It is really not astonishing that the Fanti should have been so completely conquered, as they have been termed by Mr. Duncan, a traveller who knew them well, the dirtiest and laziest of all the Africans that he had seen. One hundred of them were employed under the supervision of an Englishman, and, even with this incitement, they did not do as much as a gang of fifteen English laborers. Unless continually goaded to work they will lie down and bask in the sun; and even if a native overseer be employed, he is just as bad as the rest of his countrymen.
Even such work as they do they will only perform in their own stupid manner. For example, in fetching stone for building, they will walk, some twenty in a gang, a full mile to the quarry, and come back, each with a single stone weighing some eight or nine pounds on his head. Every burden is carried on the head. They were once supplied with wheelbarrows, but they placed one stone in each wheelbarrow, and then put the barrows on their heads. The reason why they are so lazy is plain enough. They can live well for a penny per diem, and their only object in working is to procure rum, tobacco, and cotton cloths. So the wife has to earn the necessaries of life, and the husband earns—and consumes—the luxuries.
The Fanti tribe are good canoe men, but their boats are much larger and heavier than those which are employed by the Krumen. They are from thirty to forty feet in length, and are furnished with weather boards for the purpose of keeping out the water. The shape of the paddle is usually like that of the ace of clubs at the end of a handle; but, when the canoes have to be taken through smooth and deep water, the blades of the paddles are long and leaf-shaped, so as to take a good hold of the water. The Fanti boatmen are great adepts in conveying passengers from ships to the shore. Waiting by the ship’s side, while the heavy seas raise and lower their crank canoes like corks, they seize the right moment, snatch the anxious passenger off the ladder to which he has been clinging, deposit him in the boat, and set off to shore with shouts of exultation. On account of the surf, as much care is needed in landing the passengers on shore as in taking them out of the vessel. They hang about the outskirts of the surf-billows as they curl and twist and dash themselves to pieces in white spray, and, as soon as one large wave has dashed itself on the shore, they paddle along on the crest of the succeeding wave, and just before it breaks they jump out of the boat, run it well up the shore, and then ask for tobacco.
The men are rather fine-looking fellows, tall and well-formed, but are unfortunately liable to many skin diseases, among which the terrible kra-kra is most dreaded. This horrible disease, sometimes spelt, as it is pronounced, craw-craw, is a sort of leprosy that overruns the entire body, and makes the surface most loathsome to the eye. Unfortunately, it is very contagious, and even white persons have been attacked by it merely by placing their hands on the spot against which a negro afflicted with kra-kra has been resting. Sometimes the whole crew of a ship will be seized with kra-kra, which even communicates itself to goats and other animals, to whom it often proves fatal.
The natives have a curious legend respecting the origin of this horrible disease. The first man, named Raychow, came one day with his son to a great hole in the ground, from which fire issues all night. They heard men speaking to them, but could not distinguish their faces. So Raychow sent his son down the pit, and at the bottom he met the king of the fire hole, who challenged him to a trial of spear throwing, the stake being his life. He won the contest, and the fire king was so pleased with his prowess that he told the young man to ask for anything that he liked before he was restored to the upper air. The boon chosen was a remedy for every disease that he could name. He enumerated every malady that he could recollect, and received a medicine for each. As he was going away, the fire king said, “You have forgotten one disease. It is the kra-kra, and by that you shall die.”
Their color is rather dark chocolate than black, and they have a tolerably well-formed nose, and a facial angle better than that of the true negro. Their dress is simply a couple of cotton cloths, one twisted round the waist, and the other hung over the shoulders. This, however, is scarcely to be reckoned as clothing, and is to be regarded much as an European regards his hat, i. e. as something to be worn out of doors. Like the hat, it is doffed whenever a Fanti meets a superior; this curious salutation being found also in some of the South Sea Islands.
The women when young are ugly in face and beautiful in form—when old they are hideous in both. In spite of the Islamism with which they are brought so constantly in contact, and which has succeeded in making them the most civilized of the West African tribes, the women are so far from veiling their faces that their costume begins at the waist and ceases at the knees. Unfortunately, they spoil the only beauty they possess, that of shape, by an ugly appendage called the “cankey,” i. e. a tolerably large oblong bag of calico, stuffed into cushion shape, and then tied by tapes to the wearer’s back, so that the upper edge and two of the corners project upward in a very ludicrous way. It is, in fact, only a slight exaggeration of an article of dress which at one time was fashionable throughout Europe, and which, to artistic eyes, had the same demerit of spoiling a good shape and not concealing a bad one. The married women have some excuse for wearing it, as they say that it forms a nice cushion for the baby to sit upon; but the young girls who also wear it have no such excuse, and can only plead the fashion of the day.
Round the waist is always a string of beads, glass or clay if the wearer be poor, gold if she be rich. This supports the “shim,” a sort of under-petticoat, if we may so term it, which is simply a strip of calico an inch or so in width, one end being fastened to the girdle of beads in front, and the other behind. They all wear plenty of ornaments of the usual description, i. e. necklaces, bracelets, armlets, anklets, and even rings for the toes.
The hair of the married women is dressed in rather a peculiar manner. Though crisp and curly, it grows to nine or ten inches in length, and is frizzled and teased out with much skill and more patience. A boldly-defined line is shaved round the roots of hair, and the remainder of the locks, previously saturated with grease, and combed out to their greatest length, are trained upward into a tall ridge. Should the hair be too short or too scanty to produce the required effect, a quantity of supplementary hair is twisted into a pad and placed under the veritable locks. This ridge of hair is supported by a large comb stuck in the back of the head, and, although the shape of the hair tufts differ considerably, it is always present, and always made as large as possible.
The Fanti have their peculiar superstitions, which have never yet been extirpated.