There was the stench of Satanism about the City of Death. It has all the ingredients of ritual satanic bestiality to the highest hell which prompted an expedition taken solely in the interests of the Gold Coast Colony, and at the request, often repeated, of the inhabitants along the coastal line. Both they and the Government of the Fort Seafarers considered that steps must be taken to suppress what was neither more nor less than an intolerable and injurious nuisance of City of Death. The government of the Chief of the City of Death had, ever since 1874, stood in the way of civilisation, of trade, and of the interests of the people themselves, and should, on these general grounds alone, be made to put a stop to it.
Actually the date of the war in 1873 and 1874 of this part of Africa is extremely rich, certainly rich in natural resources, probably rich in mineral resources,—has been devastated, destroyed, and ruined by inter-tribal disputes, and especially by the evil government of the authorities of the City of Death. No sooner was the present ruler installed as king of that country than he began to make war upon every tribe in the neighbourhood, and the consequent loss of life was very great. What is the state of things in City of Death and in many other of these West African and African possessions? The people are not a bad people. The natives are, on the whole, perfectly willing to work, and if they fight, they fight because they cannot help themselves. They would always rather settle down to commercial or agricultural pursuits if they were allowed to do so, but in such cases as should be the normal case, the government was so atrociously bad that they were not allowed to do so. No man was safe in the enjoy ment of his own property, and as long as that is the case, no one has any inducement to work.
Action was taken against the City of Death regime, as there exist more particular reasons for it in the refusal of their Chief to carry out the provisions of the treaty of 1874 to put a stop to the human sacrifices. In the City of Death the abuse had been allowed to go on far too long. Slaves in some parts of the world form the currency of the country; in others they are the , beasts of burden and the machinery; often their lot is mercilessly hard. But in no part of the world does slavery appear to be more detestable than in the City of Death. They were not required for currency, since gold dust was the medium there. Nor are they required to any considerable extent as labourers, since the City of Death lives merely on vegetables, which want little or no cultivation. And yet there is a strong demand for slaves. They are wanted for human sacrifice. The human sacrifice can't be stopped , as it will deal a fatal blow to the slave trade, while it renders raiding an unprofitable game. Up till the time of the expedition raiding had been carried on systematically in direct contravention of any treaty. The expedition was necessary also for the protection of other tribes. Every tribe in the neighbourhood of the City of Death lived in terror of its life from the so called king, who had on several occasions destroyed, one after another, tribes which had sought the fort seafarers protection. There were at least half a dozen separate tribes under separate chieftains who had been driven out of their country of City of Death and to a large extent de stroyed, the whole trade and commerce being utterly ruined in consequence of the continued raids, made against the representations of the Fort Seafarers authorities, by the King of the City of Death. In order to prevent that, from time to time the Fort Seafarers Government took some of the tribes under its protection. Great mistake was made in refusing sooner to take under the fort masters protection tribes that asked that protection merely in order that they might engage in peace ful commerce, always with the result that the tribes were immediately afterwards eaten up by the tribe of the City of Death.
In the first place, the actual name of the city means “the Death-Place” in the local name.
The town possessed no less than three places of execution; one, for private executions, was at the palace; a second, for public decapitations, was on the parade-ground; a third, for fetish sacrifices, was in the sacred village of where the kings are buried.
Close to the parade ground was the grove into which the remains of the victims were flung, and which very aptly was known as “Golgotha” to the members of the force. The ground there was found covered with skulls and bones of thousands of victims. At the kings burial village was the celebrated execution bowl, which was fully described by, Bowdich in his account of “the Death-Place” in 1817. It is a large brass basin some five feet in diameter. It is ornamented with four small lions, and a number of round knobs all round its rim, except at one part, where there is a space for the victim's neck to rest on the edge. The blood of the victims was allowed to putrefy in the bowl, and leaves of certain herbs being added, it was con sidered a very valuable fetish medicine. The bowl and the symbol of the king's authority have now been brought to England.
