DAHOME--_Continued_.
THE DUPLICATE KING -- THE “CUSTOMS” OF DAHOME -- APPEARANCE OF KING
GELELE -- ETIQUETTE AT COURT -- THE KING DRINKS -- THE CALABASHES OF
STATE -- THE KING’S PROGRESS -- THE ROYAL PROCESSION -- THE FIRST
DAY OF THE CUSTOMS -- THE VICTIM-SHED AND ITS INMATES -- THE ROYAL
PAVILION -- PRELIMINARY CEREMONIALS -- THE SECOND DAY OF THE CUSTOMS
-- THE “ABLE-TO-DO-ANYTHING” CLOTH -- THE THIRD DAY -- SCRAMBLING FOR
COWRIES, AND PROCESSION OF HUNCHBACKS -- FETISHES -- CONVERSATION
WITH THE VICTIMS -- THE FOURTH DAY AND ITS EVIL NIGHT -- ESTIMATED
NUMBER OF THE VICTIMS, AND MODE OF THEIR EXECUTION -- OBJECT AND
MEANING OF THE CUSTOMS -- LETTER TO THE DEAD, AND THE POSTSCRIPT --
EXECUTION AT AGBOME -- THE BLOOD DRINKER.
Before proceeding to the dread “customs” of Dahome, we must give a
brief notice of a remarkable point in the Dahoman statecraft. Like
Japan, Dahome has two kings, but, instead of being temporal and
spiritual as in Japan, they are City king and Bush king, each having
his throne, his state, his court, his army, his officers, and his
customs. When Captain Burton visited Dahome, the City king was Gelele,
son of Gezo, and the Bush king was Addo-kpore.
The Bush king is set over all the farmers, and regulates tillage and
commerce; while the City king rules the cities, makes war, and manages
the slave trade. Consequently, the latter is so much brought into
contact with the traders that the former is scarcely ever seen except
by those who visit the country for the express purpose. He has a palace
at a place about six miles from the capital, but the building was only
made of poles and matting when Captain Burton visited it, and is not
likely to be made of stronger materials, as it was not to be built of
“swish” until Abeokuta was taken.
We will now proceed to describe, as briefly as is consistent with
truth, the customs of both kings, our authorities being restricted
to two, Mr. Duncan and Captain Burton, the latter having made many
important corrections in the statements of the former and of other
travellers. The present tense will therefore be used throughout the
description.
Gelele is a fine-looking man, with a right royal aspect. He is more
than six feet in height, thin, broad-shouldered, active, and powerful.
His hair is nearly all shaven except two cockade-like tufts, which are
used as attachments for beads and other trinkets of brass and silver.
Contrary to the usual form, he has a firm and well-pronounced chin, and
a tolerably good forehead, and, in spite of his cruel and bloodthirsty
nature, has a very agreeable smile. He wears his nails very long, and
is said, though the statement is very doubtful, that he keeps under his
talon-like nails a powerful poison, which he slily infuses in the drink
of any of his Caboceers who happen to offend him. His face is much
pitted with the small-pox, and he wears the mark of his race, namely,
three perpendicular scars on the forehead just above the nose. This is
the last remnant of a very painful mode of tatooing, whereby the cheeks
were literally carved, and the flaps of flesh turned up and forced to
heal in that position.
He is not nearly so black as his father, his skin approaching the
copper color, and it is likely that his mother was either a slave girl
from the northern Makhi, or a mulatto girl from Whydah.
On ordinary occasions he dresses very simply, his body cloth being of
white stuff edged with green, and his short drawers of purple silk. He
wears but few ornaments, the five or six iron bracelets which encircle
his arms being used more as defensive armor than as jewelry.
Still, though dressed in a far simpler style than any of his Caboceers,
he is very punctilious with regard to etiquette, and preserves the
smallest traditions with a minute rigidity worthy of the court of
Louis XIV. Although he may be sitting on a mere earthen bench, and
smoking a clumsy and very plain pipe, all his court wait upon him with
a reverence that seems to regard him as a demi-god rather than a man.
Should the heat, from which he is sheltered as much as possible by the
royal umbrella, produce a few drops on his brow, they are delicately
wiped off by one of his wives with a fine cloth; if the tobacco prove
rather too potent, a brass or even a gold spittoon is placed before the
royal lips. If he sneezes, the whole assembled company burst into a
shout of benedictions. The chief ceremony takes place when he drinks.
As soon as he raises a cup to his lips, two of his wives spread a white
cloth in front of him, while others hold a number of gaudy umbrellas so
as to shield him from view. Every one who has a gun fires it, those who
have bells beat them, rattles are shaken, and all the courtiers bend to
the ground, clapping their hands. As to the commoners, they turn their
backs if sitting, if standing they dance like bears, paddling with
their hands as if they were paws, bawling “Poo-oo-oo” at the top of
their voices.
