SMALL RECEPTION AT AGRIME, AND ARRIVAL AT KANA, THE KING’S COUNTRY
QUARTERS.
On Friday, the 18th, about mid-afternoon, we were warned that the royal
messenger or escort was approaching. A table was forthwith disposed
outside the palace, opposite some elephant skulls and bones[172] heaped
up under an ayyan, or thunder fetish shrub; and we ranged ourselves
behind the board. After a few minutes a loudening hum of voices heralded
a rush of warriors into the Uhon-nukon, or cleared space, with its
central tree, fronting the royal abode. Dahomans much affect these
sudden and impetuous movements, which impose upon the eye, making the
few appear many. The flag-bearer was the first, waving, at the end of
the thinnest of staves, a long calico rag with a preposterous blue
anchor. Then, habited in the war uniform of the “Blue Company,” dashed a
tumultuous column of war-men, four deep and about eighty in number;
followed by two neat kettle-drums, and all singing the loudest chants.
They saluted us by circumambulating the central tree, defiling before us
from the left with right shoulders forward, jumping, springing,
pretending to fire their weapons, and imitating all the action of an
attack.
During this wild “pass round” sundry calabashes of food, carried on
slaves’ heads, appeared from our left, and were displayed in order
before us. Meanwhile, behind the soldiery, in distinct procession,
walked the civilians, seven married men preceded by a white calico-
covered object which, conspicuously borne aloft on a carrier’s head,
announced itself as an old friend, the venerable liqueur-case of former
days. Its damaged front and broken legs would disgrace an English pot-
house; but it has been the pride and ornament of the Dahoman Court for
the last half century. Behind it, with much solemnity, marched Aiseku, a
medicine boy of the Meu, or Second Minister; and after him, habited in a
shabby paletôt of brown-black alpaca, tomahawk in hand, stalked, with
even greater dignity, Sosu Bleo, politely called Podoji-noto—less
courteously, “state-spy” upon the old Buko-no.
The Blues, after grovelling in the dust before the Sublime Porte, cried
out the royal “strong names,[173]” presented arms to it after their
fashion, and formed up in line before our table. Then the king’s canes
were, according to custom, produced from their _étuis_, and all admired
their novelty. Instead of King Gezo’s _rococo_ old lions, sharks, and
crocodiles, we now found out, after some study, chameleons, parrots, and
monkeys half-swallowed by snakes, the whole ornamented with thin plates
of beaten dollars.[174] I handled them standing and bare-headed, whilst
the messengers prostrated; and in this position the usual questions,
answers, and greetings were exchanged.
The old liqueur-case was uncovered, and, besides the invariable aqua
pura, three case-bottles made their appearance, with muscadel wine,
trade gin, and bad Portuguese rum. The Dahoman etiquette is to drink
thrice of different liquors: foreseeing much of this kind of thing I
resolved at once to show preference to the muscadel, and, despite all
protestations, to decline the rum.
Whilst we imbibed to the King’s health and to my own, the escort fired
salutes; they then grounded arms, and began the usual “Gillie Callum,”
their “decapitation dance.” Amongst the knives and tomahawks I remarked
a jambíyah, or Arab side-dagger. The line moved from side to side,
capering and raising the near leg, and at times all rushed like madmen
round the tree. Ensued solos of three chiefs, and the usual frantic
singing and valour-boasting. After emptying the gin and rum into the
principals, civil and military, I retired. The small reception ended
with the King’s dole of provaunt—five calabashes of stews and
vegetables, with one pot of good water. It sufficed for fifty, whereas
we had a hundred mouths to fill; ensued the usual scene of disgusting
selfishness, the missionary youths, with “Elijah” at their head, greatly
distinguishing themselves.
Nothing could be meaner than the whole display, which every year grows
worse; Gezo attempted to keep up state; his son is either unable or
unwilling to do so.
When all was over we set out in hammocks, preceded by the guard firing
at spurts carbines and muskets loud as little mortars, and capering all
the way. I have heard an Englishman doubt the possibility of “polking”
from Dan to Beersheba—let him visit Dahome. A delicate French grey,
touched with the lightest pink in the western sky, told us that the day
was dying fast. The soil, before whitish, again appeared deeply tinged
with oxide of iron, and the vegetation displayed cactus, as well as the
acacia which had characterized the scenery between Agrime and its swamp.
