In accordance with their superstitious worship, they have a great number of holy days in the course of the year, during which they make such a noise that an European can scarcely live in the town. Besides uttering the horrible roars and yells which seem unproducible by other than negro throats, they blow horns and long wooden trumpets, the sound of which is described as resembling the roar of a bull, and walk in procession, surrounding with their horns and trumpets the noisiest instrument of all,—namely, the kin-kasi, or big drum. This is about four feet in length and one in width, and takes two men to play it, one carrying it, negro fashion, on his head, and the other walking behind, and belaboring it without the least regard to time, the only object being to make as much noise as possible.
Their fetishes are innumerable, and it is hardly possible to walk anywhere without seeing a fetish or two. Anything does for a fetish, but the favorite article is a bundle of rags tied together like a child’s rag doll. This is placed in some public spot, and so great is the awe with which such articles are regarded, that it will sometimes remain in the same place for several weeks. A little image of clay, intended to represent a human being, is sometimes substituted for the rag doll.
The following succinct account of the religious system is given in the “Wanderings of a F. R. G. S.:”—“The religious ideas of the Fanti are, as usual in Africa, vague and indistinct. Each person has his Samán—literally a skeleton or goblin—or private fetish, an idol, rag, fowl, feathers, bunch of grass, a bit of glass, and so forth; to this he pays the greatest reverence, because it is nearest to him.
“The Bosorus are imaginary beings, probably of ghostly origin, called ‘spirits’ by the missionaries. Abonsám is a malevolent being that lives in the upper regions. Sasabonsám is the friend of witch and wizard, hates priests and missionaries, and inhabits huge silk-cotton trees in the gloomiest forests; he is a monstrous being, of human shape, of red color, and with long hair. The reader will not fail to remark the similarity of Sasabonsám to the East Indian Rákshasha, the malevolent ghost of a Brahmin, brown in color, inhabiting the pipul tree.
“Nyankupon, or Nyawe, is the supreme deity, but the word also means the visible firmament or sky, showing that there has been no attempt to separate the ideal from the material. This being, who dwells in Nyankuponfi, or Nyankuponkroo, is too far from earth to trouble himself about human affairs, which are committed to the Bosorus. This, however, is the belief of the educated, who doubtless have derived something from European systems—the vulgar confound him with sky, rain, and thunder.
“‘Kra,’ which the vocabularies translate ‘Lord,’ is the Anglicised okro, or ocroe, meaning a favorite male slave, destined to be sacrificed with his dead master; and ‘sun-sum,’ spirit, means a shadow, the man’s umbra. The Fantis have regular days of rest: Tuesdays for fishermen, Fridays for bushmen, peasants, and so on.”
There is very little doubt that the conjecture of the author is right, and that several of these ideas have been borrowed from European sources.
The rite of circumcision is practised among the Fantis, but does not seem to be universal, and a sacred spot is always chosen for the ceremony. At Accra, a rock rising out of the sea is used for the purpose.
Burial is conducted with the usual accompaniments of professional mourners, and a funeral feast is held in honor of the deceased. A sheep is sacrificed for the occasion, and the shoulder bone is laid on the grave, where it is allowed to remain for a considerable time. Sometimes travellers have noticed a corpse placed on a platform and merely covered with a cloth. These are the bodies of men who have died without paying their debts, and, according to Fanti laws, there they are likely to remain, no one being bold enough to bury them. By their laws, the man who buries another succeeds to his property, but also inherits his debts, and is legally responsible for them. And as in Western Africa the legal rate of interest is far above the wildest dreams of European usurers—say fifty per cent. per annum, or per mensem, or per diem, as the case may be—to bury an exposed corpse involves a risk that no one likes to run.
One of their oddest superstitions is their belief in a child who has existed from the beginning of the world. It never eats nor drinks, and has remained in the infantile state ever since the world and it came into existence. Absurd as is the idea, this miraculous child is firmly believed in, even by persons who have had a good education, and who say that they have actually seen it. Mr. Duncan, to whom we are indebted for the account of it, determined to see it, and was so quick in his movements that he quite disconcerted its nurse, and stopped her preparations for his visit.