If a message is sent from him, it is done in a most circuitous manner.
He first delivers the message to the Dakro, a woman attached to the
court. She takes it to the Meu, and the Meu passes it on to the Mingan,
and the Mingan delivers it to the intended recipient. When the message
is sent to the king, the order is reversed, and, as each officer has to
speak to a superior, a salutation is used neatly graduated according
to rank. When the message at last reaches the Dakro, she goes down on
all-fours, and whispers the message into the royal ears. So tenacious
of trifles is the native memory, that the message will travel through
this circuitous route without the loss or transposition of a word.
When any one, no matter what may be his rank, presents himself before
the king, he goes through a ceremony called “Itte d’ai,” or lying on
the ground. He prostrates himself flat on his face, and with his hands
shovels the dust all over his person. He also kisses the ground, and
takes care when he rises to have as much dust as possible on his huge
lips. Face, hands, limbs, and clothes are equally covered with dust,
the amount of reverence being measured by the amount of dust. No one
approaches the king erect: he must crawl on all-fours, shuffle on his
knees, or wriggle along like a snake.
Wherever Gelele holds his court, there are placed before him three
large calabashes, each containing the skull of a powerful chief whom
he had slain. The exhibition of these skulls is considered as a mark
of honor to their late owners, and not, as has been supposed, a sign
of mockery or disgrace. One is bleached and polished like ivory, and
is mounted on a small ship made of brass. The reason for this curious
arrangement is, that when Gezo died, the chief sent a mocking message
to Gelele, saying that the sea had dried up, and men had seen the end
of Dahome. Gelele retaliated by invading his territory, killing him,
and mounting his skull on a ship, as a token that there was plenty of
water left to float the vessel.
The second skull is mounted with brass so as to form a drinking cup.
This was done because the owner had behaved treacherously to Gelele
instead of assisting him. In token, therefore, that he ought to have
“given water to a friend in affliction”--the metaphorical mode of
expressing sympathy--Gelele and his courtiers now drink water out of
his skull. The third was the skull of a chief who had partaken of this
treachery, and his skull was accordingly mounted with brass fittings
which represented the common country trap, in order to show that he had
set a trap, and fallen into it himself. All these skulls were without
the lower jaw, that being the most coveted ornament for umbrellas and
sword-handles. Sad to say, with the usual negro disregard of inflicting
pain, the captor tears the jaw away while the victim is still alive,
cutting through both cheeks with one hand and tearing away the jaw with
the other.
The same minute and grotesque etiquette accompanies the king as he
proceeds to Agbome, the real capital, to celebrate the So-Sin Custom,
and it is impossible to read the accounts of the whole proceeding
without being struck with the ingenuity by which the negro has pressed
into the service of barbarism everything European that he can lay his
hands upon, while he has invariably managed thereby to make the rites
ludicrous instead of imposing.
First came a long line of chiefs, distinguished by their flags and
umbrellas, and, after marching once round the large space or square,
they crossed over and formed a line of umbrellas opposite the gateway.
Then came the royal procession itself, headed by skirmishers and led by
a man carrying one of the skull-topped banners. After these came some
five hundred musketeers, and behind them marched two men carrying large
leathern shields painted white, and decorated with a pattern in black.
These are highly valued, as remnants of the old times when shields
were used in warfare, and were accompanied by a guard of tall negroes,
wearing brass helmets and black horse-tails.
[Illustration: (1.) AMAZON REVIEW. (See page 571.)]
[Illustration: (2.) THE KING’S DANCE. (See page 577.)]
Next came the Kafo, or emblem of royalty, namely, an iron fetish-stick
enclosed in a white linen case, topped with a white plume; and after
the Kafo came the king, riding under the shade of four white umbrellas,
and further sheltered from the sun by three parasols, yellow, purple,
and bluish red. These were waved over him so as to act as fans.
After the king was borne the great fetish axe, followed by the “band,”
a noisy assemblage of performers on drums, rattles, trumpets, cymbals,
and similar instruments. Two specimens of ivory trumpets, with various
strange devices elaborately carved, are represented in an engraving on
the 558th page. The right-hand trumpet has a crucified figure on it.
Lastly came a crowd of slaves laden with chairs, baskets of cowries,
bottles, and similar articles, the rear being brought up by a pair of
white and blue umbrellas and a tattered flag.
Six times the king was carried round the space, during two of the
circuits being drawn in a nondescript wheeled vehicle, and on the
third circuit being carried, carriage and all, on the shoulders of his
attendants. The fourth and fifth circuits were made _in a Bath chair_,
and the sixth in the same vehicle carried as before. The king then
withdrew to the opposite side of the space, and the Amazons made their
appearance, dashing into the space in three companies, followed by
the Fanti companies already described. These young women showed their
agility in dancing, and were followed by a calabash adorned with skulls
and a number of flags, escorted by twelve Razor women.