In places it perfumed the atmosphere like that of the Azbakiyah Gardens
at Cairo, where the native perfumers extract from the “locust” a faint
and peculiarly oriental perfume appropriately called Fitnah. The land,
seemingly a dead level, had everywhere been burned, and the lively young
grass was sprouting out of death. After about an hour we halted at a
Danh-hwe, or “Rainbow house,[175]” a little wall-less thatch-slope, like
the Australian “breakwind,” in the centre of a dwarf mud wall, circled
with the thunder fetish plant. The head “religious” attached to the
establishment came forth with the usual ceremonies, presented water to
us, begged and received alms.
The next halt was at Zogbodomen, so called from its chief, who was slain
by Dako,[176] the first Dahoman king. The few miserable thatch huts are
shaded by the fleshy-leaved figs, called on the Gold Coast “Market
trees,” and are almost buried during the rains by densest grass, from
which rise the stateliest palmyras. Presently crossing level ground,
with vegetation here tall, there dwarfed; now green, then brown; we
sighted from afar a deep depression stretching from east to west.
On the farther side of this valley, which during wet weather must roll
in a considerable stream, stands Kana. I could not but feel, during my
former visit, a thrill of pleasure at the first sight of the “country
capital.” It is distinctly Dahome; and here the traveller expects to
look upon the scenes of barbaric splendour of which all the world has
read. And it has its own beauty: a French traveller has compared it with
the loveliest villages of fair Provence; while to Mr. Duncan it
suggested “a vast pleasure-ground, not unlike some part of the Great
Park at Windsor.” After impervious but sombre forest, grass-barrens, and
the dismal swamps of the path, the eye revels in these open plateaux:
the seducing aspect is enhanced by scattered plantations of a leek green
studding the slopes, by a background of gigantic forest dwarfing the
nearer palm files, by homesteads buried in cultivation, and by
calabashes and cotton-trees vast as the view, tempering the fiery summer
sun to their subject growths, and in winter collecting the rains, which
would otherwise bare the newly buried seed. Nor is animal life wanting.
The turkey-buzzard, the kite, and the kestrel soar in the upper heights;
the brightest fly-catchers flit through the lower strata; the little
grey squirrel nimbly climbs his lofty home, and a fine large spur-fowl
cries from the plantations of maize and cassava.
After two hours of slow travelling we passed the site of a village now
level with the ground: it is called Logozokpota,[177] or the Tortoise’s
Rise. Here is a detached thatch which the king visits before beginning
his campaigns; and when passing it we were saluted with five muskets—an
honour always punctually reported. Descending into the depression, we
could see the town—a city no longer—straggling beyond the northern bank.
A nearer glance at the habitations showed us that they are those of
Whydah and Savi, heaps of haycock huts or penthouse thatches enclosed in
“compounds” of mud wall or palm-leaf, and jealously detached. There is
palpably more field than habitation, and far more fallow than field.
At this point we reach a trivia. Two paths setting to the N.N.W. lead to
the town; the south-eastern is in the direction of the king’s drinking
water, called Hanan. I afterwards visited it. A well-cleared road leads
over several waves of ground, alternately maize-field and palm-orchard,
towards a serpentine line of tall dark trees—a formation ever denoting
water in those lands. About half a mile from the outskirts of Kana
places the visitor at the rivulet; it is a deep ditch, sunk, canal-like,
10 to 12 feet below the ground-surface; the bed is black with vegetable
humus, and the water after being puddled is white with clay. The
direction is easterly towards the Denham Lake.
This streamlet is said to supply during the dry season all Kana. It is
visited throughout the night by the humbler classes. At the earliest
dawn the women slaves of the palace,[178] who are shut up during the
hours of darkness, wend their way in long lines, carrying huge pots on
their heads. They claim the road, which is consequently provided with a
number of foot-made offsets. At the words, “Gan ja[179]!”—“The bell
comes!”—even if it is tinkled by a slave girl-child four years old, the
native must throw himself “into the bush,” that is to say, out of the
road, and await with averted face till the long train has passed. If a
palace water-pot be broken, the nearest male would be accused and get
into trouble.[180] When out shooting in the morning, we were often
called to by these slaves, telling us not to startle them. The Dahoman
officials show their loyalty by “clearing out” as far and as fast as
possible. If a stranger does only what is strictly necessary, one woman
will say, “He is a white, and knows no better!” and the other will
reply, “And has he no law in his own land?” The lower, the older, and
the uglier the slave girls are, the louder and longer they tinkle—which
is natural—and almost all of them seemed to enjoy the ignoble scamper of
our interpreters and hammock men, whom the old women order to look the
other way. At times, men and boy water-carriers for the palace, known by
their switches, arrogate to themselves the same right. This is one of
the greatest nuisances in Dahome: it continues throughout the day; in
some parts, as around the palace, half a mile an hour would be full
speed; and to make way for these animals of burthen, bought perhaps for
a few pence, is, to say the least of it, by no means decorous.
