Connecticut western news., 1874-04-03
ASHANTEE HORRORS.
A captive's> Story of s1aughters in Coo V .E r.~rseT z. Yll&Ss1e.

IT VT. ! ASHANTEE HORRORS.
 A captive's Story of s1aughters in Coo. l Il ;. aacrsL .n E11assie.
 The special correspondent of the Lon. don Daily ENes0s in Ashantee thus sum. marizes the reports brought to the Eng fish camp by MT. Kuehne. one of the I missionaries released by King Koffee Mr. Kuehne's description of the scenes daily occurring in Coomassie pass all belief in their horror. MT. Kuehne says that no day passes with out slaughter in the streets of innocent ] slaves and freedmen. He speaks of ii asa common incident to be sitting in the doorway, or walking in the street, Dor looking on at some spectacle, when the next man is suddenly seized by exe- cutioners, who run 8 knife through his mouth, from cheek to cheek, so that he Pmay never speak again. He refused ever; to witness the horrible orgies, but it was impossible to avoid seeing the dead bodies which are left daily to lie in the streets, while the pigs feed on them in the public thoroughfare, drag ging them about with every conceivable effect of horror and indecency. There Is one huge charnel-house, or block, over which, for ages, the vultures have never ceased to hover and to swoop down into. The stench of this is so fearful as to make passage within very consid derable distance of it almost unen. durable. Here the great sacrifices are made, as many as 200 at a time having been recently put to death within it in ovo Jo- A 1tooa%bnr, o{ these sacrifices daily on a small scale, slaughter are never wanting. There is 8 certain place whore each of the past Kings of Ashantee has room, and where daily food is placed for them. Into the actual presence of the skele- tons of the Kings no one but the King himself ever enters. But it constantly occurs that the wretched mud roof of some one of these chambers tumbles in. Then the King himself goes down with the necessary laborers, and sees it re- paired. All besides the King who have thus been there are slaughtered. There are variety of duties of this kind which, as soon as performed under or der, entail death on the workers. MT. Kuehne speaks of these as of daily incl dents, though, of course, there are mo- mentary lulls, and the degree to which they, are done at different times differs immensely. When spirits have to be exercised, the plan is to take small children tie them up in cloth, and drag them through the streets all day. As a rule the great object is that no victims shall die before the evening. In the case of great criminals the man is fast ened through the cheeks, as already mentioned, ropes are attached to the two ends of the knife, and executioners proceed to slash his flesh with knives all day, with the understanding that if the victim dies before the evening the exc cutioner is put to death. The ordinary victims are simply left to endure the agony of the knife through the cheeks, sitting in 8 room till lnightfall. Women and men appear to be taken for these purposes about equally, except that the woman is rather the more valuable anil nal to her master, being both 8 better worker and useful in other ways, and therefore when slaves are given for sac rifice the men are more often handed over. The population appears to con- sist in about equal parts of Ashantees and of slaves, with few freedmen, whose condition does not differ much from the slaves. It is on the slave pop ulation that the greater part of the slaughter falls, and as they are con- stantly recruited by all sorts of devices from surrounding tribes, the diminution of numbers is not so rapid perhaps as such system would imply. At the time when MT. Kuehne was captured Ado Boofoo was nominally in negotia- tion with some friendly tribe of Cree pees as to the number of men they were to furnish the King with for war rur- poses. He called them to consult with him, and having got them into his power drove all of them, with all their women and children, before him to Coomassie, nominally that the "palaver might be settled, before the King" All, to the estimated number of 5000, have since been made slaves or have been slaugh- tered. Though the slaves suffer most from the mere sacrifices, and are par tially replaced, there is 8 most minute system of ordinances decreed by the King, which make almost any man in Coomassie liable to be treated as a criminal at almost any moment Crlm1' nals so brought before the King, even Ii for moment pardoned, the offense being slight, are put aside or else merely noted for execution when the King next, wishes for victims for the sacrifices who are of Ashantee blood. Thus the slaughter in the course of the year of pure-blood Ashantees alone is considerable, and taken together with the incessant wars, would account fol almost any diminution of population, For the last year all the pure Ashantee males have been absent.