# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 13/Issue 48/Readings

READINGS.
Ashanti Fetishes and Oracles. In the "Bulletin de la Société Neuchateloise de Geographie," vol. xi. 1899, E. Perregaux, missionary at Abetifi in Ashanti-land, under the head of "Le fétichisme," gives an instructive account of Ashanti belief. The idea of a creative deity, he says, is found among all peoples of the Gold Coast, the same name, Onyame, or the Superior Being, being applied to the heaven. It has been maintained that the conception has been borrowed from Europeans; the writer, on the contrary, thinks that the locutions in which the name is employed show it to have an ancient origin.
"The Ashantis recognize the existence of a Superior Being whom they adore, but in a vague manner. They commonly consecrate to him the trunk of a tree which they have cut down in the forest and transported to the inner court of their huts; they call it Onyame dua, tree of God, place at its summit a sort of earthen pan in which they pour their offerings, consisting of palm wine, eggs, feathers of hens, and like objects. Whenever they drink palm wine, they pour on the ground some drops before carrying it to their lips, and do the same thing when they eat their fufu. If you inquire the significance of this action, they answer that they are thanking God. They have, for the rest, singular traditions to explain the origin of the cult offered to fetishes.
"At the commencement of the world, in the night of time, Onyame (God) was in daily relations with men. He came on the earth, conversed with mankind, and all went well; but one day the women, in pounding their fufu, used too long pestles and struck God, who in anger retired from the world, leaving its management to subaltern divinities. These are spirits (fetishes), who dwell everywhere, in waters, woods, rocks, and it is necesto conciliate them, unless one is willing to encounter their displeasure. Hence the worship rendered to fetishes. …
"Every native has his personal god, his sumâvi, which might also be called amulet, talisman, or charm. Anything may serve the purpose,—feathers of different birds, pearls, a piece of wood, a stone, a piece of leather bought at a high price from a priest of fetishes. And you will see him offer to his fetish libations of palm-wine or brandy, palm-oil, maize, fowls, or anoint his fetish with the blood of a ram or a sheep. He invokes it in all the circumstances of his life, and always expects to see his prayer granted. He devotes himself also to rites and customs of all sorts which have no connection with the object of his prayer. For example, in order to obtain the cure of a beloved personage, or success in any enterprise, you will see him, according to his own account, under the influence of the fetish, surround his huts with a palisade of twigs, stretch lianas from one hut to another, suspend rags to boughs, surround two pieces of wood with a bit of cloth and fix them in the ground, crucify birds in earth, rub with eggs the door-posts of his house, and accomplish every kind of similar ceremonies."
​In order to show the confidence entertained in the sumâvi, M. Perregaux cites the case of a woman who had destroyed many lives by witchcraft through the aid of her fetish, which in consequence was ordered to be burned. The woman preferred to keep her sumâvi, and abandon to slavery her daughter and four little children.
"Beside the sumâvi there is also the bosoum, the tutelar god of a city or family. This is either a river, as the Afram in Okwaou, or the Tano in Ashanti, or a rock, as the Buraka, or only a heap of clayey earth whitened with chalk, as the Deute. This bosoum is served by a qualified priest, the osofo. Recourse is had to him in the serious circumstances of life. When everything goes well, when existence follows its usual course, they are content with the sumâvi, but in the event of an extraordinary emergency, an epidemic, a war, a grave malady, it is to the bosoum that they resort. They then address the priest, the osofo, who consults the fetish. Offerings are brought to him, which he places before his fetish, then, after ceremonies one more absurd than another, intended to attract the attention of the fetish, the priest pretends to receive directions which he transmits to his solicitors.
"Let us take a concrete example, and see how things pass when one goes to consult the fetish Deute, at Krakye, the most known and most powerful on the Gold Coast.
"This fetish is served by two priests. One lives in public and is well known, while the other remains concealed, is known to nobody, and considered as the great priest of the fetish. For the rest, all the inhabitants of Krakye are affiliated to the fetish and labor to augment his prestige and renown. If a stranger arrives in the town to consult the fetish, he is made to talk, interrogated, information is obtained concerning the object of his journey, his family circumstance, all this without display, and these details, it is unnecessary to say, are carefully communicated to the priest, who derives from them all possible profit. In the night, when all the world is asleep, he goes to find his secret companion, relates to him all he knows, and prepares with him the seance of the morrow. In fact, it is not possible to interrogate the fetish every day; monsieur has his hours of consulation, and that but once a week. He inhabits a great cavern, in which, during the day, is kept his secret priest, and thither come the people to consult him, under the direction of the public priest.
"The procession arrives with the priest at the head, to the sound of tambourines and horns, and places itself at the entrance of the cave, but turning the back to it; none dares gaze. I relate this verbally after the report of a native. Then in the cavern is heard something like the sound of a bell,—wuui-wuui-wuui,—and every one feels as if a pail of cold water were poured down his back! Then come salutations, the throng presents to the fetish its homages, crying out the most flattering epithets: Nana è, nana è (grandfather), ape̱-ade-ahû (seer), opam-boy (stone-uniter), and the like. The entry of the cave is closed by a great curtain; then stands the public priest and transmits to the multitude the answers of the fetish. The latter, utilizing the details which he has found means to collect during ​the week, unveils to his astonished listeners their antecedents, their family secrets, and gives them thus a high idea of his science.
