Note 115 — Chapter IX

The word caboceer (chief,) which I have used in the correspondence, history, and other parts of this work, as the only title familiar to Europeans, (being always substituted, even by native interpreters for the vernacular,) was of course introduced by the Portuguese, and consequently unknown in the interior. It is applied to a chief who has the charge or government of a town, (croom.) Such however are indiscriminately called ōhen or king, in Fantee. Throughout Ashantee the monarch only is called ōhennie or king, and the chiefs who have the care or government of the towns of his dominions, sāf ĕhen. Sāfie or saphwooa, means key, and the last syllable of the compound, hen, is evidently an abbreviation of ōhennie. Safie, a charm, is without doubt identical in a figurative sense with sāfee, key; and should, on consideration, be spelt as such, and not saphie as I have generally written it hitherto. A Moor is called Crambo by the Negroes of the interior, which bears the same interpretation as Pongheme, a Spaniard, in the Tamanack, i.e. a man clothed.