This was the only instance of Fana-Toro’s barbarity that came under my notice, and in its perpetration he merely followed the example of his ancestors in obedience to African ferocity. Yet, of his intrepidity and nobler endurance, I will relate an anecdote which was told me by reliable persons. Some twenty years before my arrival at the Cape, large bands of mercenary bushmen had joined his enemies along the beach, and after desolating his territory, sat down to beleaguer the stockade of Toso. For many a day thirst and hunger were quietly suffered under the resolute command of the king, but at length, when their pangs became unendurable, and the people demanded a surrender, Fana-Toro strode into the “palaver-house,” commanding a sortie with his famished madmen. The warriors protested against the idea, for their ammunition was exhausted. Then arose a wild shout for the king’s deposition and the election of a chief to succeed him. A candidate was instantly found and installed; but no sooner had he been chosen, than Fana-Toro,—daring the new prince to prove a power of endurance equal to his own,—plunged his finger in a bowl of boiling oil, and held it over the fire, without moving a muscle, till the flesh was crisped to the bone.
It is hardly necessary to say that the sovereign was at once restored to his rights, or that, availing himself of the fresh enthusiasm, he rushed upon his besiegers, broke their lines, routed the mercenaries, and compelled his rival to sue for peace. Until the day of his death, that mutilated hand was the boast of his people.
The Vey people mark with some ceremony the extremes of human existence—birth and death. Both events are honored with feasting, drinking, dancing, and firing; and the descendants of the dead sometimes impoverish, and even ruin themselves, to inter a venerable parent with pomp.
Prince Gray, the son of Fana-Toro, whom I have already mentioned, died during my occupation of Cape Mount. I was at Mesurado when the event happened, but, as soon as I heard it, I resolved to unite with his relations in the last rites to his memory. Gray was not only a good negro and kind neighbor, but, as my fast friend in “country matters,” his death was a personal calamity.
The breath was hardly out of the prince’s body, when his sons, who owned but little property and had no slaves for sale, hastened to my agent, and pledged their town of Panama for means to defray his funeral. In the mean time, the corpse, swathed in twenty large country sheets, and wrapped in twenty pieces of variegated calico, was laid out in a hut, where it was constantly watched and smoked by three of the favorite widows.
After two months devotion to moaning and seasoning, notice was sent forty miles round the country, summoning the tribes to the final ceremony. On the appointed day the corpse was brought from the hut, a perfect mass of bacon. As the procession moved towards the palaver-house, the prince’s twenty wives—almost entirely denuded, their heads shaved, and their bodies smeared with dust—were seen following his remains. The eldest spouse appeared covered with self-inflicted bruises, burns, and gashes—all indications of sorrow and future uselessness.
The crowd reached the apartment, singing the praises of the defunct in chorus, when the body was laid on a new mat, covered with his war shirt, while the parched lump that indicated his head was crowned with the remains of a fur hat. All the amulets, charms, gree-grees, fetiches and flummery of the prince were duly bestowed at his sides. While these arrangements were making within, his sons stood beneath an adjoining verandah, to receive the condolences of the invited guests, who, according to custom, made their bows and deposited a tribute of rice, palm-oil, palm-wine, or other luxuries, to help out the merry-making.
When I heard of the prince’s death at Monrovia, I resolved not to return without a testimonial of respect for my ally, and ordered an enormous coffin to be prepared without delay. In due time the huge chest was made ready, covered with blue cotton, studded with brass nails, and adorned with all the gilded ornaments I could find in Monrovia. Besides this splendid sarcophagus, my craft from the colony was ballasted with four bullocks and several barrels of rum, as a contribution to the funeral.
I had timed my arrival at Fanama, so as to reach the landing about ten o’clock on the morning of burial; and, after a salute from my brazen guns, I landed the bullocks, liquor, and coffin, and marched toward the princely gates.
The unexpected appearance of the white friend of their father, lord, and husband, was greeted by the family with a loud wail, and, as a mark of respect, I was instantly lifted in the arms of the weeping women, and deposited on the mat beside the corpse. Here I rested, amid cries and lamentations, till near noon, when the bullocks were slaughtered, and their blood offered in wash-bowls to the dead. As soon as this was over, the shapeless mass was stowed in the coffin without regard to position, and borne by six carriers to the beach, where it was buried in a cluster of cotton-woods.