"Finally the solicitors bring their offerings, which consist of palm-wine, couries, fowls, or sheep; the fetish fixes a day when he will receive them to give his response. Remarkable answers are cited, which denote much finesse and judgment.
"I will also mention Atia-Yaw, the most important fetish of Okwaou. He was known and feared for leagues about. Up to the time of the arrival of the missionaries, none contested his power, none had the idea of doubting his existence and potency.
"Some affirmed that he was a spirit, others saw in him an animal. These last, for a period, were right; it is said that during several successive years a gorilla played the part of the fetish. In fact, no one had seen him, none had touched him, except the king or the chiefs, to whom at times he extended a little hand, hairy and unrecognizable, without revealing himself."
This divinity also lived in a cage, where he gave responses, after the manner of Virgil's Sibyl.
"He made, for example, great use of leaves from trees, the different properties of which he had recognized. Sometimes he chewed them, and contrived to produce with them as much smoke as the most furious smoker; at other times he threw them into a calabash full of water, passed and repassed a leaf of white paper on a burning brazier, soaked it in a calabash, and drew it forth covered with signs which resembled Chinese or Japanese characters, all accompanied with mimicry intended to deceive the public. These characters, professing to be printed, were supposed to give the answer of the fetish to the questions which had been put to him."
The writer shows that the arts of the juggler are employed, that the priest is put to death and brought to life again, that poison is used, and that it is the habit of the fetish to emerge at night.
"Atia-Yaw, however, did not remain confined in his cavern: he allowed himself promenades. Preceded by a forerunner, who announced his approach by means of a shrill whistle, and cried, 'Here is the father!' he traversed the town in every direction, and woe to those who encountered him! A stab, a shot, made them comprehend that it is never well to be curious. He generally arrived at the fall of night, between six and a half and seven in the evening. At such times every one fled into his house and put out his fire, for it was supposed that the fetish could not bear fire. At other times he took malignant pleasure in chasing the inhabitants out of the city to dung-heaps, where they became the victims of the ants constantly found there. He presented himself under all sorts of forms. Sometimes he came furious and made every one tremble ; sometimes he tranquilly promenaded the streets, even presented himself before the king and discussed politics, naturally always through the medium of his priest."
M. Perregaux gives an account of the initiation of a candidate to the secret society formed by the priests. This rite, according to the account, includes transfusion of blood, and is supposed to give the power of giving ​life to the dead. Priestesses also are found who take part in the dances, and appear possessed by the demon.
M. Perregaux's account throws light not only on African but also on ancient European oracles.
Yaqui Witchcraft.—In "The Land of Sunshine" (Los Angeles) for July, 1899, in an account of a visit to the Yaqui Indians by V. Granville, mention is made of the manner in which a widow, for the sake of the support of herself and her children, deliberately becomes a witch by profession:—
"That witchcraft and idol worship are not yet dead among the Yaquis I soon discovered while wandering among the people of the small villages along the river. At an Indian hut I was shown a 'bruja,' or witch doll, by an unusually intelligent Yaqui woman, the mother of seven children, whose husband had been put to death, she averred, on the accusation of having the 'evil eye.' The doll was ten inches long, made of black cloth and stuffed with wool. It was stuck full of the sharp thorns of the maguey plant, and it was believed that the enemies of the family suffered excruciating pain so long as the thorns remained in the doll. The story that the mother told me was pathetic. She said, in excellent Spanish: 'My husband was a good man, a miner at the placer diggings on the Rio Aros. He was away from home most of the time, and came to see us only two or three times a year. I lived at the village with the little ones, so that they could go to the padre to learn to read. It cost almost all my husband earned at the mines to buy us food and clothes and pay the padre. But there were those in the village who were jealous of me and the little ones because we had more than they, and the reason was that we drank no tequila, and they, our enemies, spent all their money for drink. One day when my husband came to see us and brought money, old Pedro and some of the other men came and asked him to join them at the cantina, where other miners were drinking and spending the money that should have gone to the wives and little ones. My Diego refused to go, and the men went out and one of them fell down on the ground and declared that he was hurt in his head, and that my Diego and I and all the little ones had the evil eye ; that we were all as the people that they used to burn as witches. And that night, when Diego went to the corral after dark to look after the burros and cow, some men seized him and dragged him to the river, where they tied rocks to him and threw him into the river to drown. And when I and the little ones tried to save him, the men beat us and drove us back to the house. After that they made us leave our house in the village and come here, half a mile away. And then it was that I made the bruja to protect us, and the people are now afraid of us, and each one in the village gives us so much of his corn and frijoles not to name the bruja for him; for when it is named for any one and the thorns stuck in, the person suffers great pain and soon dies. They killed my Diego, and they must support his wife and little ones, so I scare them all the time with the witch doll.'