By this time the king had transferred himself to a hammock of yellow
silk, suspended from a black pole ornamented with silver sharks--this
fish being a royal emblem--and tipped with brass at each end. Twelve
women carried the hammock, and others shaded and fanned him as before.
These preliminaries being completed, all retired to rest until the
following day, which was to be the first of the So-Sin or Horse-tie
Customs.
The first object that strikes the eye of the observer is a large shed
about one hundred feet long, forty wide, and sixty high, having at
one end a double-storied turret, and the whole being covered with a
red cloth. At the time of which we are treating there sat in the shed
twenty of the victims to be sacrificed. They were all seated on stools,
and bound tightly to the posts by numerous cords. No unnecessary pain
was inflicted: they were fed four times in the day, were loosened at
night for sleeping, and were furnished with attendants who kept off the
flies. They were dressed in a sort of San Benito costume, namely, a
white calico shirt, bound with red ribbon, and having a crimson patch
on the left breast. On the head was a tall pointed white cap, with
blue ribbon wound spirally round it. In spite of their impending fate,
the victims did not seem to be unhappy, and looked upon the scene with
manifest curiosity.
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 20_l._”
The evening of the fourth day is the dreaded Evil Night, on which the
king walks in solemn procession to the market-place, where the chief
executioner with his own hand puts to death those victims who have been
reserved. The precise nature of the proceedings is not known, as none
are allowed to leave their houses except the king and his retinue; and
any one who is foolish enough to break this law is carried off at once
to swell the list of victims. It is said that the king speaks to the
men, charging them with messages to his dead father, telling him that
his memory is revered, and that a number of new attendants have been
sent to him, and with his own hand striking the first blow, the others
being slain by the regular executioner.
The bodies of the executed were now set upon a pole, or hung up by
their heels, and exhibited to the populace, much as used to be done in
England, when a thief was first executed, and then hung in chains.
The number of these victims has been much exaggerated. In the annual
Customs, the number appears to be between sixty and eighty. Some
thirty of these victims are men, and suffer by the hand of the chief
executioner or his assistants; but it is well known that many women are
also put to death within the palace walls, the bloodthirsty Amazons
being the executioners. The mode of execution is rather remarkable.
After the king has spoken to the victims, and dictated his messages,
the executioners fall upon them and beat them to death with their
official maces. These instruments are merely wooden clubs, armed on one
side of the head with iron knobs. Some, however, say that the victims
are beheaded; and it is very likely that both modes are employed.
As to the stories that have been so frequently told of the many
thousand human victims that are annually slain, and of the canoe which
is paddled by the king in a trench filled with human blood, they are
nothing more than exaggerations invented by traders for the purpose of
frightening Englishmen out of the country. Even in the Grand Customs
which follow the decease of a king the number of victims is barely five
hundred.
We may naturally ask ourselves what is the meaning of the Customs, or
So-Sin. This ceremony is the accepted mode of doing honor to the late
king, by sending to him a number of attendants befitting his rank.
Immediately after his burial, at the Grand Customs, some five hundred
attendants, both male and female, are despatched to the dead king,
and ever afterward his train is swelled by those who are slain at the
regular annual Customs.
Besides the Customs there is scarcely a day when executions of a
similar character do not take place. Whatever the king does must be
reported to his father by a man, who is first charged with the message
and then killed. No matter how trivial the occasion may be--if a white
man visits him, if he has a new drum made, or even if he moves from one
house to another--a messenger is sent to tell his father. And if after
the execution the king should find that he has forgotten something,
away goes another messenger, like the postscript of a letter.
All this terrible destruction of human life, which is estimated by
Burton as averaging five hundred per annum in ordinary years, and a
thousand in the Grand Customs year, is bad enough, but not so bad
as it has been painted. The victims are not simple subjects of the
king selected for the sacrifice of bloodthirsty caprice, as has been
generally supposed. They are either criminals or prisoners of war, and,
instead of being executed on the spot, are reserved for the customs,
and are treated as well as is consistent with their safe custody.
Indeed, considering the object for which they are reserved, it would be
bad policy for the Dahoman king to behave cruelly toward his victims.
They are intended as messengers to his father, about whom they are ever
afterward supposed to wait, and it would be extremely impolitic in the
present king to send to his father a messenger who was ill-disposed
toward himself, and who might, therefore, garble his message, or
deliver an evil report to the dead sovereign.
