The Land of Fetish

by A. B. Ellis

After the usual compliments the messenger stated that the king had sent him to tell the Governor that a man named Awoosoo, a son of a prince of Ashanti, whoso ancestors were from Gaman, had been persuaded by an Assin trader, named Amankrah, to run away from Coomassie to the Protectorate; and the king had sent him to ask the Governor to send back Awoosoo. Further the envoy demanded that Amankrah should be given up, because, although he had been regarded by the king as a friend, and had been for many years a resident in Coomassie, it had been reported to the king that he had lately gone to Gaman and obtained money from the king of that country upon a promise that he would use his best endeavours to persuade Awoosoo to go to Gaman.

To this the Lieutenant-Governor replied that as Awoosoo had not committed any crime, and was now under British protection, it was not in his power to give him up to the king. Enguie then asked if the Lieutenant-Governor would prevent Awoosoo from going to Gaman; and was told in reply that he was free to go from British protection or remain under it, as he pleased, no one having any right to control his movements.

So far all who were present at the audience were agreed as to what had occurred, but as to what followed there was a serious difference of opinion. Some said that Enguie then stated that the Assins were people who always caused palavers between Ashanti and the Protectorate, and that the king said if the Lieutenant-Governor would not give up Awoosoo he would invade Assin. Those who held to this version further stated that Busumburu at once got up and confirmed this statement, and that the Lieutenant-Governor thereupon called Enguie’s attention to the treaty of Fommanah, and pointed out to him that an invasion of Assin meant war with England.

Other officers who were present at the audience positively declared that nothing of the sort had occurred, and that Enguie had at the audience made no threat of invasion; but that, as it had been reported that he had said to the interpreter, informally, and in the course of conversation at the interpreter’s house, that if Awoosoo were not given up the king would take Assin, the treaty of 1874 was shown to him. For my part I am inclined to believe that this latter account is the correct one; but it is a question which can never be satisfactorily settled, as the evidence is so conflicting.

With regard to the golden axe, people spoke of it as being a declaration of war, and said that it had been sent down in 1873, which was not a fact. In reality the golden axe alone is neither a declaration of war nor a menace. It simply means that the embassy which bears it is no ordinary one, and that the matter on which the envoys have come is one in which, as the senders think, great interests are at stake. In this case, however, the axe was accompanied by an additional emblem which did threaten hostilities. This was a fac-simile in gold of a portion of the earthen-nest of a mason-wasp, which escaped the notice of all Colonial officials, with but one exception, or was considered by them unworthy of notice. This emblem denoted that if the affair on which the golden axe was sent were not settled to the satisfaction of the Ashantis they would use their stings, or, in other words, endeavour to attain their ends by force. So little was this symbol understood in Colonial circles that no explanation of its presence or meaning was ever at any time demanded from the Ashantis, not even when, later, they were protesting that they had never threatened or wished for war.

With reference to the report that Amankrah had induced Awoosoo to escape from Coomassie, it seems evident that there was no truth in it. The former stated that he met Awoosoo at Quissah near Fommanah, and that he, Awoosoo, begged to be conducted to the Governor. Awoosoo corroborated this, and neither of them could have any motive for concealing the truth, if the flight had been arranged in Coomassie.

The story that Amankrah had received a sum of money from King Ajiman of Gaman on a promise to do his best to induce Awoosoo to go to Gaman was a plausible one. Awoosoo was the real heir of the Gaman throne, and, if he appeared as a claimant for it, the rival factions of Ajiman and Korkobo would bury their differences, and the Gamanites would become a united people. Naturally, under these circumstances, the Ashantis were very anxious to prevent him from going to Gaman. Awoosoo’s grandmother was a princess of Gaman, and it was through her that he derived his right to the throne, the female branches taking precedence of the male in conferring birthright both in Gaman and Ashanti. She married in Coomassie, and bore a daughter who married Prince Osai Cudjo of Ashanti. Awoosoo was the offspring of this union, and was thus a prince of Ashanti in right of his father and a prince of Gaman in right of his mother; but, in consequence of the native rule of precedence, he was considered to be a Gaman, and was always spoken of as a native of that country.

After the departure of the messengers with the golden axe the Colonial Government was suddenly seized with a violent craving for information concerning the tribes of the interior, their relations with Ashanti, and the position, in a military sense, of Ashanti itself. This was, of course, a most praiseworthy desire, but all such information ought to have been collected years before; and the eleventh hour, when all the officials were more or less in a state of panic, was hardly the time at which reliable data could be obtained or a temperate judgment formed. The merest hearsay reports were listened with avidity, and jotted down as most valuable evidence. Inquiries were made of Quabina Annuoah, the linguist of King Chiboo of Yancoomassie-Fanti, who, according to his own statement, had not been to Coomassie for sixteen years, as to the condition of the Snider rifles which were in the possession of the Ashantis, and which they had only obtained during the last three or four years. Quabina promptly replied that Mensah had about three hundred Sniders, with not many cartridges; that sometimes the rifles were not cleaned for a week or two, and were now nearly all useless. To show how utterly unreliable this was I may add that a few weeks later a man named Amoo Quacoo, a blacksmith and a native of Accra, was brought to me, and in the course of conversation stated that he had lately returned from Coomassie, where he had been employed by the king in looking after three hundred Snider rifles stored in the king’s house. He said that the rifles were all in good condition, that the Ashantis took great care of them, cleaning and oiling them daily; and that there were about four boxes of ammunition to each rifle. Awoosoo had also seen these three hundred rifles, and the Government at once jumped to the conclusion that these were all the Ashantis possessed, until the illusion was rudely dispelled by two Germans, Messrs. Buck and Huppenbauer, who saw the king in Coomassie on February 5th, and counted one thousand men armed with Sniders.

The statements of Awoosoo and Quabina Annuoah, to the effect that there were now no good captains or generals in Ashanti, were gravely written down; when the Government must, or at all events ought to have been, aware that both Awooah, chief of Bantama, the conqueror of Djuabin, and Opokoo, chief of Becquai, who had opposed such a vigorous resistance to Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1874, were still in the land of the living. The latter made his statement still more ridiculous by saying that they could not get any men of his size (about 5 feet 7 inches). These two men were also questioned as to the number of men King Mensah could put into the field. The former is stated in the official documents to have said 20,000 and the latter 30,000. I should like to know how these figures were arrived at, for in the Tche language there are no words which can specifically express any such numbers.