This horrible custom is truly West-African. How near we must approach the Mandingo frontier, before we get rid of it on the north, or how far south it extends, I am not exactly able to say. In Dahomey, where it attains its maximum development, it is worse than amongst the Ashantis, and amongst the Ashantis worse than in the proper Fanti districts. It certainly reaches as far southwards as Old Calabar, where, upon the death of Ephraim, a well-known Caboceer, "some hundreds of men, women, and children were immolated to his manes,—decapitation, burning alive, and the administration of the poison-nut, being the methods resorted to for terminating their existence. When King Eyeo, father of the present Chief of Creek Town, died, an eye-witness, who had only arrived just after the completion of the funeral rites, informed me that a large pit had been dug, in which several of the deceased's wives were bound and thrown in, until a certain number had been procured; the earth was then thrown over them,[62] and so great was the agony of these victims, that the ground for several minutes was agitated with their convulsive throes. So fearful, in former times, was the observance of this barbarous custom, that many towns narrowly escaped depopulation. The graves of the kings are invariably concealed, so as, it is stated, to prevent an enemy from obtaining their skulls as trophies, which is not the case with those of the common people."[17]
I have said that it is in Dahomey, where the immolation of human beings is the bloodiest; and I now add that it is in Dahomey where those who look for the more characteristic peculiarities of the Negro stock, must search. But it is the bad side which will preponderate; it is the darkest practices which will develop themselves most typically. What we find in germs and remnants elsewhere, grow, in Dahomey, to inordinate and incredible proportions.
The sacro-sanctitude of the snake is doubled in Dahomey.
Slavery, bad along the whole Bight of Benin, is worse, still, in Dahomey.
In Akkim we find a female colonel. In Dahomey there is an army of Amazons, as indicated by Mr. Duncan, and as described in detail by Captain Forbes.[63]
The Gha.—Accra, and the forts lately purchased from the Danes—Christiansborg and others,—are the localities of the Gha nation. I say Gha (or Ghan) because the author of a paper soon about to be noticed states, that this is the indigenous name of the people which we call Acra, Akra, Accrah, or Inkra—and it is always best to give the native name if we can.
Adelung, on the authority of Romer and Isert, gives the following account of the Negroes speaking the Gha language. He calls it Akra.
They began with conquering and reducing to a state of servitude the Adampi, or Tambi, Negroes of the hill country; these being a portion of their own stock, and speaking a mutually intelligible language.
But, in time, they were themselves conquered by the Akvambu, and broke up into two parts. One of these remained in situ, and is represented by the present Gha of Christiansborg. The other fled to the Little Popo, an island off the coast of Dahomey, and there settled.
What remained then on the Gold Coast were the Gha and Akvambu; and these were afterwards conquered by the Akkim Fantis, themselves eventually reduced by the Ashantis.