"I wished to purchase the witch doll, but nothing would tempt her to part with it, as she said it would bring me bad luck."
​The writer observes that at Onovas she saw two Mayo Indians with fair hair, red beards, and light blue eyes, resembling Swedes, and found that they were descendants from the survivors of a Danish ship wrecked on the coast, who had been kept as captives.
Traditionary American Local Dishes.—In the "American Kitchen Magazine," November, 1899, Mrs. F. D. Bergen takes occasion to give an account of peculiar dishes confined to a limited territory, and in popular use here and there in the United States. After making mention of "apple-butter" and "peach-butter," as made in Ohio, she adds: "Many years ago, while living in that part of the country, I was familiar with pear, plum, grape, quince, and tomato butter, and most of these were very palatable, As a rule, all were sweetened with sugar, though occasionally, for economy's sake, sweet cider was substituted.
"An uncanny substitute for butter, where garden and orchard fruits were far from plentiful, was a dark, smooth sauce made of common field pumpkins. … I do not know whether elderberry-butter still holds its place in the larder in Ohio and westward, but twenty years ago many families, by no means poor, during every year consumed gallons of this unsavory sauce, made by boiling elderberries in sorghum molasses. Jelly, too, made from elderberries and flavored with lemon, was accounted a delicacy.
"The 'pie-belt' is generally supposed to be best developed in New England, but I doubt if in quantity or kinds of pies any State therein can quite equal some of the Middle States. Marvellous ingenuity has been shown in the invention of certain pies that are more or less local, and that in a few more years will doubtless have become absolutely unknown. It is only in localities too remote from railroads to have a variety of foreign fruits brought at all seasons of the year, that such recipes as some I am about to describe will survive. In farming districts, where pie is considered a necessary article of diet in at least two out of three meals, when the season of small fruits has passed, housewives have only apples and dried fruits to fall back upon with which to make pies. So it is not strange that some recipes quite unknown to urban families should have been devised. There, too, in pies as in preserves, variety is counted of consequence. In localities where elderberries are made into jelly and marmalade, they are also used for pies. Even in the summer, when other more palatable fruits abound, quantities are stewed for this purpose. They are also dried or canned to use in the same way in winter and spring. The odor of the fruit was to me always nauseous, and I knew without tasting that I should dislike the flavor.
"Pies made of dried apples, stewed and mashed, are common in spring-time in various parts of the United States, but, as far as I can learn, it is less customary to make them of a mixture of dried-apple sauce and green currants. As a little girl, many a quart of green currants have I picked and stemmed, some for plain currant-pie, others to sprinkle in the dried-apple pie filling, and others to stew for sauce. Where fresh fruits, save apples, are rare or unknown, any acid flavor, I suppose, is grateful after a long winter. I have been told that the sour leaves of both wood and field ​sorrel (Oxalis and Rumex) are sometimes pressed into service in pie-making in some of the Canadian provinces. In parts of the West, farmers' wives gather the green fruit of the wild frost-grape for pies, though I think this is more 'to make a change,' as they say, since the grapes blossom and mature so late that in most places there must be other fruits before the grapes are large enough to cook.
"Speaking of these wild grapes, I wonder if country housewives still preserve them according to a fashion I well knew a generation and more ago. It was always called 'laying down.' You would hear one neighbor say to another, 'I 've been laying down my grapes.' One or two frosts were considered necessary to ripen the fragrant clusters hanging from the wild vines that gracefully clambered over our Virginia rail fences, or festooned tall tree trunks on the edge of the woods. A stone jar or milk crock was filled with fine bunches of the wild fruit, which was then almost covered with molasses and put away in some cool closet or down cellar. After some weeks, or even months, both fruit and liquid had a sweet-sour, spicy tang that was very pleasant. The grapes, with a little of the rich juice, were served as a sweet pickle, or in some families the grapes were removed from the stems, and, covered with the juice, used to make pies.
"Another dessert I remember in Ohio was vinegar-pie. A pie-pan was lined with crust as for custard-pie. This was filled with a mixture of cold water, richly sweetened, slightly thickened with flour, to which was added sufficient vinegar to give a strongly acid flavor. A pinch of cinnamon was sprinkled over the liquid after it was poured into the crust, then slender strips of pie dough were fastened across to make a tart. If baked in a properly heated oven, the liquid, as it cooked, thickened into a sticky paste.
"The cream-pies of my day, still surviving in the part of Ohio where I was reared, were very different from the cream-cakes of the bakeries. The pie-pan was lined with crust, then it was filled with rich cream that had been well sweetened. Into this was sifted very slowly from a dredging-box a little flour,—perhaps a dessert-spoonful to one pie. About a dessert-spoonful of butter was cut up into small bits and scattered over the cream. A pinch of cinnamon was added. This made an indigestibly rich but delicious dessert. Another queer northern Ohio dish is known as cheese-pie. A cup of the curd obtained from sour milk by draining off its whey is beaten with two eggs, a little sweet milk and 'sugar to taste.' Then flavor with cinnamon and bake in a crust in a deep pie-plate."