Continuing our way to the N.W., the next feature observed was the Gau
Nehori, explained to be “Fetish place, when the Gau or commander-in-
chief opens the campaign” by performing certain ceremonies. It is
nothing but a long shed with a shady verandah, and a few huts under a
splendid Ficus. A little beyond it, on the left of the road, is a white
clay depression in the grass—a pool during the rains, and in the dries a
surface pitted with empty holes two feet deep—this is the Gau-te.[181]
Then came the Kana-’gbo-nun,[182] or town gate, consisting of a pole or
two, but warning men that their heads are within the lion’s jaws. The
space is open; there are two ragged trees on the left; to the right lie
a few small huts, and a gigantic Bombax denotes from afar the entrance
to Kana.
When the party with much singing and dancing had been formed up, we were
once more allowed to advance. This time, however, the circuitous
official road was preferred. The large open spaces were crowded with
spectators, whom the bright moonlight enabled to satisfy their
curiosity. On the left lay the blacksmiths’ quarter, dotted with round
thatched huts, open at the sides, and presenting all the appearance of
the Central African smithy. Another half hour being duly wasted, we
turned to the S.W., passed a couple of dwarf temples, when the
_impudique_ Logba looked more priapus-like than any priapus, and were
carried into the “English house,” whence the crippled old landlord
Degen-no[183] came out to receive us.
This was a disappointment: although ex-officio guests of Buko-no, the
English landlord, we had looked forward to the comfortable hall and
superior establishment of the Akho-vi,[184] or Prince Chyudaton, the
Lieutenant-Governor of Whydah. Of course we remonstrated loudly about
the narrowness of our quarters, and we sent a message to the head
doctor, without other result than the usual “put off.” Let no reader of
African travel, however, suppose that anything so noble as jealousy
influences these negro worthies. Their object in securing the guest is
purely and simply for dirty pelf. I have heard and read much of African
hospitality; but I have never seen a trace of it in the true
Hamite.[185] He will take you into his hut, and will even quarrel with
you if you pass him unvisited: he will supply you with food, and will
assure you that you are monarch of all you survey. But it is all a sham:
he expects a recompense in double and treble, and if he does not obtain
it, his rudeness will be that of the savage _gratté_. The self-called
“civilized” negro, like the _emancipados_ of S’a Leone and Fernando Po,
admit you into their houses, and keep you there as at an inn: they would
be equally hurt and offended by your calling for the bill and by your
forgetting to pay exorbitantly, but indirectly. The fact is, they would
combine the praise of hospitality with more solid advantages; and they
do so with the transparent cunning of children. Such has been my
experience in Africa—may others have fared better!
Kana is less correctly written Canna, Cannah, and even Carnah: the old
travellers prefer Calmina, or Canamina, a corruption of Kana-mina, from
a palace once built there, according to “country custom,” by one of the
Dahoman kings.[186] The History declares it to have been the first place
of importance which (about 1620) fell into the hands of the Foys
(Ffons), or early Dahomans, by the assassination of its chief. That
authority, however, uses the word “Calmina,” which should evidently be
Kana, the “Mina” being an addition of a later date. According to
Commander Forbes, “Cannah, formerly capital of Foy, then called Dawee,
conquering Agbome, has retained a peace of upwards of 200 years.” This
sentence contains a treble inaccuracy: “Dawee,” as has been seen, should
be “Uhwawi”; secondly, Agbome conquered Kana; and thirdly, they have
hardly ever been at peace till the present century.
As the History proves, Kana was a settlement claimed of old by the
independent “Oyos,” or Eyeos,[187] the northern and equestrian Yombas.
The Dahomans, since the days of Agaja (A.D. 1708-1730), agreed to pay to
them an annual tribute in November, and the failure of this subsidy
invariably brought on a war. When Tegbwesun (the Bossa Ahadee, of our
writers), about 1738, refused his contribution, Kana was plundered; in
1747 the foe retired after being duly satisfied. The Oyos must have been
troublesome neighbours to Dahome, ever demanding increase of supplies,
interfering in domestic policy, harassing them by constant wars, and
assuring the Southrons that “Dahome belonged to Eyeo.” Mr. Norris,
writing in 1772, shows that the town was in Dahoman hands, but it has
doubtless frequently been taken and retaken.
