Note 316 — Chapter IV · MARKET DAYS

Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples, p. 147. For the names of the Ga weekdays, see ibid., p. 143. An early writer, whose observations were confined to Akkra on the Gold Coast, speaks of haughbah (ho-gba) as one of the two sacred days of the seven-day week. It is compulsory for all ranks and sexes, but is especially observed by the women. “Under the supposition that some malign potency pervades the surrounding country on this day, more particularly directed against the pregnant women, their daily avocations are restricted within the walls of their domiciles, no egress being tolerated either for the purposes of travelling or other exterior occupations. Not many people, therefore, presume to violate these injunctions by issuing forth early in the forenoon, and none resort to their familiar haunts in the markets or public thoroughfares, until the prohibition has been withdrawn, by the well-known sign of a declining sun” (W. F. Daniell, in Journal of the Ethnological Society, 1856, iv, 23).