Year: 1875

A custom that has Long Prevailed and Re.

 sists all Efforts to Abolish 1t.

 A correspondence of the London Times gives the following vivid description of the scenes which attend the death of "Caboceer," or man of rank, in Ashan- tee:

 We'll, immediately after demise, the body of Caboceer is washed, anointed with sweet oils and grease, and sprinkled with gold dust. The oils and grease cause the gold dust to stick to the corpse, which, being black, throws off the bright color of the gold to perfec- tion. The beard is trimmed into knots, and upon each knot are tied small beads of glass and thin particles of gold. The Ashantees, you perceive, are as dainty in the decoration of the boards of their dead as the Assyrian dandies were of their own when iving.sE In cloth of costly silk-embroidered damask, or in velvet or in other rich garments, the body is dressed and ornamented with armlets and necklaces of gold and silver. Very often pure Jumps or unwrought nuggets of gold, bored through and through, are strung upon @ piece of hempen string and twisted round the forearms in the form of bracelets. Thus gayly bedizened and perfumed and cleansed, the body is placed upon chair in sitting attitude or is shown re- cumbent upon a bed trimmed with gaudy drapery. When this combined rite of puriication and garniture has been completed the relations and friends assemble and begin to dance and sing. While the relations and friends are mak- m mo fofI nck Sc lad slowly into the midst of the festive throng, and the female slaves of the dead Caboceer are brought before him. After the utterance of various incanta- tions he pretends that the fetish has de- noted, by means of his mediation, cer- tain slave for election to follow her mas master to the next world but I need not be at much trouble to suggest to you that the members of the family always decide beforehand among them selves which unfortunate wretch shall accompany the deceased chief. ~

 Being chosen, and by the choice con- demned to die, the slave is stripped naked. Around her neck wisp of hay is wound, and her arms are rudely pinioned with rope of straw. She, is now roughly dragged second time to the presence of the fetishman, who re- comments her, in speech full of blasp hemous rhodomontades and rhetorical parade, to serve her master dutifully through the mazes of the unknown sphere to which he has been summoned on a journey. During the delivery of the portentous exhortation he is busily employed in daubing a white-colored earth over the face of the weeping slave !; and, when the admonitory harangue has been exhausted, he strikes her severely with his open palm upon either cheek. In benighted zeal the company snatch up the sacerdotal cue. They strive to rival one another in repeating the as- sault with the harshest violence, and in dealing the keenest pain on her nude and trembling person.

 Having been removed by dint of cuffs or manual force from the sight of the fetishman the slave is hurried to wood en box, into which the carcase of the Caboceer will eventually be squeezed. Along the lid of the box the slave is stretched upon her stomach, and her feet and her head are grasped by two executioners, so that her struggles may be subject to control. A friend of the dead Caboceer approaches the prostrate creature and slashes her with a sword just below the right shoulder-blade. Catching the blood which flows from the wound, he smears the box. When 8 suffciency of blood has been drawn for the purpose. she is lifted from the lid and is reviled, struck and covered with spittle by the bystanders. All the while she utters the loudest and most grievous lamentations and the louder and more grievous they are, the more acceptable do the tolturers deem the sacrificed gratuity to the dead Caboceer. She is then driven to the spot where she is to be slain. When the head has been cut off the heart is plucked out through an opening in the back. An executioner receives the head with yells and frantic signs of joy, and runs with it through the town. Savagely and furiously he losses it to the ground and kicks it like a ball before him, snatches it up in his flight, spits upon it, filings it into the air, catches it in it's descent, or, per mitting it to drop heavily, kicks it again and again. The body is never buried, but it is spurned aside to be eaten by wild beasts or vultures.