DAHOMEY—SLAVISH SUBJECTION OF THE PEOPLE—DEPENDENCE OF THE KING ON THE SLAVE-TRADE—EXHIBITION OF HUMAN SKULLS—ANNUAL HUMAN SACRIFICES—LAGOS—THE CHANGES OF THREE CENTURIES.
Dalziel, in slave-trading times, shocked the world with details in reference to Dahomey. Duncan and Forbes have again presented the picture in the same hues of darkness and of blood. Ghezo is a good king as things go, and rather particularly good for an African, for whom the world has done nothing, and who, therefore, cannot be expected to do much for the world. He has a threatening example before him. His elder brother is a prisoner, with as much to eat and more to drink than is good for him—caged up by a crowd of guards, who prevent him from doing any thing else. He was deposed, and reduced to this state, because his rule did not suit his subjects.
Ghezo, therefore, has the office of seeing men roll on the earth before him, and scrape up dust over themselves; of being deafened by vociferations of his dignity and virtue and glory and honor, by court poets and parasites, on state occasions; the office of keeping satisfied, with pay and plunder, the ferocious spirit of a blood-thirsty people; the office of looking out for some victim tribe, whom, by craft and violence, they may ruin; and the office of procuring, catching and buying some scores of human victims, whom he and his savages murder, at different set seasons, in public.
A good share of this used to be effected by means of the slave-trade. But that is gone, or nearly so, and with it may go much of the atrocity of Dahomean public life. Things are yet, however, and may long remain, in a transition state. He and his people will not suddenly lose their taste for the excitement of human suffering; and it would be a danger for which, it is probable, he has not the moral courage, or a result for which he has no real wish, to bring old national ceremonies to a sudden pause. But there are circumstances likely to act with effect in producing the change, which is a matter destined to occur at some time or other, and to be obtained when it occurs only in one mode; and the sooner the process is begun, the sooner it will end.
| F.E. Forbes, delt. | Lith. of Sarony & Co. N. Y. |
SKULL ORNAMENTS & BANNERS OF DAHOMEY.
As to what it is that higher principles must banish from the world, Commander Forbes, of the British Navy, in 1850, the latest visitor of that country who has given an account of it, tells us what he saw. He says: “There is something fearful in the state of subjection in which, in outward show, the kings of Dahomey hold their highest officers; yet, when the system is examined, these prostrations are merely keeping up of ancient customs. Although no man’s head in Dahomey can be considered warranted for twenty-four hours, still the great chief himself would find his tottering if one of these customs was omitted.”
They were preparing for the ceremony of watering the graves of the royal ancestors with blood; during which the king also presents some victims as a royal gift to his people. This merely means that they are knocked down in public, and their heads cut off, amidst trumpeting, and clamor, and jesting.
“With much ceremony,” we read, “two large calabashes, containing the skulls of kings,” conquered by the Dahomeans, “ornamented with copper, brass, coral, &c., were brought in and placed on the ground. Some formed the heads of walking-sticks, distaffs; while those of chiefs and war-men ornamented drums, umbrellas, surmounted standards, and decorated doorways. They were on all sides in thousands.”