Human Scarifice in Precolonial West Africa

The Royal African Society
Human Sacrifice in Pre-Colonial West Africa Author(s): Robin Law Reviewed work(s): Source: African Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 334 (Jan., 1985), pp. 53-87 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/722523 . Accessed: 19/07/2012 06:13
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HUMAN SACRIFICE IN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

ROBIN LAW
Until quite recently, the subject of human sacrifice formed a central element in European images of black African societies.1 The earliest Europeansto visit West Africa, from the fifteenth century onwards, do not appearto have reactedvery violently to the killing of human victims consideredmerelyas a spectacle,no doubt becausewhat they saw in West Africa was hardly more horrificthan the public executions and tortures commonlypractisedin their own societies,2but since their perceptionsof their own identitywere stronglybound up with the Christianreligionthey often stressed the practice of human sacrifice (and more generally, of animal sacrifice)as being one of the more obvious religious differences of between Africansand themselves.3 With the secularization European of values and the humanitarianization Europeanmores from the seventeenth century onwards,human sacrificecame to be objectedto more on moral than on religious grounds: it still served to define the differences betweenEuropeanand Africansocieties,but these differenceswere seen as culturalratherthan religious, and Africans were now defined as savages ratherthan as pagans. This emphasison human sacrificeas an index of surveyof seems alreadyevidentin the greatgeographical Africanbarbarity Africa by the Dutch scholar Dapper, published in 1668, which dwells
Dr Robin Law teaches African History at Stirling University. * Earlier versions of this paper have been read at seminars in various institutions, notably the Department of History, University of Edinburgh (1978), the Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham (1980), and the Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews (1982). The author's thanks are due to those who contributed to discussion on these occasions, and also to Dr Adam Jones, for drawing attention to relevant material in early German sources relating to West Africa, and to John Reid and Susan Hargreaves, for many fruitful exchanges of ideas and information on human sacrifice in the kingdom of Dahomey. in world the to attitudes theoutside Kind:European of 1. Cf. V. G. Kiernan, TheLords Human Age Irtlperial (revised edn, l'enguin, Harmondsworth, 1972), pp. 214-5. The issue of human TheImage sacrifice is, however, surprisingly neglected in the classic study of Philip D. Curtin, of Africa:Britishideasa action1780-1850(University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1964). 2. Even in the nineteenth century, some of the more sensitive European observers could see parallels between West African human sacrifices and European customs. Richard Burton, visiting Dahomey in the 1860s, drew attention to public executions (which continued in Britain until 1868), observing that 'A Dahoman visiting England but a fes years ago would have witnessed customs almost quite as curious as those which raise our bile now': Sir Richard (ed. C. W. Newbury, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Burton, A Missionto Gelele,Kingof Dahosne 1966), p. 233. Another visitor to Dahomey in the 1870s asked, equally pertinently, 'How As long is it since human crania were to be seen on Temple Bar': J. A. Skertchly, Dahomey It Is (Chapman & Hall, 1874), p. 193. 3. For an especially explicit intance, see the account of human and animal sacrifices in Benin in 1603, in 'Andreas Josua Ulsheimer's Voyage of 16034', in Adam Jones (ed.), Germar WestAfricanHistory1599-1669(Fritz Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1983), p. 24. Sourcesfor
53
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AFFAIRS AFRICAN
of humansacrifice and frequently sometimesin lurid detailon the practice severalWest Africansocieties.4 in during the This emphasis on human sacrificewas further encouraged issue for of the and eighteenth nineteenth centuries by the exploitation later the purposes, to justify first the Atlantic slave trade and polemical between human sacrifice conquest of Africa. The connection European alreadybeing madein the and defenceof the moralityof the slavetradewas that if slaves were not the 1730s, when an English apologist argued evident that from Africa, they would merely be sacrificed:'It is exported destroyed,was of abundance Captives,takenin War,would be inhumanly Europeans. So that not there an Opportunityof disposingof them to the useful Personskept in atleastmany Lives are saved)and greatNumbersof convenienthumanbeing'.5 This claim, which of courseprovideda very