Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1873-09-11
The ASllantee at Home.

letter to the Pail Mall Gazette, has the
following:
"The King is allowed to have
3, 1913 wives, but not to exceed that
number. Some of these ladies are
merely slaves, who work in the royal
plantations and furnish the court with
cassada and plaintains; others reside
in rooms luxuriously furnished,
guarded by ennuchs, enjoying the de-
lights of tobacco and palm wine in
true Oriental style. Intrigue with a
royal wife is punished by death the
ekocutioners torture the offender from
sunrise to sunset, leading him about
the town and performing fantasies
upon his body with knives before the
houses of oil noted chieftans or strang-
ers of distinction. Finally they brought
him before the King and literally cut
him to pieces before the throne. This
horrible method of execution is only
employed for the above mentioned
offence and for the crime of murder. It
is a curious custom in Ashantee that
if the condemned man cries out a GER
tain word or phrase he cannot be killed,
it gives him the right of sanctuary:
the executioners, therefore, steal upon
their victims from behind, and begin
proceedings by passing a dagger into
each cheek, whereby the man is effect
lively gagged.
When the King dies, a number of
lords-in-w waiting kill themselves, to
serve as his escort to the Shadow Land.
These persons are called okras, or
"souls," and wear q peculiar gold
badge, which indicates their Office. At
that time, also, a saturnalia of blood
is celebrated: hundreds of victims are
sacrificed, and the young men of the
royal house run about the town shoot
ing whom they please-even the high
est personages of the land. Thus the
death of the King is national misfor
tune, and that, perhaps, gives the clue
to the origin of these extraordinary
customs.
The Ashantees believe in a life after
death, as we believe in the existence of
lands beyond the sea. Their Hades or
Sheol is situated underground !; there
this life is continued and becomes
eternal. The king resumes his royalty
and the slave remains slave. Death,
therefore, for them is only migration,
and they depart from life with equa
nimity. A woman slave, who was one
of those condemned to die, was strip
ed according to custom, and
knocked on the head. Being only
stunned by the blow, she recovered her
senses, and saw herself surrounded by
dead bodies. She ran into the town,
found the mobiles sitting in council,
told them she had been to the land of
the dead, and that she had been sent
back because she had no clothes. They
must dress her finely and kill her over
again, which accordingly was done.
This happened in small kingdom ad-
Joining Ashantee, the laws and customs
of which are the same.
One noble who had committed some
crime offered large ransom for his
life, and finally his weight in gold,
But the King cut off his head and also
took possession of his gold, which just
amounted in weight to that of the
corpse. I have myself seen a coast
native of no great Importance with a
thousand pounds worth of gold upon
him; and most of that gold came from
the mines of Ashantee.
Finally, us to war. The Ashantee
army is the nation. When the order
for the march is given all able-bodied
men join their respective companies
and leave the town, carrying with them
a kind of meal as food. The women
then parade the streets, and, if they
detect man skulking behind, beat him
numerically. In battle the generals
occupy the rear, and cut down all those
who retreat. If the battle is lost. they
kill themselves. One suicide of this
kind witnessed on the Volta. A bat
tie took place between our allies and
some allies of the Ashantees. The
latter were defeated, and the Ashantee
chief, WHO was present, threw the insig
MIA OF his rank into the river and then,
sitting on powder barrel, blew him
self INTO the air."