Early in the present century, King Gezo (who came to the throne in 1818)
seized his opportunity, and after hard fighting, finally drove out the
warlike Oyos, who were sinking before the Fula or Moslem movement in the
north,[188] and distributed the tribute amongst his people,—one of his
proudest achievements. He made Kana a kind of _villagiatura_ for the
Court, free and easy as such country quarters generally are, and resided
in it when his troops went forth to their lesser wars. The remnant of
the Oyo population was enlisted in his army, and was well-nigh killed
out during the attack upon Abeokuta in 1851. And that the subjugation of
so terrible an enemy might not be forgotten by his dynasty, Gezo—not his
son, as the missionaries believe,—then instituted a sacrifice at Kana,
which opens as it were the customs of Agbome. The victims are made to
personate in dress and avocation Oyos, a pastoral and agricultural
people.[189]
There is little to be seen at Kana, a wall-less scatter of huts and
houses, thickening as usual around the palace and the market-places, and
straggling over some three miles of ground. The population may at usual
times amount to 4000, about one-third that of Whydah.[190] According to
some enthusiastic travellers, the cultivation rivals that of the
Chinese; at present all such art has been lost. The situation is low;
the air hot, humid, and unwholesome: the sea-breeze somewhat tempers the
day, but the nights are extremely oppressive, and during the rains,
fevers are rife.
About one mile to the south-westward of the English house is an old
palace of a Dahoman king, by some named Agaja, by others Tegbwesun. It
was in poor condition; in many places the wall was tattered, in others
patched with matting, and the interior was a mass of bush and jungle. As
usual, however, the entrances were kept in repair, and the ground before
them was swept and sprinkled every morning by slaves established for
that purpose. There is a tradition that the founder of this decayed
palace lies here buried: if so, the remains have been removed to the
great Agbome palace, where there is a single “family vault.”
[Footnote 172: The animal, in 1803, was common throughout the country;
now it is a “curio,” having been well-nigh killed out. About three
months before our arrival at Whydah, Mr. Dawson had bought a pair of
tusks, and spoke of the occurrence as rare.]
[Footnote 173: This old Africo-English term is a literal translation of
the Ffon “nyi siyen-siyen.”]
[Footnote 174: The wood is light, canary-coloured, and pretty much like
what I have seen at Fernando Po. The stick-making industry seems here to
pay: the cheapest specimens cost half a dollar. Before an axe-edge of
iron or silver can be added, the King’s permission must be obtained.]
[Footnote 175: For an account of the rainbow worship, see chap. xvii.
Danh, as has been seen, also means a snake; but the seaboard god has few
honours here.]
[Footnote 176: Zogbodo also means a woman’s top-knot of hair, the
Shushah of the Arab. Mr. Duncan (vol. i. p. 205) writes Togbado; not a
misprint, but probably an error of his notes.]
[Footnote 177: An iron figure of the Logozo, the land tortoise, or
terrapin, is much used in the Bo-Fetish. The Egbas believe mirage to be
caused by an underground fire with which the tortoise fells the trees. I
could not find the idea in Dahome.]
[Footnote 178: They are not Amazons, as Commodore Wilmot (Appendix iii.)
thinks, but the slaves of the fighting women, who each hold from one to
fifty. When any of the King’s wives appear they are preceded by such
attendants, and are accompanied by Amazons, who, however, carry only
their muskets. It is the same with the royal Fetish women when going to
fetch water for the great Nesu; they are known by their white raiment
and long strings of cowries. On these occasions the male lieges must run
off afar and turn their backs. Women only clear the way.]
[Footnote 179: Gan is any metal; gan-wi (lit. black metal) specifies
iron. The bell in question is a rude unbrazed affair not unlike that
appropriated to our sheep, and it is carried suspended to a cord round
the neck of the file leader. At the sight of a man it is vigorously
shaken up and down with one hand.]
[Footnote 180: The same is the custom amongst the Dembos of the old
Congo empire. A man who refused to quit the path when a chief’s wife
approached, or who stood talking with her, would be sold with his family
into slavery: on the other hand, the woman, under pain of her lord’s
displeasure, yielded the way to a white man or a black-white—one
authorised to wear shoes and other articles of European toilette.]
