Akkrah and Adampe, Gold Coast, Africa. 339 



few ochros. At this season these edibles obtain a temporary prefe- 

 rence beyond others ; and since some care and trouble is lavished 

 in their culinary preparation, they naturally become the favourite 

 dishes, which all ranks seek and partake of with avidity. 



On Saturday or Hau, the termination of the old year, oblations 

 are offered to the manes of their ancestors : portions of the preced- 

 ing kinds of food being placed around their graves in the different 

 compartments of the mansion.* Haughbah or Sunday is the most 

 venerated, on account of its being the first day of the new year, the 

 birth of which is ushered in by a strange medley of congratulations 

 and laments, the latter more exclusively emanating from the female 

 sex, who, with pathetic exclamations and a profusion of tears, bewail 

 those members of the family who, during the intervening period 

 between the past and present custom, have departed this life for the 

 regions of another world. 



About this time the congenial rehearsals of feasting and dissipa- 

 tion attain their zenith, and although their most disgusting features 

 are seldom openly displayed, yet, within the walls and inner courts 

 of the larger domiciles, the vociferous chanting, boisterous mirth, 

 and clamorous bickerings of their intoxicated inmates, bear ample 

 testimony to the dissolute revels performed therein. To the philo- 

 sophical observer, these indications of moral degradation create 

 melancholy reflections, and excite in him impressions of painful sur- 

 prise, how a people like the present, after the lapse of so many cen- 

 turies, should have so partially emerged from the depths of primitive 

 barbarism, when endowed with these important advantages that 

 accrue from an eligible position, fertile country, and the intimate 

 alliance with more enlightened Europeans who have resided so long 

 amongst them, and have constantly reciprocated their commercial 

 wants for so great a number of years. 



The Tuesday following is a day more exclusively dedicated to the 

 performance of certain religious ceremonies to which the natives are 

 much addicted ; and as they are more or less interpolated with most 

 other public festivities, they, in general, compose the most solemn 

 and impressive portion of them. By all grades of people, therefore, 

 a considerable amount of deference and awe is paid to these supersti- 

 tious observances, inasmuch as they believe that some mysterious 



* A similar custom was observed by the Romans, on the celebration of their 

 feasts, called Silicernia, in which food was provided for the dead, and deposited 

 on their graves. It is alluded to in Ovid, de Fastis, lib. 2, 533, as follows : — 



" Est honor et tumulis. animas placate j>aternas ; 

 Parvaque in extinctas munera ferte pyras. 

 Parva petunt manes, pietas pro divite grata est 

 Munere. non avidos Styx habet ima Deos. 

 Tegula projectis satis est velata coronis ; 

 Et sparsae fruges, parcaque mica salis : 

 Inque mero, mollita Ceres, violaeque solutae." 



