.SUPERSTITIONS. 
265 
all these opinions and institutions flowed originally from one 
fountain/' 
Half the offerings to the fetish, are pretended to be thrown into 
the river, the other half belongs to the priests. The King's offering 
is generally ten ounces, and three or four slaves : that of a poor sub- 
ject about four ackies. Children are frequently vowed to the service 
of the fetish before their birth. A slave flying to the temple, may 
dash or devote himself to the fetish ; but, by paying a fee of two 
ounces of gold and four sheep, any person shuts the door of the 
fetish house against all his run away slaves.* 
Every family has a variety of domestic fetishes, furnished hy the 
priests, and answering to the Penates of the Romans ; some are 
wooden figures, others of arbitrary shapes and materials ; they 
receive offerings and libations at the yam custom, but are not 
brought out of the house.-f 
* A slave dashing or devoting himself to Checquoo, the great fetish of Ahanta, is 
never redeemed ; the impression of the superior power of that fetish being so awful, that 
the proprietor of the slave, would believe the death of all his family inevitable, were he 
to redeem him from the sanctuary. 
•f- The different states of the water side revere different animals as fetish : the hysena 
is esteemed so at Accra, the alligator at Dix Cove and Annamaboe, and vultures univer- 
sally ; and with more apparent reason, as they consume all the offal of the neighbourhood, 
and thus contribute to its health and cleanliness. A black man killing a hyaena at Accra, 
would incur a serious penalty. A European is obliged to pay a case of neat rum and 
one piece of white baft, in which the head of the animal is wrapped, and afterwards buried 
by the natives. Almost every resident on the coast, can speak to the imitative powers of 
the hysena, which Pliny has been ridiculed for reporting. In a fresh water pond at Dix- 
Cove, there is an alligator, about twelve feet long, which always appears on the bank, at 
the call of the fetish men, who I hen throM^ it a white fowl. In a modern natural history, 
I read, " in this part of the world (Africa) also, as well as at Siam, the crocodile makes 
an object of savage pomp, near the palaces of their monarchs. Philips informs us, that 
at Sabi, on the slave coast, there are two pools of water near the royal palace, where cro- 
codiles are bred as we breed carp in our ponds in Europe." I never heard of any royal 
Mm 
