3 68 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Its West Indian title of Vaudoo is of Ewe origin, the 

 name meaning a superhuman spirit. The Fanti worship 

 of the python, and the superstitious awe of the silk-cotton 

 tree as the favourite abode of spirits, and other features 

 of Ewe religion, are now firmly established in some of 

 the West Indian islands. 



THE YORUBA. 



The third of the great groups of Guinea Negroes 

 are the people of Yoruba speech, whose territory 

 extends from the Niger Delta to Dahomey. The race, 

 according to its own traditions, has descended from 

 fifteen people who migrated from some eastern country 

 and settled at Ife. The Yoruba are more civilised and 

 iidvanced than the Tshi or Ewe tribes, and their culture 

 shows abundant traces of Ilaussa or Fulah influence. 

 Until the beginning of this century there was a powerful 

 Yoruba kingdom, which was overthrown by a Fulah 

 invasion in 1820. 



THE EGBA. 



One of the leading tribes is that of the Egba or 

 Egbado, of whose physical features Burton has given a 

 detailed description. According to Burton, the type is 

 Negroid that is to say, Negro altered by Ilamitic inter- 

 mixture rather than true-bred Negro. The skin is 

 usually copper-coloured, but sometimes black, while some 

 of the chiefs are almost light-coloured. The lips are not 

 thick; but the gums are blue, and the jaws are very 

 projecting. The nose is broad, with expanded nostrils; 

 but sometimes it is hooked. The cheek-bones are high. 

 Blue eyes, so often seen among the Tuaregs, are unknown. 

 The hair is short, scant, and, as Burton describes it, 

 grows over the head like peppercorns. The women 

 dress it into a series of thin longitudinal ridges. 

 The dress of the Egba consists of loose cotton drawers fastened above the knees, while 

 the body is wrapped in a mantle thrown over one shoulder. The poorer people may wear 

 only a loin-cloth. Caps of various shapes and materials, including large hats of palm leaflets, 

 are generally worn. 



Among the Egba the most noticeable ornament is a plug of coral in the left nostril. Scar- 

 and colour-tattooing are both in use. Burton describes some of the children as marked "from 

 head to foot with little gridirons of cuts, dyed dark blue by means of native antimony." 

 Scars are raised for the tribal mark, which among the Egba is a gridiron-shaped set of three 

 cuts or a multiple of three on each cheek. The free women have one, two, or three narrow 

 lines from the wrist up the back of each arm and down the back. The Yoruba mark is a set 

 of perpendicular lines running downward from the temple. The Efon have a large blue patch 

 between the cheek-bones and the ear. 



The chief town in the Yoruba country is Abeokuta, which once included 100,000 inhabitants. 

 It is still a large city of narrow, irregular streets, intersecting at every possible angle: some 

 of the thoroughfares are broad and shady, and they are used for markets. The houses are of 

 stamped mud, with high-pitched roofs of thatch. At each angle there is a high, sharp gable 



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A DAHOMEYAN 



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