As a rule, the victims in question are quite cheerful and contented,
and about as unlike our ideas of doomed men as can well be imagined. In
the first place, they are constitutionally indifferent to human life,
their own lives with those of others being equally undervalued; and,
as they know that their lives are forfeit, they accept the position
without useless murmurs. Nor is the mode of death so painful as seems
at first sight to be the case, for the king, actuated by that feeling
of pity which caused the Romans to stupefy with a soporific draught the
senses of those who were condemned to the cross, mostly administers to
the victims a bottle or so of rum about an hour before the execution,
so that they are for the most part insensible when killed.
This humane alleviation of their sufferings is, however, restricted to
those who die at the customs, and is not extended to those who perish
by the hands of the executioner as messengers to the deceased king. How
these executions are conducted may be seen by the following account of
a scene at Dahome by Mr. Duncan:--
“The ceremonies of this day were nearly a repetition of those of
yesterday, till the time arrived (an hour before sunset) when the four
traitors were brought into the square for execution. They marched
through the mob assembled round apparently as little concerned as the
spectators, who seemed more cheerful than before the prisoners made
their appearance, as if they were pleased with the prospect of a change
of performance. The prisoners were marched close past me in slow time;
consequently I had a good opportunity of minutely observing them,
particularly as every person remained on his knees, with the exception
of myself and the guard who accompanied the prisoners.
“They were all young men, of the middle size, and appeared to be of
one family, or at least of the same tribe of Makees, who are much
better-looking than the people of the coast. Each man was gagged with a
short piece of wood, with a small strip of white cotton tied round each
end of the stick, and passed round the pole. This was to prevent them
from speaking. They were arranged in line, kneeling before the king.
“The head gang-gang man then gave four beats on the gong, as one--two,
and one--two; the upper part of the gang-gang being smaller than the
lower, and thus rendering the sounds different, similar to the public
clocks in England when striking the quarters. After the four beats the
gang-gang man addressed the culprits upon the enormity of their crime
and the justice of their sentence. During this lengthened harangue the
gang-gang was struck at short intervals, which gave a sort of awful
solemnity to the scene. After this, the men were suddenly marched some
distance back from his majesty, who on this occasion refused to witness
the execution. The men were then ordered to kneel in line about nine
feet apart, their hands being tied in front of the body, and the elbows
held behind by two men, the body of the culprit bending forward.
“Poor old Mayho, who is an excellent man, was the proper executioner.
He held the knife or bill-hook to me, but I again declined the honor;
when the old man, at one blow on the back of the neck, divided the
head from the body of the first culprit, with the exception of a
small portion of the skin, which was separated by passing the knife
underneath. Unfortunately the second man was dreadfully mangled, for
the poor fellow at the moment the blow was struck having raised his
head, the knife struck in a slanting direction, and only made a large
wound; the next blow caught him on the back of the head, when the brain
protruded. The poor fellow struggled violently. The third stroke caught
him across the shoulders, indicting a dreadful gash. The next caught
him on the neck, which was twice repeated. The officer steadying the
criminal now lost his hold on account of the blood which rushed from
the blood-vessels on all who were near. Poor old Mayho, now quite
palsied, took hold of the head, and after twisting it several times
round, separated it from the still convulsed and struggling trunk.
During the latter part of this disgusting execution the head presented
an awful spectacle, the distortion of the features, and the eyeballs
completely upturned, giving it a horrid appearance.
“The next man, poor fellow, with his eyes partially shut and head
drooping forward near to the ground, remained all this time in
suspense; casting a partial glance on the head which was now close to
him, and the trunk dragged close past him, the blood still rushing from
it like a fountain. Mayho refused to make another attempt, and another
man acted in his stead, and with one blow separated the spinal bones,
but did not entirely separate the head from the body. This was finished
in the same manner as the first. However, the fourth culprit was not so
fortunate, his head not being separated till after three strokes. The
body afterward rolled over several times, when the blood spurted over
my face and clothes.
“The most disgusting part of this abominable and disgusting execution
was that of an ill-looking wretch, who, like the numerous vultures,
stood with a small calabash in his hand, ready to catch the blood from
each individual which he greedily devoured before it had escaped one
minute from the veins. The old wretch had the impudence to put some
rum in the blood and ask me to drink: at that moment I could with good
heart have sent a bullet through his head.
“Before execution the victim is furnished with a clean white cloth to
tie round the loins. After decapitation the body is immediately dragged
off by the heels to a large pit at a considerable distance from the
town, and thrown therein, and is immediately devoured by wolves and
vultures, which are here so ravenous that they will almost take your
victuals from you.”
Captain Burton says that he never saw this repulsive part of the
sacrificial ceremony, and states that there is only one approach to
cannibalism in Dahome. This is in connection with the worship of the
thunder god, and is described on page 586.