boiled beads, alleging that they are broken aggry beads ground into powder, and boiled together, and that they know them because they are heavier; but this I find to be mere conjecture among themselves, unsupported by any thing like observation or discovery. The natives believe that by burying the aggry beads in sand they not only grow but breed.[83]

To return to the superstitions of the Ashantees: when they drink, they spill a little of the liquor on the ground as an offering to the fetish; and on rising from their chairs or stools, their attendants instantly lay them on their sides, to prevent the devil (whom they represent to be white) from slipping into their master’s places.

But the most surprising superstition of the Ashantees, is their confidence in the fetishes or saphies they purchase so extravagantly from the Moors, believing firmly that they make them invulnerable and invincible in war, paralyse the hand of the enemy, shiver their weapons, divert the course of balls, render both sexes prolific, and avert all evils but sickness, (which they can only assuage,) and natural death. The King gave to the King of Dagwumba, for the fetish or war coat of Apokoo, the value of thirty slaves; for Odumata’s, twenty; for Adoo Quamina’s, thirteen; for Akimpon’s, twelve; for Akimponteä’s, nine; and for those of greater captains in proportion. The generals being always in the rear of the army are pretty sure to escape, a circumstance much in favour of the Moors. The drawing of Adoo Quamina will convey the best idea of this dress, which has been described before, in our entrée; it is so weighty that old Odumata could scarcely move in his. Jannequin, who visited Mandingo in 1637, describes exactly the same sort of dress as worn by the chiefs of that country, and adds, “their bodies are so encumbered with these defences, that they are often unable to mount on horseback without assistance.” For a small fetish of about six lines, sewn in a case of red cloth, which the King presented to our Accra linguist, Baba charged and received six ackies. The man valued the gift highly; he had expended two pieces of cloth and a quantity of rum in fetish, at Accra, before he joined the Mission; but for which, he told me, he was convinced the Ashantees would have managed to poison him: yet, he was one of the most sensible natives I ever conversed with. A sheet of paper would support an inferior Moor in Coomassie for a month. Several of the Ashantee captains offered seriously to let us fire at them; in short, their confidence in these fetishes is almost as incredible, as the despondency and panic imposed on their southern and western enemies by the recollection of them: they impel the Ashantees, fearless and headlong, to the most daring enterprises, they dispirit their adversaries, almost to the neglect of an interposition of fortune in their favour. The Ashantees believe that the constant prayers of the Moors, who have persuaded them that they converse with the Deity, invigorate themselves, and gradually waste the spirit and strength of their enemies. This faith is not less impulsive than that which achieved the Arabian conquests.

Neither the Ashantees or their neighbours have any tradition of a deluge, nor does Catcott, the only writer I recollect to have read on its universality, report any Negro tradition, though he submits that of the American tribes, with those of the other nations of the world. The Moors told me, that the waters of the deluge retired to, and were absorbed in the lake Caudi or Caughi, which they also called Bahar Noohoo, or the sea of Noah.

Amongst other observations, I recollect the Moors to have said, that Moses spoke like God, that Abraham was the friend of God, that Jesus was a spirit of God, but that Mahomet was the best beloved of God. They added, that there were four books written by the inspiration of God, at different times. Moses wrote Tauratoo; David, Zaboura; Jesus, Lingheel; and Mahomet, Al Koran. Lightning, they said, was occasioned by God waving his hand to direct the courses of his angels. One Moor was a great etymologist; he told me, that Mahomet rushing between two armies, who were fighting, exclaimed to one party, “Toorek! Toorek!” (leave off! leave off!) and that those people were thenceforward called Turks. I questioned them concerning the origin of nations; they told me, that Japhet was the most active in covering the nakedness of his father, which Ham discovered, and thence the subjection of black men the descendants of Ham, to Europeans the descendants of Japhet. Shem, from whom they were themselves descended, they said, was neither so good or so bad as his brothers, and therefore his children enjoyed a medium of endowment and favour. They augured from the sacrifice of sheep, with which the King supplied them abundantly, and, excepting those who had made a pilgrimage to Mecca, (of which they told us wonderful tales) did not hesitate mingling the superstitions of the natives with their own, either for their profit or safety. They were tolerably expert in slight of hand tricks.