SUPERSTITIONS, 
263 
to haunt the gloom of the forest, stealing occasionally to their 
former abodes in rare but Hngering visits. Those who have ne- 
glected the custom, or funeral rites of their family, are thought to 
be accursed and troubled by their spirits. 
There are two orders of fetishmen. The first class dwell with 
the fetish,* who has a small round house, built generally at a 
distance from the town. They question the oracle respecting the 
future fortune of a state or an individual, convey its advice, and 
enjoin the attention of the audible spirits of those, any member of 
their family would question respecting property or domestic 
circumstances : 
" Auditur tumulo et vox reddita fertur ad aures." ^n. vi. 
The inferior class pursue their various occupations in society, 
assist in customs and superstitious ceremonies, and are applied to 
as fortune tellers or conjurors are in Europe ; especially in cases 
of theft; when, from a secret system of espionage, and a reluctance, 
frequently amounting to a refusal to discover the culprit, or to do 
* At Nanampong (Nanati means a grand-father) near Mankasim, in the Braifoo 
country, there is a deep dell, inhabited by a number of aged fetish men, whom the 
Fantees believe to be immortal, and to have lived there beyond all memory, in close con- 
verse with the fetish, and ignorant of the world but by intuition. The spirits of the aged 
and wise are beheved to dwell amongst them, and their prophecies and advice are 
revered as emanations from the fetish. Adookoo, the chief of the Braffoos, used some- 
times to consult them in person, but generally through his head fetishman, and the 
Fantees now attribute the successes of the Ashantees, and their own defeats and misfor- 
tunes, to the disregard of what the oracle enjoined; for, whilst it was obeyed, they say 
the country always prospered ; and, indeed, from the instances which have been reported 
to me, the responses appear to have directed a just and prudent policy, highly conducive 
to the welfare of Fantee. This dell is so impervious, and yet so capacious, that many 
hundred Fantees were secreted there, during the Ashantee invasions, which these priests 
had predicted. The house or temple of the principal fetish of the Ahanta country, called 
Checquoo, is at Apremmadoo, about four miles up the Takaradee riVer : upwards of fifty 
superior priests are resident there. 
