[150] Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, iii. 167. Boscana, in [Robinson,] Life in California, p. 262 sq.
The South-Central African Barotse have a city of refuge. “Anyone incurring the king’s wrath, or committing a crime, may find safety by fleeing to this town. The man in charge of it is expected to plead for him before the chief, and he can then return to his house in peace.”[151] Among the same people the tombs of chiefs are sanctuaries or places of refuge,[152] and this is also the case among the Kafirs.[153] So, too, in the monarchical states of the Gallas homicides enjoy a legal right of asylum if they have succeeded in taking refuge in a hut near the burial-place of the king.[154] Among the Ovambo in South-Western Africa the village of a great chief is abandoned at his death, except by the members of a certain family, who remain there to prevent it from falling into utter decay. Condemned criminals who contrive to escape to one of these deserted villages are safe, at least for a time; for not even the chief himself may pursue a fugitive into the sacred place.[155] In Congo Français there are several sanctuaries:—“The great one in the Calabar district is at Omon. Thither mothers of twins, widows, thieves, and slaves fly, and if they reach it are safe.”[156] In Ashantee a slave who flies to a temple and dashes himself against the fetish cannot easily be brought back to his master.[157] Among the Negroes of Accra criminals used to “seat themselves upon the fetish,” that is, place themselves under its protection; but murderers who sought refuge with the fetish were always liable to be delivered up to their pursuers.[158] A traveller in the seventeenth century tells us that in Fetu, on the Gold Coast, a criminal who deserved death was pardoned by taking refuge in the hut of the high-priest.[159] Among the Krumen of the Grain Coast the house of the high-priest (bodio) “is a sanctum to which culprits may betake themselves without the danger of being removed by anyone except by the bodio himself.”[160] In Usambara a murderer cannot be arrested at any of the four places where the great wizards of the country reside.[161]
[151] Arnot, Garenganze, p. 77.
[152] Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 75.
[153] Rehme, ‘Das Recht der Amaxosa,’ in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. x. 51.
[154] Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, Die geistige Cultur der Danâkil, &c. p. 157.
[155] Schinz, Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika, p. 312.
[156] Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 466.
[157] Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 265. Cf. Monrad, op. cit. p. 42.
[158] Monrad, op. cit. p. 89.