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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAY, 1928
which are non-human spirits residing in certain "brass pans as their shrines under " 'Nyame, the God of the Sky, who is to him (the Ashanti) the Supreme Being of the Universe. He has of course also charnts, amuleta, talismans, mascota, " which may be termed fetishee." Such a situation will be familiar to all studente of Religion in India.
The ceremonies for the propitiation, solicitation or worship of ancestral spirits are elaborate, and that they are regulated by old custom is shown in the long account of the Adae Ceremony when the spirits of the departed rulers of the clan are worshipped. As in most animistio countries, Ashanti has its sacred groves and Captain Rattray gives an account of the ceremonies at the most sacred of all, that at Santemansa, where the first human beings, belonging to certain of their clans, came forth from the ground. This grove is a sanctuary where "to spill human blood is absolutely tabu." Next Capt. Rattray describes a "ceremony witnessed while the Burial Quarters of the Kings and Queens were undergoing repairs." In his account there occurs en passant a statement worth noting: "Those who were present in Coomassie during the recent trial, before their own chiefs, of the miscreants who desecrated the Golden Btool will never forget the sobriety and dignity with which that we was conducted." Another ceremony described is that of Baya when the samanfo spirits of dead ancestors are asked to bless the next year's crop.
Captain Rattray next has & chapter on "Nyame' the Supreme Being, where he is in conflict with the older authorities who "denied the conception of a Supreme Being in the West African mind." He sets to work to show that 'Nyame, the God of the Sky, is truly the Supremo in the eyes of the Ashanti peoplee, as distinct from the abosom or gods, whose "power emanates from various sources, the chief of which is the great spirit of the one God." The abosom are however for practical purposes far more important than "Nyame in Ashanti life. An instructivo account of groat interest is then given of the gods and their shrines and their origin, which seems to make them akin to Animistio spirits elsewhere in the world.
Hore Captain Rattray has a paragraph worth transcribing in full, as it will come home to many an inhabitant of India who is considering the relative position of Siva, Vishnu or Krishna as the Supremne (Paramesvara) and the godlings worshipped in everyday life : "I shall never forget the answer of an old priest with whom I remonstrated, chiofly to draw him out and see what he would say, for not trusting to the spirit of the great God and leaving out all the lesser powers, whose help was thus passively and indirectly invoked. He replied
follows: "We in Ashanti dare not worship the Bly God alono, or the Earth Godde alone, or
any one spirit. We have to protect ourselves against, and use when we can, the spirito of all things in the Sky and upon Earth. You go to the forest, 800 some wild animal, fire at it, kill it and find you have killed a man. You dismiss your servant, but later you find you miss him. You take your cutter to hack what you think is a branch, and find you have cut your own arm. There are people who transform themselves into leopards;
the Grassland people are especially good at turning into hyenas. There are witches who can make you wither and die. There are trees which fall upon you and kill you. There are rivers which drown you. If I see four or five Europeans, 1 do not make much of one alone and ignore the rest, lest they too may have power and hate me.'”
We now pass on to the curious Apo or Lampooning Coromony which is very African, and to the consecration of a shrine to the temple of the god Tano or Ta Kora, the greatest of the Ashanti gode-tho god of the mighty Tano river and the account of the religious ceremonies, with the a'fahye ceremony in connection with the eating of the first fruits of each crop. From this outline it will be obvious to the readers of this Journal that a study of the religious practices in Ashanti are well worth their while, under the able guidance of Capt. Rattray.
We need not here follow him in his dissertation on Law, Tenure and Alienation, but his chapter on Drum Language is of absorbing interest, as ho explains how"two drums set in different noto can possibly be heard as, or made to reproduce, actual spoken words." It is indeed a kind of Morse system and can be so applied, for Capt. Rattray Bays: "Mr. E. O. Rake, District Commissioner, Scoutmaster of the Mampon troop of Boy Scouts, and I received and read various messages, of the nature of which we were not informed beforehand, drummed by an African Boy Scout who was familiar with Morse—the high and low tonos, dashes and dota, carrying clearly through over a mile of the dense Ashanti forest."
Next the story of the Golden Stool of the Ashanti Kings, which is the shrine of the sunsum or soul of the people, is well-told, and the effect of its desecration upon the people can be readily under stood. There is also a Silver stool of the Queen Mother, a replica of which was presented to H. R. H. Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, on hor marriago, a most delicate attention. The book winds up with an account of the Ashanti Goldsmiths and Gold Weights and the burial vessels (koudue) made to contain these last. The scoount shows that they bear a curious goneral family likeness to the animal and similar forms formerly employed among the Malays for their currency : see my 'Obsolete Tin Currenoy and Money of the Federated Malay States,' ante, vol. XLI.
R. C. TEMPLE.
