264 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
more than replace the property whence it was taken, they are 
generally successful. The magical ceremony consists in knotting, 
confusing, and dividing behind the back, several strings and shreds 
of leather. They are also frequently applied to by slippery wives, 
to work charms to keep their husbands in ignorance of a projected 
intrigue, which they affect to do. 
\ ^ ... . 
The primary dignity is hereditary in families, as the priesthood 
was in Egypt, celibacy not being enjoined ; their property is also 
hereditary, and they possess other immunities. The latter order is 
frequently augmented by those, who declare that the fetish has 
suddenly seized, or come upon them, and who, after inflicting 
great severities on themselves, in the manner of the convulsionisis, 
are ultimately acknowledged. The fetish women, generally pre- 
ferred for medical aid, as they possess a thorough knowledge of 
barks and herbs, deleterious and sanative, closely resemble the 
second class of Druidesses as described, I think by Mela: they 
seem licensed prostitutes, before and after marriage. 
The present state of these people referring them to a comparison 
with the nations of ancient Europe,* the close resemblance of 
many points of their superstition to relative particulars recorded of 
Greece and Gaul, recalls the following reflection of an eminent 
wTiter. " The truth is, there is hardly any thing more surprising 
in the history of mankind, than the simihtiide, or rather identity, 
of the opinions, institutions, and manners of all these orders of 
ancient priests, though they lived under such different climates, 
and at so great a distance from one another, without inter- 
course or communication. This amounts to a demonstration, that 
* " And here I cannot but remark, that those accounts, when compared, shew how 
httle manners and minds improve in Africa, and how long, and how much society has 
been there at a stand Jobson saw, in 1620, exactly what Park saAV in 1 798." Sir W. 
Young. 
