Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/309

 the chief town in the middle Volta region is Keté, till recently a mere suburb of Krakye (Karati, Krachi), which has retained the rank of a capital. Krakye, which stands on a bluff 200 feet high opposite the Séné confluence with the Volta, is a fetish city, whose tutelar deity, the Denté or Odenté, dwells in a neighbouring cave shaded by a sacred grove where the oracle is consulted by votaries from all quarters. The high-priest of the temple, the most distinguished person in the country, is at the head of a confederacy of petty states formed since the dismemberment

of the Ashanti empire. But the fetish and this potentate appears to have recently lost some of their influence, the Mohammedan traders having gradually become the real masters of the land.

Every town in this region has its fetish, whose power increases or diminishes with that of the community itself. The genius of Wuropong, who is enthroned on the table-mountain of Sia, some 60 miles south-east of Krakye, is an evil spirit who demands human victims, and to whom a man was, till recently, immolated every year. To the north-east lies the extensive but thinly peopled land of Busso, that is, "highlands," whose two capitals, Siadé and Dadeassi, have each a very powerful