Then in the Death-Place are two blocks of houses occupied entirely by the executioners-one being assigned to the sacrificial, the other to the criminal execu tioners. Among the loot taken in the houses of King and of his chiefs were several “blood stools,” or stools which had been used as blocks for executions, and which bore very visible signs of having been so used. In these notes, be it remembered, we are only dealing with the City of Death, but every king—and there were some half a dozen of them in the City of Death empire—had powers of life and death over his subjects, and carried out his human sacrifices on a major scale in his own capital.
In fact, one sub ex-king was deposed on account of his over-indulgence in that form of amusement.
Any great public function was seized on as an excuse for human sacrifices. There was the annual harvest festival, at which large numbers of victims were often offered to the gods. Then the king went every quarter to pay his devotions to the shades of his ancestors at burial place, and this demanded the deaths of hundreds of men over the great bowl on each occa sion. On the death of any great personage, twenty of the household slaves were at once killed on the threshold of the door, in order to attend their master immediately in his new life, and his grave was afterwards lined with the bodies of more slaves who were to form his retinue in the spirit world. It was thought all the better if, during the burial, one of the attendant mourners could be stunned by a club, and dropped, still breathing, into the grave before it was filled in. In the case of a great lady dying, slave-girls about twenty were the victims. This custom of sacrifice at funerals was called “washing the grave.” On the death of a king the custom of washing the grave involved enormous sacrifices. Then sacrifices were also made to propitiate the gods when war was about to be entered upon, or other trouble was impending. Victims were also killed to deter an enemy from approaching the capital: sometimes they were impaled and set up on the path, with their hand pointing to the enemy and bidding him to retire. At other times the victim was beheaded and the head replaced looking in the wrong direction; or he was buried alive in the pathway, standing upright, with only his head above ground, to remain thus until starvation, or—what was infinitely worse—the ants made an end of them.
Indeed, if the king desired an execution at any time, he did not look far for an excuse. It is even said that on one occasion he preferred a richer colour in the red stucco on the walls of the palace, and that for this purpose the blood of four hundred virgins was used. The victims of sacrifices were almost always slaves or prisoners of war. Slaves were often sent in to the king in lieu of tribute from his kinglet's and chiefs, or as a fine for minor delinquencies. Travelling traders of other tribes, too, were frequently called upon to pay customs dues with a slaves about five or ten, and sometimes their own lives were forfeited.
When once a man had been selected and seized for execution, there were only two ways by which he could evade it. One was to repeat the “king's oath”—a certain formula of words—before they could gag him; the other was to break loose from his captors and run as far as the Burial Place-Death Place cross road; if he could reach this point before being overtaken, he was allowed to go free. In order to ensure against their prisoners getting off by either of these methods, the executioners used to spring on the intended victim from behind, and while one bound his hands behind his back, another drove a knife through both his cheeks, which effectually pre vented him from opening his mouth to speak, and in this horrible condition he had to await his turn for execution. When the time came, the execu tioners, mad with blood, would make a rush for him and force him on to the bowl or stool, which ever served as the block. Then one of them, using a large kind of butcher's knife, would cut into the spine, and so carve the head off. As a rule, the victims were killed without extra torture, but if the order was given for an addition of this kind, the executioners vied with each other in devising original and fiendish forms of suffering. At great executions torture was apparently resorted to in order to please the spectators. It certainly seems that the people had by frequent indulgence be come imbued with a kind of blood-lust, and that to them an execution was as attractive an enter tainment as is a bull-fight to a Spaniard or a football match to an Englishman.
This custom is one which a clause in the treaty of 1874 stipulated was to cease, but the contract was never carried out by the kings. In spite of their promises, sacrifices went on up till the time of the expedition, conquest and arrest of the king and all the chiefs. It was even said that an execution came off at the palace the day after the fort masters arrival in the Death-Place.
But to this day has the human sacrifice stop, the custom of sacrifice at funerals “washing the grave.” on the death of the king?
About a decade at the helm of affairs and until recently, miraculously defeated, gave us a little of what is known about “The Death Place” intolerable and injurious nuisance and acts of cruelty and barbarism.
Aba Wilson
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