SUPERSTITIONS, 
261 
CHAPTER IV. 
Superstitions. 
Th e Negro tradition of the book and the calabash, cited by St. 
Pierre, is familiar to every native of these parts, and seems the 
source of their religious opinions. Impressed that the blind avarice 
of their forefathers inclined all the favour of the supreme God to 
white men, they believe themselves to have been committed to the 
mediating care of subordinate deities, necessarily as inferior to the 
primary, as they are to Europeans. 
As the Ashantee manner of relating this tradition differs a 
little from that of the Fantee, I will repeat it, on the authority of 
Odumata and other principal men. In the beginning of the world, 
God created three white and three black men, with the same 
number of women ; he resolved, that they might not afterwards 
complain, to give them their choice of good and evil. A large box 
or calabash was set on the ground, with a piece of paper, sealed 
up, on one side of it. God gave the black men the first choice, 
who took the box, expecting it contained every thing, but, on 
opening it, there appeared only a piece of gold, a piece of iron, 
and several other metals, of which they did not know the use. The 
white men opening the paper, it told them every thing. God left 
the blacks in the bush, but conducted the whites to the water side, 
(for this happened in Africa) communicated with them every night, 
and taught them to build a small ship which carried them to 
