Next came the rite from which the ceremony takes its name. The chief of the horse came up with a number of followers, and took away all horses from their owners, and tied them to the shed, whence they could only be released by the payment of cowries.
Another shed was built especially for the king, and contained about the same number of victims. Presently Gelele came, and proceeded to his own shed, where he took his seat, close to the spot on which was pitched a little tent containing the relics of the old king, and supposed to be temporarily inhabited by his ghost. After some unimportant ceremonies, Gelele made an address, stating that his ancestors had only built rough and rude So-Sin sheds, but that Gezo had improved upon them when “making customs” for his predecessor. But he, Gelele, meant to follow his father’s example, and to do for his father what he hoped his son would do for him. This discourse was accompanied by himself on the drum, and after it was over, he displayed his activity in dancing, assisted by his favorite wives and a professional jester. (See [engraving] on the previous page.) Leaning on a staff decorated with a human skull, he then turned toward the little tent, and adored in impressive silence his father’s ghost.
The next business was to distribute decorations and confer rank, the most prominent example being a man who was raised from a simple captain to be a Caboceer, the newly-created noble floundering on the ground, and covering himself and all his new clothes with dust as a mark of gratitude. More dancing and drumming then went on until the night closed in, and the first day was ended.
The second day exhibited nothing very worthy of notice except the rite which gives it the name of Cloth-changing Day. The king has a piece of patchwork, about six hundred yards long by ten wide, which is called the “Nun-ce-pace-to,” i. e. the Able-to-do-anything cloth. This is to be worn by the king as a robe as soon as he has taken Abeokuta, and, to all appearances, he will have to wait a very long time before he wears it. It is unrolled, and held up before the king, who walked along its whole length on both sides, amid the acclamations of his people, and then passed to his shed, where he was to go through the cloth-changing. This rite consisted in changing his dress several times before the people, and dancing in each new dress, finishing with a fetish war-dress, i. e. a short under robe, and a dark blue cloth studded with charms and amulets, stained with blood, and edged with cowries.
The third day of the Customs exhibited but little of interest, being merely the usual processions and speeches, repeated over and over again to a wearisome length. The most notable feature is the cowrie-scrambling. The king throws strings of cowries among the people, who fight for them on perfectly equal terms, the lowest peasant and the highest noble thinking themselves equally bound to join in the scramble. Weapons are not used, but it is considered quite legitimate to gouge out eyes or bite out pieces of limbs, and there is scarcely a scramble that does not end in maiming for life, while on some occasions one or two luckless individuals are left dead on the ground. No notice is taken of them, as they are, by a pleasant fiction of law, supposed to have died an honorable death in defence of their king.
Lastly there came a procession of hunchbacks, who, as Captain Burton tells us, are common in Western Africa, and are assembled in troops of both sexes at the palace. The chief of them wielded a formidable whip, and, having arms of great length and muscular power, easily cut a way for his followers through the dense crowd. Seven potent fetishes were carried on the heads of the principal hunchbacks. They were very strong fetishes indeed, being in the habit of walking about after nightfall.
They are described as follows:—“The first was a blue dwarf, in a gray paque, with hat on head. The second, a blue woman with protuberant breast. The third, a red dwarf with white eyes, clad cap-à-pie in red and brown. The fourth was a small black mother and child in a blue loin-cloth, with a basket or calabash on the former’s head. The fifth, ditto, but lesser. The sixth was a pigmy baboon-like thing, with a red face under a black skull-cap, a war-club in the right hand and a gun in the left; and the seventh much resembled the latter, but was lamp-black, with a white apron behind. They were carved much as the face cut on the top of a stick by the country bumpkins in England.”
The king next paid a visit to the victims, and entered into conversation with some of them, and presented twenty “heads” of cowries to them. At Captain Burton’s request that he would show mercy, he had nearly half of them untied, placed on their hands and knees in front of him, and then dismissed them.
The fourth day of the Customs is traditionally called the Horse-losing Day, from a ceremony which has now been abolished, although the name is retained. More dances, more processions, and more boastings that Abeokuta should be destroyed, and that the grave of Gelele’s father should be well furnished with Egba skulls. The same little fetishes already mentioned were again produced, and were followed by a curious pas-de-seul performed by a “So.” The So is an imitation demon, “a bull-faced mask of natural size, painted black, with glaring eyes and peep-holes. The horns were hung with red and white rag-strips, and beneath was a dress of bamboo fibre covering the feet, and fringed at the ends. It danced with head on one side, and swayed itself about to the great amusement of the people.”
The whole of the proceedings were terminated by a long procession of slaves, bearing in their hands baskets of cowries. “It was the usual African inconsequence—100,000 to carry 20l.”