Captain Canot; Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver
on Dahomey, says that a boy and girl were decapitated and buried with
him, and that three men were sacrificed on the beach at Whydah. He
alleges that, although this notorious slaver died in May, the funeral
honors to his memory were not yet closed in October. "The town," he
says, "is still in a ferment. Three hundred of the Amazons are daily
in the square, firing and dancing; bands of Fetiche people parade the
streets, headed by guinea-fowls, fowls, ducks, goats, pigeons, and
pigs, on poles, alive, for sacrifice. Much rum is distributed, and all
night there is shouting, firing and dancing."--_Dahomey and the
Dahomans_, vol. i, 49.
CHAPTER XL.
If I had dreamed that these recollections of my African career would
ever be made public, it is probable I should have taxed my memory with
many events and characteristic anecdotes, of interest to those who
study the progress of mankind, and the singular manifestations of
human intellect in various portions of Ethiopia.
During my travels on that continent, I always found the negro a
believer in some superior creative and controlling power, except among
the marshes at the mouth of the Rio Pongo, where the Bagers, as I
already stated, imagine that death is total annihilation. The
Mandingoes and Fullahs have their Islamism and its Koran; the Soosoo
has his good spirits and bad; another nation has its "pray-men" and
"book-men," with their special creeds; another relies on the
omnipotence of _juju_ priests and _fetiche_ worship;[6] some believe
in the immortality of spirit; while others confide in the absolute
translation of body. The Mahometan tribes adore the Creator, with an
infinitude of ablutions, genuflexions, prayers, fasts, and by strictly
adhering to the laws of the Prophet; while the heathen nations resort
to their adroit priests, who shield them from the devil by charms of
various degree, which are exclusively in their gift, and may
consequently be imposed on the credulous for enormous prices.
At Ayudah I found the natives addicted to a very grovelling species
of idolatry. It was their belief that the Good as well as the Evil
spirit existed in living Iguanas. In the home of the _manfuca_, with
whom I dwelt, several of these animals were constantly fed and
cherished as _dii penates_, nor was any one allowed to interfere with
their freedom, or to harm them when they grew insufferably offensive.
The death of one of these crawling deities is considered a calamity in
the household, and grief for the reptile becomes as great as for a
departed parent.
Whilst I tarried at Ayudah, an invitation came from the King of
Dahomey, soliciting the presence of Cha-cha and his guests at the
yearly sacrifice of human beings, whose blood is shed not only to
appease an irritated god but to satiate the appetite of departed
kings. I regret that I did not accompany the party that was present at
this dreadful festival. Cha-cha despatched several of the captains who
were waiting cargoes, under the charge of his own interpreters and the
royal _manfucas_; and from one of these eye-witnesses, whose curiosity
was painfully satiated, I received a faithful account of the horrid
spectacle.
For three days our travellers passed through a populous region, fed
with abundant repasts prepared in the native villages by Cha-cha's
cooks, and resting at night in hammocks suspended among the trees. On
the fourth day the party reached the great capital of Abomey, to which
the king had come for the bloody festival from his residence at
Cannah. My friends were comfortably lodged for repose, and next
morning presented to the sovereign. He was a well-built negro, dressed
in the petticoat-trowsers of a Turk, with yellow morocco boots, while
a profusion of silk shawls encircled his shoulders and waist, and a
lofty _chapeau_, with trailing plumes, surmounted his wool. A vast
body-guard of _female_ soldiers or amazons, armed with lances and
muskets, surrounded his majesty. Presently, the _manfucas_ and
interpreters, crawling abjectly on their hands and knees to the royal
feet, deposited Cha-cha's tribute and the white men's offering. The
first consisted of several pieces of crape, silks, and taffeta, with a
large pitcher and basin of silver; while the latter was a trifling
gift of twenty muskets and one hundred pieces of blue _dungeree_. The
present was gracefully accepted, and the donors welcomed to the
sacrifice, which was delayed on account of the scarcity of victims,
though orders had been given to storm a neighboring tribe to make up
three hundred slaves for the festival. In the mean while, a spacious
house, furnished in European style, and altogether better than the
ordinary dwellings of Africa, was assigned to the strangers. Liberty
was also given them to enter wherever they pleased, and take what they
wished, inasmuch as all his subjects, male and female, were slaves
whom he placed at the white men's disposal.
The sixth of May was announced as the beginning of the sacrificial
rites, which were to last five days. Early in the morning, two hundred
females of the amazonian guard, naked to the waist, but richly
ornamented with beads and rings at every joint of their oiled and
glistening limbs, appeared in the area before the king's palace, armed
with blunt cutlasses. Very soon the sovereign made his appearance,
when the band of warriors began their manoeuvres, keeping pace, with
rude but not unmartial skill, to the native drum and flute.
A short distance from the palace, within sight of the square, a fort
or inclosure, about nine feet high, had been built of _adobe_, and
surrounded by a pile of tall, prickly briers. Within this barrier,
secured to stakes, stood fifty captives who were to be immolated at
the opening of the festival. When the drill of the amazons and the
royal review were over, there was, for a considerable time, perfect
silence in the ranks and throughout the vast multitude of spectators.