set againstthe moreobvious argumentin favourof the slavetradeto itarian argumentsagainst it, subsequentlybecame a commonplace humanitarian elaboraof anti-abolitionistpolemic.6 It achievedits most sophisticated Dalzel, Scotsman Archibald tion in the history of Dahomey by the inherentmilitarpublishedin 1793, with its continualstresson Dahomey's scale.7 According extravagant ism and practiceof human sacrificeon an which necessarily to Dalzel, Dahomey was engaged in continuous wars had simply been put traditionally produceda supply of war captives,who the option of selling to death:the slave trade gave the kings of Dahomey savedlife.8 Even afterthe aboliratherthan killing their captives,and so century, similar tion of the overseas slave trade in the early nineteenth of the continuationof slaveargumentswere used to defend toleration century, the dealing within Africa.9 At the end of the nineteenth groundsthat often justifiedon the Europeancolonialconquestwas likewise Detailed studies of the it put an end to the practiceof human sacrifice. against Dahomey in 1892 and the backgroundto the French expedition
(Amsterdam, 1668). Gewesten der Beschrijvinge Afrikaensche 4. Olfert Dapper, Naukeurige e the Slave Trade(1734 Snelgrave, A New Accountof SomeParts of Guinea 5. William 158. reprinted by Frank Cass, 1971), p. 160; cf. also p. S Private Advantagesof the African 6. See e.g. Malachy Postlethwayt, The National Gregg SelectedWorks, reprinted in vol. II of Malachy Postlethwayt, Memoirs theReign (1746, of TradeConsidered of Norris, Publishers, Farnborough,1968), pp. S5; Robert International of country Guiney(1789, reprinted by Frank Cass,
BossaAhadee,Kingof Dahomy,an inland
of inlandkingdom Africa (1793, reprinted by 7. Archibald Dalzel, A Historyof Dahomy,an polemical purpose if this work, cf. I. A. For the background and Frank Cass, 1967). of Dahomey', . of AfricanHistory, & Akinjogbin, 'Archibald Dalzel: slave trader'Anhistorian aspect of Archibald Dalzel's The unnoticed 67-78; Loren K. Waldman, 7 (1966), pp. [sic]', . of AfricanHistory,6 (1965), pp. 185-932. Historyof Dahomey of human sacrifice in Mexico, to 8. Dalzel ingeniously cites the even greater incidence allegedly the matter might be taken in the absence of the illustrate the extremes to which p. of trade in slaves: History Dahomy, 25. moderating effects of an export on Years theGoldCoastof Africa( 1853, reprinted by 9. See e.g. Brodie Cruickshank, Eighteen Frank Cass, 1966), vol. II, p. 246.
HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA
55
BritishexpeditionsagainstAsantein 1896 and Benin in 1897, for example, have demonstrated how grossly exaggerated reportsof humansacrificesin these societies were employed to justify the use of military force against them.l? Modern historicalwriting on Africa, in contrast,has seldom made any seriousattemptto confrontthe issues raisedby the phenomenonof human sacrifice: ElizabethIsichei, one of the few to have madethe attempt,speaks not unfairlyof a 'conspiracyof silence'.1 The reasons l for this reticence are clear enough. Modern historicalwriting on Africa, developingfrom the 1950s in parallelwith the process of political decolonization,had as one of its prime concernsthe demonstration that Africansocieties have a respectablehistory, which in practice has often meant showing that the characterand historicalexperienceof Africansocieties were as similaras possible to those of Europe. This concentrationupon the between African and Europeansocieties can be seen not only similarities in polemical or popularizing accounts, but also in substantial crudely works of sophisticatedscholarship, perhapsthe most outstandingexamplebeing the monumentalstudy of nineteenth-centuryAsante by Ivor Wilks, which systematicallyand explicitly sets out to describe and interpret Asante society in terms of categoriestransferred from the Europeanexperience. 12 Clearlyan approachstressing similaritiesbetween African and European societies is not easily able to accommodatethe phenomenon of sacrifice,which has not been practised in European societies human in recent periods. Wilksmakesan interestingattemptto assimilate 13 the practiceof humansacrificein Asante to a recognisableEuropeancustom, by arguing thatwhat Europeanvisitors to Asante interpretedas sacrificeswere really