[Footnote 181: I could not obtain a reliable translation of this name.
Mr. Beecham rendered it “commander-in-chief’s pool.”]
[Footnote 182: Agbo (with the peculiar “gb” pronounced simultaneously, a
gate), and nun (mouth, or side).]
[Footnote 183: A name always given to children that have been sent from
Deadland by their great-grandmothers.]
[Footnote 184: Akho, or Akhosu (a king), and Vi (a child, son, or young
one). So “Tom” was known amongst the people as Yewe-no-vi (literally,
godmother-son), young missionary.]
[Footnote 185: “The people, I have said already, are void either of
sympathy or gratitude, even in their own families; and the poor horse is
not held in half so much esteem as the swine, because they cannot eat
it.” This is a true remark by Mr. Duncan.]
[Footnote 186: “Mina” must not be confounded with Dutch Elmina, on the
Gold Coast; it refers to Elmina Chica, on the Slave Coast. Locally all
the peoples between Little Popo and Accra are called “Mina.” When
Dahoman kings fail to capture an attacked place, they erect at one of
the capitals a palace which is dubbed after the victor, and this
satisfies the vanquished. Hence, because Dahome was defeated by Ashanti,
the Kumasi palace at Agbome was added to the older establishments. Mr.
Duncan errs (vol. ii. p. 274) when stating of the latter, “This palace
was built and named about the time when the present king (Gezo) threw
off his allegiance to the kingdom of Ashantee, the king of which
formerly boasted that he could hold Dahomey in vassalage.”]
[Footnote 187: The word “Eyeo” has greatly vexed West African writers
before the days of Clapperton and Lander. D’Anville uses Gogo; Rennell,
Gugoo; Adams (1823) writes it “Hio.” The “History of Dahomey” (1793)
gives us Yahoo (from Snelgrave); Oyeo and Okyou (Barbot); Eyeo (Dalzel);
and, in conclusion, they confound it with Anago, or the Egba country.
“Probably this may be the kingdom of Gago (Kuku, or Gugoo!), which lies
to the northward of Dahomey eight or ten days’ journey. The Moorish
aspirated sound of G being nearly like a hard H, as in the word George,
spelt jorje by the Spaniards, and pronounced Horké, or Horché; whence
Gago may have been sounded Haho, Haiho, or Haiko.” Admirable reasoning!
Mr. Norris’s map places the Ayoes or Eyeos north of Lagos, which is not
far wrong. Bosman speaks of an invasion of Ardra, in 1698, by a powerful
inland people, which some conjecture to be the “Eyeos.” Oyo (pronounced
Awyaw), _alias_ Katanga, was the capital of Yoruba proper on the
northern region, destroyed in 1835 by the Moslem Fulas, and still, I
believe, a heap of ruins. When the falling structure crumbled, the
maritime provinces asserted their independence, and have ever since
preserved it. The History gives wonderful accounts of Oyo’s former
power. It frequently sent forth 100,000 horsemen. The general, it is
said, used to spread a thick buffalo-hide before his tent and make the
soldiery pass between two spears till a hole had been worn in it. When
greater undertakings were in prospect, two hides used thus to be
treated.]
[Footnote 188: See “Wanderings in West Africa.”—Abeokuta, chap. v.]
[Footnote 189: It is called Gezo’s custom, and is performed at Kana, not
at Agbome. Mr. Bernasko saw it in May, 1863; he describes it thus: “Near
the second side of the (palace) wall were eleven platforms, erected on
poles about forty feet high. On each of these was the dead body of a man
in an erect position, clothed in the native style, each having in his
hand a calabash or similar vessel, filled with oil, grain, or some other
produce of the country. One was represented leading a sheep, also dead.
All this was intended to illustrate that at Canna, of which they (the
Dahomans) are now masters, they were once obliged to pay tribute.” The
Kana custom is described by Mr. Duncan, vol. i. p. 219. In his day the
bodies had been exposed about two moons and a half, till the skin, from
exposure, had turned nearly to the colour of that of a white man. “The
vulture was industriously endeavouring to satisfy his appetite, but the
heat of the sun had dried the skin so as to make it impenetrable to his
efforts.”]
[Footnote 190: No reliance can be placed upon native or quasi-native
estimate of numbers, especially in towns. The traveller is reduced to
the rude experiment of counting houses, and multiplying by what he
learns to be the average household.]