HISTORY. 231 
assist in the chase. The introduction of planting and agriculture, 
seems marked in the age of their immediate descendents, the Corn 
stalk and Plantain branches. The origin and improvement of 
architecture in the Red earth ; and of commerce, probably, in the 
Palm oil; indeed, the natives have included the Portuguese, the 
first foreign traders they knew, in that family, alleging, that their 
long and more intimate intercourse with the blacks, has made the 
present race a mixture of the African and Portuguese. The Servant 
race reminds us of the curse of Canaan. This resembles a Jewish 
institution, but the people of Accra alone practise circumcision, 
and they speak a language, as will be shewn, radically distinct, yet 
not to be assimilated to the Inta, to which nation they are referred 
by the Eantees, merely because it is the nearest which practises 
circumcision. Accra is a European corruption of the word Inkran, 
which means an ant, and they say the name was either given or 
assumed on account of their numbers ; this must have been before 
their wars with the Aquamboes. 
When Adokoo, chief of the BrafFoes, a Fantee nation, consulted 
the venerable fetish men of the sanctuary, near Sooprooroo, on 
the Ashantee war, they answered, that nothing could be more 
offensive to the fetish, than the Fantees preventing the peaceable 
intercourse of their inland neighbours with the water side, because 
they were formerly all one family. 
The conduct of the later emigration of the Ashantees is ascribed 
to Sa'i Tootoo, who, assisted by other leading men of the party, 
and encouraged by superstitious omens, founded Coomassie, and 
was presented with the stool, or made King, from his superior 
qualifications. This account is supported by the mixed nature of 
the government, founded on equality and obhgation, and the exist- 
ence of a law, exempting the direct descendants of any of Sai 
Tootoo's peers and assistants, (in whom the Aristocracy originated) 
from capital punishment. 