10. For the case of Dahomey,see esp. Veronique Campion-Vincent, 'L'imagedu Dahomey dans pressefrancaise(1890-1895):les sacrifices la humaines',Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 7, 25(1967),pp. 27-58. For Asante,see esp. Ivor Wilks, Asantein theNineteenth Century: the structure evolution a politicalorder(Cambridge a of UniversityPress, 1975),pp. 638-9, 642, 645, ThomasJ. Lewin, Asantebefore British:the 718; the Prempeanyears, 1875-1900(Regents Press Kansas, Lawrence,1978), pp. 180-2. For Benin, of see Blood Revisited: newlookat theBeninExpedition 1897(Rex esp. RobertHome, City of a of Collings,1982),pp. 50,102-4: P. Igbafe,'The fallof Benin:a reassessment', of A. . AfricanHistory,11 11. ElizabethIsichei, 'The quest for social reformin the context of (1970),pp.385-400. neglected theme of West African History', African Affairs, 77, 309traditionalreligion:a (1978), p. 469. An even more robustcondemnation the generalneglectof of unsavoury African societies is offered by Milan Kalous, Cannibals Tongo featuresof pre-colonial Players of Sierra Leone (The Author, Auckland,1974), who observes(p. ix) thata'In failing to condemn fully and loudly, of the "traditional" some customswhichfor an ordinary European Amerlcan or would simply (even if he can find similaritiesin the history of his own country)be crimes, this historiography of coursemust side with the traditional rulinggroups'. 12. esp. Wilks, Asante,p. xiv: 'I have been concerned See less with those aspectsof Asante society whichareuniqueto it, andmorewith thoseaspectswhichit has in commonwith other complex societies,whetheron the Africancontinentor elsewhere'. 13. The referenceby Isichei, 'Quest for social reform',p. 470, to 'the humansacrificesof Hiroshima, Vietnam',seemsunhelpful:it may be of some or polemicalvalue,in undermining assumptionsEuropean of moralsuperiority, fudgesthe crucialhistoricalissueof why but particular of sociallysanctioned form murdersurvivedlongerin Africathanin Europe. this
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no more thanpublic executions.14 More commonly,historianshave contented themselveswith the valid but limited point that the scale of human sacrificein Africansocietieswas much less than conventionallysupposed, or simplyignoredthe problemaltogether. Very few historical studies of particularWest African societies have attemptedany detailed study of human sacrifice.15 In general histories of West Africa, the issue has commonly been neglected, and those few which do treat the question seem to be concerned to explain away the phenomenon of human sacrifice rather than truly to explain it. The principalattemptto deal with the placeof humansacrificein West African history is Basil Davidson's treatmentof the issue, originally published in 1961;16 Elizabeth Isichei's various discussions basically elaborate Davidson's ideas.17 The general Davidson/Isichei line is that human sacrifice in traditional West African societies was a relatively benign institution,limited in scale, genuinelyexpressiveof religiousor filialpiety, and often involving victims who went voluntarilyto their deaths. The nastinessof humansacrificein some West Africansocietiesin recenttimes, whichthey feel unableto deny, they attributeto the corrupting distortand ing impactof contactwith Europe,aboveall to the influenceof the Atlantic slave trade.18 The weaknessof this approachseems to me that it sees the problemof humansacrificein essentiallymoralterms. Humansacrificeis seen as self-evidentlywicked,and thereforenot congruentwith the essentially sympatheticpicture of pre-colonial West African societies which these authorsseekto project. The problemof humansacrificeis therefore both minimizedand externalized, reducingthe moralguilt and transferring it as far as possible onto non-Africansocieties. However, the problemof human sacrificeis not, for us today, a moral questionbut a historicalone: we should be seeking, not to condone or condemn,but to explain. This articleis an attemptto understand role playedin West Africansocieties the
14. Wilks, Asante,esp. pp. 592-5. 15. Of considerable value, however, are the studies of Dahomey by Susan Hargreaves, 'An Ideological Interpretation of Dahomean Politics 1818-1864' (M. A. dissertation, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1978), and by Catherine Cocquery Vidrovitch, 'La fete des coutumes au Dahomey: historique & essai d'interpretation', Annales: E.S.C., 19 (1964), pp. 69S716; the studies of Benin by James D. Graham, 'The slave trade, depopulation & human sacrifice in Benin history', Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 5/18 (1965), pp. 317-34, and by A. F. C. Ryder, Benin& theEuropeans 1485-1897(Longman, 1969), esp. pp. 247-50; and of the Igbo by Elizabeth Isichei, TheIboPeoplea theEuropeans: genesis the of a relationshito 1906(Faber, 1973), esp. pp. 47, 598, 158-9, and id., A Historyof theIgbo People(MacMillan, 1976), esp. pp. 26, 47. 16. Basil Davidson, Black Mother: Africa a the Atlantic Slave Trade (2nd edn 1968, reprinted by Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1980), pp. 22s5, 2398. 17. See, in addition to the works cited above, n. 15, Elizabeth Isichei, Historyof WestAfrica since1800(MacMillan, 1977), p. 11; id., 'Quest for social reform', p. 469. 18. Davidson also suggests the unintended influence of misunderstandings of Christian missionary propaganda, with its emphasis on the central symbol of the crucifixion: Black
Mother, 153 4. pp.