Presently, at a signal from the king, one hundred of the women
departed at a run, brandishing their weapons and yelling their
war-cry, till, heedless of the thorny barricade, they leaped the
walls, lacerating their flesh in crossing the prickly impediment. The
delay was short. Fifty of these female demons, with torn limbs and
bleeding faces, quickly returned, and offered their howling victims to
the king. It was now the duty of this personage to begin the sacrifice
with his royal hand. Calling the female whose impetuous daring had led
her foremost across the thorns, he took a glittering sword from her
grasp, and in an instant the head of the first victim fell to the
dust. The weapon was then returned to the woman, who, handing it to
the white men, desired them to unite in the brutal deed! The
strangers, however, not only refused, but, sick at heart, abandoned
the scene of butchery, which lasted, they understood, till noon, when
the amazons were dismissed to their barracks, reeking with rum and
blood.
I have limited the details of this barbarity to the initial cruelties,
leaving the reader's imagination to fancy the atrocities that followed
the second blow. It has always been noticed that the sight of blood,
which appals a civilized man, serves to excite and enrage the savage,
till his frantic passions induce him to mutilate his victims, even as
a tiger becomes furious after it has torn the first wound in its prey.
For five days the strangers were doomed to hear the yells of the
storming amazons as they assailed the fort for fresh victims. On the
sixth the sacrifice was over:--the divinity was appeased, and quiet
reigned again in the streets of Abomey.
Our travellers were naturally anxious to quit a court where such
abominations were regarded as national and religious duties; but
before they departed, his majesty proposed to accord them a parting
interview. He received the strangers with ceremonious politeness, and
called their attention to the throne or royal seat upon which he had
coiled his limbs. The chair is said to have been an heir-loom of at
least twenty generations. Each leg of the article rests on the skull
of some native king or chief, and such is the fanatical respect for
the brutal usages of antiquity, that every three years the people of
Dahomey are obliged to renew the steadiness of the stool by the fresh
skulls of some noted princes!
* * * * *
I was not long enough at Ayudah to observe the manners and customs of
the natives with much care, still, as well as I now remember, there
was great similarity to the habits of other tribes. The male lords it
over the weaker sex, and as a man is valued according to the quantity
of his wives; polygamy, even among civilized residents, is carried to
a greater excess than elsewhere. Female chastity is not insisted on as
in the Mandingo and Soosoo districts, but the husband contents himself
with the seeming continence of his mistresses. Sixty or seventy miles
south of Ayudah, the adulterous wife of a chief is stabbed in the
presence of her relations. Here, also, superstition has set up the
altar of human sacrifice, but the divinity considers the offering of a
single virgin sufficient for all its requirements.
Some years after my visit to Ayudah, it happened that my traffic
called me to Lagos at the season of this annual festival, so that I
became an unwilling witness of the horrid scene.
When the slender crescent of the November moon is first observed, an
edict goes forth from the king that his _Juju-man_, or high-priest,
will go his annual round through the town, and during his progress it
is strictly forbidden for any of his subjects to remain out of doors
after sunset. Such is the terror with which the priests affect to
regard the sacred demon, that even the fires are extinguished in their
houses.
Towards midnight the _Juju-man_ issued from a sacred _gree-gree_ bush
or grove, the entrance to which is inhibited to all negroes who do not
belong to the religious brotherhood. The costume of the impostor is
calculated to inspire his countrymen with fear. He was clad in a
garment that descended from his waist to his heels like a petticoat or
skirt, made of long black fur; a cape of the same material was clasped
round his neck and covered his elbows; a gigantic hood which bristled
with all the ferocity of a grenadier's cap, covered his head; his
hands were disguised in tiger's paws, while a frightful mask, with
sharp nose, thin lips, and white color, concealed his face. He was
accompanied by ten stout barbarians, dressed and masked like himself,
each sounding some discordant instrument. Every door, by law, is
required to be left ajar for the free access of the _Juju_, but as
soon as the horrid noise is heard approaching from the _tabooed
grove_, each inhabitant falls to the ground, with eyes in the dust, to
avoid even a look from the irritated spirit.
A victim is always agreed upon by the priests and the authorities
before they leave the _gree-gree bush_, yet to instil a greater
degree of superstitious terror, the frightful _Juju_, as if in doubt,
promenades the town till daylight, entering a house now and then, and
sometimes committing a murder or two to augment the panic. At dawn the
home of the victim,--who, of course, is always the handsomest virgin
in the settlement,--is reached, and the _Juju_ immediately seizes and
carries her to a place of concealment. Under pain of death her parents
and friends are denied the privilege of uttering a complaint, or even
of lifting their heads from the dust. Next day the unfortunate mother
must seem ignorant of her daughter's doom, or profess herself proud of
the _Juju's_ choice. Two days pass without notice of the victim. On
the third, at the river side, the king meets his fanatical subjects,