Akkrah and Adampe, Gold Coast, Africa. 121 



extended, the male below and the female above the remains of their 

 late lord. Latterly, owing to the strict surveillance of the British 

 Government, these barbarous rites have been temporarily abolished ; 

 but there can be little doubt that should these people ever become 

 emancipated from the jurisdiction of Europeans, they would again re- 

 vert to the observance of what to them is viewed in the solemn 

 hVht of a sacred obligation. 



On these melancholy occasions the wives and other near female 

 relatives lament, in pathetic terms, their unfortunate bereavement, 

 and affect to deplore, by external manifestations of grief, the irre- 

 parable loss they have sustained. The hair is totally shaven from 

 the head, every ornament and personal decoration removed, and 

 dark and sombre garments substituted in lieu of their ordinary dress, 

 whose gayer hues were more emblematic of the cheerful days of the 

 past, than of the gloomy prospects of the present. To evince the 

 sincerity of their grief, the women studiously observe a solemn 

 fast, abstain from every kind of food throughout the day, withdraw 

 from public life, and immure themselves privately within the recesses 

 of their respective chambers. For the space of three weeks or more, 

 during the continuance of the custom that invariably succeeds, these 

 injunctions are unequivocally obeyed, after which a certain degree of 

 laxity follows, and the confinement of the wives becomes less restricted, 

 they being permitted to frequent other divisions of the house and 

 court-yards, and should circumstances compel an exit from their 

 seclusion, a grave decorum is still preserved, and those conventional 

 precedents that denote the mournful character of the duties entailed 

 upon them, are carefully exhibited. The partial or entire removal 

 of the hair, as a native testimony of affliction and sorrow, is one of 

 those remarkable peculiarities that bear a close affinity to the or- 

 dinances introduced by the Jewish legislator in the 21st chapter of 

 Deuteronomy, in which it is duly enjoined as follows : — • 



" Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall 

 shave her head and pare her nails. And she shall put the raiment 

 of captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail 

 her father and mother a full month." 



That this was a usage of great antiquity, and common to many 

 nations from the earliest ages of the world, long previous to its dis- 

 semination among the Jews, may be distinctly affirmed. Mention 

 has been made of its prevalence by Herodotus, who relates that " it 

 is elsewhere customary in cases of death, for those who are most 

 nearly affected, to cut off their hair in testimony of sorrow : but the 

 Egyptians, who, at other times, have their heads closely shaven, 

 suffer the hair on this occasion to grow." * It was also equally 

 practised by the Greeks upon the intelligence of any public or pri- 



[;ib. 2, c. 36 ; vide also 1. 6, c. 21. 