the continuing sacrifice, and the reasons for the bypractice of human times. into quite recent of the vitality institutiondown
WEST SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL HUMAN
AFRICA
57
problems Conceptual with the recognitionthat the of humansacrificehas to begin unproblematic. The catestudy Any being of 'humansacrifice'is far from The primary concept ambiguityand difficulty. in fact one of considerable evidently the killing of people (or of is gory is of the meaning term 'sacrifice'as an act of worshipor propitiation. The to a deity, as an practice, animals) offering be extended to include the can term perhapsuncontroversially by which people were killed not so in pre-colonialWest Africa, to carrymessagesto the deity on common order as offeringsto a deity, but in much seems no greatdif1 community. 9 And there also the practice,also of the behalf sacrificing of 'humansacrifice' in includingunder the rubric ficulty as a substitutefor a sickperson, in West Africa,of killingsomeone of this practiceappearsto be common the rationale him preserve fromdeath,since or spirit,who is placatedby the offerof to a deity the that sicknessis causedby can thereforebe seen as a special form of the practice and substitute, a sacrifice.20 the benefit propitiatory when victims were killed for Somedifficultyarises,however, Africa, funerals often humans. In West of not gods, but of deceased serve as attendantsof the deceasedin the to that the involved killing of people on the common assumption practiceof course predicated to life on earth. In addition, a afterlife, similar after death would be essentially place at regular commemorative life take killings might to supplementary dead or to carry messages to swell the retinues of the preofferedin ceremonies, sacrifices' most of the Chuman them. It is clear,in fact, that humans rather than to deceased be West Africa were offered to colonial whether such killings can properly or It might be questioned gods.21 involveworship they do not seem strictlyto as classified 'sacrifice',since believedto exercisean deadwere commonly propitiation.22But since the living, and offeringsto them clearly had of the over the world of the influence the beneficenceand assistance their purposesthat of securing to retainthe term 'humansacrifice' among reasonable for dead the living, it seems
of southAfrican society (the Yoruba practice in a particular West in Yoruba belief(Longman, 1962), God 19. For a discussion of this Bolaji Idowu, Olodumare: western Nigeria), see E. p. 119. 71, Epworth Press, 1961), pp. 20. Cf. Ibid.,pp. 158-9. WestAfricanReligion(2nd edn, Cf. Geoffrey Parrinder, 21. the Press, 19749) p. 62. For of 126. Religion(3rd edn, Sheldon the veneration 22. Cf. id., African Traditional in Africa were 'worshipped', or whether pp. 6>6; Idowu, ancestors cf. e.g. ibid., vexed question of whether from the worship of gods, ancestors needs to be distinguished pp. Olodumare, 191-2.
