The Land of Fetish

by A. B. Ellis

CHAPTER III.

The Slave Coast—Whydah—The Dahoman Palaver of 1876—The Dahoman Army—An Unpleasant Bedfellow—The Snake House—Dahoman Fetishism—Various Gods—A Curious Ceremony—Importunate Relatives—The Dahoman Priesthood.

Towards the end of the year 1879 I visited Whydah, the seaport of Dahomey, on the Slave Coast. Between Whydah and the boundary of the Gold Coast Colony, now advanced to Flohow, about two miles beyond the old smuggling port of Danoe, are the ancient slave stations of Porto Seguro, Bageida, Little Popo, and Grand Popo; and the lagoon system, which commences with the Quittah Lagoon to the east of the river Volta, extends along the whole of this coast as far as Lagos. These lagoons are however gradually silting up, and this movement is proceeding so rapidly that already canoes can only pass from Elmina Chica to Porto Seguro during the rainy season, the old bed of the lagoon being a vast arid plain during the summer.

Passing the clump of trees three miles east of Grand Popo known as Mount Pulloy, and which is one of the principal landmarks of this lowlying coast, we anchor off the town of Whydah, eleven miles from Grand Popo. The landing here is very bad, the surf being worse than at any other port in West Africa, and sharks abound. In fact in the spring of 1879 the canoemen employed by the different trades at this place struck work, so many of their number having been devoured by these denizens of the deep.

The lagoon at Whydah is a quarter of a mile in breadth and from four to five feet deep; it is separated from the sea by a sand-ridge, 880 yards broad. On this sand-bank stand the stores and sheds of the different mercantile firms, French, English, and German; but the traders are not allowed by the Dahomans to live there, and after business hours they have to cross over to the town of Whydah, which lies a mile and a half inland on the northern shore of the lagoon.

The king of Dahomey is the only absolute monarch known in West Africa, the power of all the other negro potentates being limited by the influence and authority of the principal chiefs and captains, as that of the king of Ashanti is limited by the dukes of Ashanti, but he of Dahomey knows no other law than that of his own sweet will. Even the European traders who reside at Whydah are to a considerable extent subject to the native laws, or in other words to the king’s pleasure, and none of them would be allowed to leave the country without permission.

The king has some knowledge of European methods of raising a revenue, and an ad valorem duty is imposed on imported goods, while each vessel on entering the port has to pay a certain quantity of goods, assessed according to the number of her masts, to the king. To the east and west of Whydah stake and wattle fences extend across the lagoon, closing all passage except through small openings, where are stationed his Majesty’s revenue officers, who stop and examine all canoes passing through, and frequently help themselves to anything that takes their fancy. Little Popo and Grand Popo are both claimed by the king of Dahomey, but are really independent. As the natives of these towns will not acknowledge him as suzerain he periodically makes raids upon villages lying on the northern side of the lagoon. The two towns themselves being situated on the sand-bank are safe from attack, as, since the Dahomans attacked Grand Popo by water and were defeated, it is a law that no Dahoman warrior shall enter a canoe.

In 1876 we had a difference with the king of Dahomey. In the early part of that year Messrs. F. and A. Swanzy’s agent at Whydah, an English gentleman, was maltreated by order of the caboceer of the town, and subsequently sent to Abomey, the capital, as a prisoner. There he was treated with every indignity, compelled to dance before the king’s wives, and was daily dragged out, bareheaded, to be present at the execution of criminals or sacrifice of human victims, hints not being spared that he might shortly prepare himself for a similar fate. Eventually, after being mulcted of money and goods, he was suffered to escape.

As a compensation for this outrage on a British subject, Commodore Hewett, who commanded the West African squadron, demanded a fine of one thousand puncheons of palm-oil, and threatened to blockade the coast from Adaffia to Lagos if it were not forthcoming. The king refused to pay the fine, and the coast was blockaded from July 1st. Both the Dahomans and the British residents in West Africa anticipated that war would ensue. The king had impediments placed in the lagoon at Whydah and collected bodies of Amazons in the vicinity of that town. On our side the system of lagoons between Lagos and Dahomey was surveyed by naval officers, and it was found that small steamers could ascend to within thirty miles of Abomey. In September 1876 the Dahoman troops advanced towards Little Popo, and destroyed several villages in that neighbourhood; an attack on the British settlement at Quittah was also threatened.