, 1877-06-01
Shocking Customs in DahOmoy.

Since the termination of the rains the
annual "Customs" have been carried on
at Abomey on a scale of even greater
barbarity if of less splendor than on any
previous year since the dreadful butch
cry of the Grand Customs instituted to
commemorate the death of Gezu the ia
ther of the present King. The Gus
toms" are held every year at the end of
the rainy season in October, at Abomey,
whittier every cuboceer who can be
spared, with his attendants, resorts,
carrying with him cowries, gunpowder,
rum, cloth, muskets, etc, as tribute.
They usually commence with q series of
reviews of the military forces Of the king
dom, both of the men as ''outside, and
of the Amazonian women soldieresses as
''inside." Criminals are brought to trial
for the more serious offences, such as
murder, arson, ETC., and various degrees
of rank and honor are conferred upon
those who have distinguished them
selves by their prowess in the various
warlike excursions of the past year.
Then follow various pageants, such as
the Procession of the Kings wealth."
wherein all the miscellaneous parapher-
MALTA of a savage court is paraded before
the eyes of hooting and admiring
crowd. Chariots, flags, images, palan-
quins, grotesquely-caparisoned num-
mers, feiiche comprehensibilities, Ell
id genus omne, are carried in procession
round the palace amid the plaudits and
sickening adulations of fawning cour-
tiers.
The Customs terminate with sacrifices
to the various deities of the national
pantheon, and at the tombs of the de-
ceased monarchs, nine in number, and
who are supposed to be not able to re-
main peacefully in their graves after
having spent a lifetime in deeds of
fearful bloodshed without an annual lib
alton of water, the Dahomian euphuism
for blood-if human so much the bet
ter. The Customs of 1876 have wit
messed the butchery of scores of hapless
wretches, doomed to q cruel death to
propitiate the names of bloodthirsty
monarchs, who it is believed, still exert
q powerful influence in controlling the
affairs of this kingdom which they found
ed by conqests and governed by cruelty.
In the market-places prisoners are ex-
hibited for days, trussed like fowls and
gagged previous to being executed,
while a crier goes round the town pro-
claiming the power and greatness ofthe
King of Dahomey, and bidding those
who doubt it to come on such a day to
behold him take thelives of his enemies.
These poor wretches have been increased
in an alarming number during the pres
ent Custom, while the fact of the King
having a number of white men in his
power, whom he will behead if the
English fire shot at Whydah, carries
terror into the miserably cowed villagers
whose lives are at the caprice of the
King. The slightest hesitation in obey
ing the Kings wish has been followed
by imprisonment, and in to many cases
decapitation. The whole country is 10
desperate condition. On the one
hand the Dahomians fear the vengeance
of the King, while on the other they
dread the capture of Whypah, which
will thus cut off their seaboard, and
they will be subject 10 the same trading
disadvantages as their neighbors the
Ashantis, who are insulated from the
sea by the Fantis.-Londou Standard.