Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/641

 DAHOMEY DAIRY 63T ting in a long fringe a little below the waist. From this depends a skirt falling below the knee, and beneath that a pair of short linen trousers. They are poorly armed, some of them having trade guns, but the most being furnished only with bows and arrows, swords, and clubs. Each is provided with a rope to bind prisoners. They are the best fighters in the Dahoman army, the men being compara- tively feeble and worthless. The chief execu- tioner is the highest court official. All officers are appointed in pairs, so that each may super- vise and check the other. No chief is allowed to visit another in his house, and they can speak only in the street. The king's spies are everywhere, and report every proceeding to him. All property belongs to the sovereign, and when a chief dies the king inherits his title and possessions. He sometimes confers them on the son, but oftener on a stranger, who is obliged to support the family of the de- ceased. Taxes are levied on all goods exposed for sale in the v markets, and a capitation tax is imposed on all in proportion to rank and in- come. The principal part of the revenue is derived from duties on the palm oil and ivory exported, and an ad 'valorem duty on all im- ports. The circulating medium is cowries. Every spring the king makes a raid on some of the neighboring tribes, and when success- ful returns in two or three months with long lines of prisoners. In the days of the slave trade the greater part of these, after some had been slaughtered publicly, were sold to the European traders, who were summoned to Abomey, then the great slave market. These raids are still kept up, although the slave trade is virtually extinct on the west coast. When the king dies, his successor provides himself as soon as possible with a sufficient number of victims, and then pro- ceeds to celebrate the "grand custom," in which as many as 500 are slain to replenish the household of the dead, those slain being supposed to rise in the next world with the deceased and to become his attendants and companions. Besides the grand custom, an- nual customs also are celebrated, in which usually 60 or 80 are killed to carry news to the dead. The king whispers in the ear of each the message he desires him to convey, and the victim is then decapitated by the ap- pointed official. The executions are attended by crowds of both sexes, frenzied with rum and excitement, who exhibit their loyalty to their sovereign by yells of welcome and by drinking the blood of the slain. After decapi- tation the bodies of the victims are dragged out of the town and left to be devoured by wolves and vultures. The skulls are cleaned and used as ornaments for buildings and public places. Walls are edged with skulls, they are stuck upon poles, are used as the heads of banner staves, are heaped up before the king, and the temples are almost entirely built of them. On the last day of the customs a line of soldiers stationed all the way from Whydah to Abomey transmit a rolling fire of musketry from the capital to the port and back again. The history of Dahomey, as known to Euro- peans, begins early in the 17th century, when the Dahomans were called Foys and possessed a small tract of country in the interior near Abomey. In 1625 a chief of this tribe con- quered Abomey and made it his capital. In the early part of the 18th century Guadja Trudo, an ambitious king, subdued Ardrah and Whydah, and extended his sovereignty to the coast. He opened a trade with Europe- ans, but had frequent quarrels with them, and finally destroyed the French, English, and Portuguese factories, and hung the English governor. He was succeeded in 1732 by his son Bossa Ahadee, whose first act of sove- reignty was to put to death all persons named Bossa in the kingdom, as a punishment for their presumption in bearing his name. He died in 1774, and was followed by a succession of savage rulers, who committed shocking atrocities to supply the slave trade. About the beginning of this century the king of Dahomey ruled over a large part of the Guinea coast, but since the suppression of the slave trade he has gradually declined in importance. In 1850 and 1851 King Ghezo made expedi- tions against Abbeokuta, the capital of the Egbas, but was defeated and lost many of his amazons. In November, 1851, a British con- sul was fired upon at Lagos, while trying to negotiate a treaty for the abolition of slavery. Two months after a strong force attacked and captured the town, which was well fortified and defended by 5,000 men, and destroyed 57 guns. A treaty was then signed prohibiting the slave trade, .abolishing human sacrifices, and securing the freedom of commerce and the liberty to diffuse Christianity. The British have since held the place. In 1858 King Ghezo was succeeded by his son Gelele, who, after subjugating several of the smaller tribes, led an expedition in 1861 against Abbeokuta, but was obliged to abandon it on account of sickness in his army. In December, 1862, a mission was sent to him by the British government with a view to induce him to repress the interior slave trade and to modify the barbarities of the cus- toms, but with little effect. In 1864 he again marched against Abbeokuta with a force of 10,000 or 12,000 men, besides his amazons, and three brass guns. The Egbas routed his army, killed 1,000, and took several thousand prison- ers. This disaster was a severe blow to his power, and even threatened the existence of the Dahoman kingdom. The annual losses by war and diseases incident to it, and the loss of reproduction by so large a body as the amazons and the king's superfluous wives, have serious- ly affected the country. Tracts which were formerly cultivated are now a desert, and the population is but a fraction of what the terri- tory might support. DAIRY. See BUTTER, CATTLE, and CHEESE.