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AFRICAN AFFAIRS
for such killings. 'Humansacrifice'could then be more loosely definedas the killingof people in orderto securethe favourof supernatural beings. A practice which, however, it seems necessary to distinguish from humansacrifice thatof ritualcannibalism, is, the killingandeatingof is that people for magicalor ritualratherthan merelyfor food purposes. In centralAmerica,it appearsthat the bodiesof people sacrificed the gods were to normallyeaten,and an attempthas been made to interpretthe exceptional scaleof humansacrificein Mexico as a systemfor the distribution human of meat, in societies lacking abundant supplies of animal protein.23 In Africa,however,althoughthe carcasesof animalsacrifices were commonly caten,it does not appearthat it was normalfor the bodies of humanvictims to be eaten, and cannibalismand human sacrificehave to be regardedas distinct phenomena.24 Forms of ritual cannibalism existed in precolonialWest Africa,but the practicewas much less commonthan that of humansacrifice. One form was the eatingof the bodies of enemieskilled in war (or partsof their bodies, especiallythe hearts),in the belief that this enhancedthe eater'sown militaryprowess:this form of cannibalismwas especiallyassociatedwith the Ijo of the Niger Delta area.25 In some other cases, ritual cannibalismwas practised by so-called 'leopard societies', secretsocietieswhosememberssimulatedthe activitiesof leopardsandmet in secret in the forest to kill and eat human victims: such societies were especially strong, in West Africa, in the area of Upper Guinea, that is modern SierraLeone, Liberiaand Ivory Coast.26 These forms of cannibalismare clearlyconceptuallydistinctfrom humansacrifice,inasmuchas their rationalewas that the participantssupposedlybenefiteddirectly, by an accessof magicalpower, from the meal, ratherthan that the killing and eating of the victim secured the favour of any deity or ancestor. They should be classifiedas a particular case of the widespreadAfricanbelief in 'medicines',that is materialsubstancescontaininginnatemagicalpower,27 ratherthanas havinganythingto do with worshipor sacrifice. Also clearlydistinct from humansacrifice,though also very commonin West Africa, is the execution of witches, or more accuratelythe death of witches through trial by ordeal, commonly administeredin the form of
23. Marvin Harris, Cannibals Kings:theorigins cultures e of (Collins, 1978), pp. 99-125. 24. Cf. Parrinder, AfricanTraditional Religion, 88. p. 25. The eating of slain enemies by the Ijo was alread noted in the seventeenth century: Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 509. For a later account making explicit the rationale p. of this practice, cf. T. J. Hutchinson, Ten Years'Wanderings amongthe Ethiopians (1861, reprinted by Frank Cass, 1967), pp. 6s2. 26. Parrinder, West African Religion, pp. 134-5; cf. also Kalous, Cannibals,passim. Canibalism was already noted on the 'Grain Coast' (i.e. modern Liberia) in the seventeenth century: Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 429. p. 27. For the concept of 'medicine', cf. e.g. Monica Wilson, Religion the Transformation e of Society:a studyin socialchange Africa(Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 34-5. in
59
poison. This practiceis easily confoundedwith human sacrifice,since it tended to occur on a largescale in the contextof funerals,when there were suspicions that the deceasedhad been killed by witchcraft. But since it involves punishment for a supposed offence, rather than killing for a religiousor ritualpurpose,it is evidentlyconceptuallydistinctfromhuman sacrifice. It is also likely to affect a differentrange of victims, and variationsin its incidencemay have to be explainedby other factorsthan those affectinghumansacrifice.28 A further conceptual difficulty is that the term 'human sacrifice' naturallyconnotes the idea of killing,with the implicationthat the victim was passive, even if not actively uncooperative. But often, especiallyin the case of the deaths of wives and attendantsof the deceasedat funerals, we are dealingratherwith voluntarysuicides. In some cases, indeed, it is reportedthat people actively disputed for the honour of accompanyinga deceasedking into the afterlife.29 This is still best classifiedas 'human sacrifice', since such voluntary suicides in effect merely involved the internalization the expectationsof society, and were voluntaryonly in a of formal sense. Often, indeed, those expected to commit suicide on the death of a king were the occupantsof specifiedoffices,ratherthan strictly volunteers.30 In any case, given the sanctionof public disapproval,it is in practicevery difficultto distinguishbetween reluctantand cooperative
. .
vlctlms.
A final difficultyis that the people killed as human sacrificeswere often selected for this role for non-religiousreasons. Specifically,many of the people sacrificed West Africawere criminals,who had been sentencedto in death but preserved to be killed at the major religious festivals. This point has been highlighted in the case of Asante by Ivor Wilks, who, as noted earlier, writes consistently of 'public executions' rather than of 'human sacrifices',arguing that the latter term represents a misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentationby unsympathetic European observers.31 A similar point could be made with regardto some other West African kingdoms in which condemned criminals formed the dominantor at least a majorelement amongthe humanvictims offeredas sacrifices,such as Benin and Dahomey. Wilkswas, in fact, anticipated by
28. For a study of the dynamicsof witchcrafttrials in a particularWest African society (which, however,perhapsunderstresses differentroles playedby witchcraftordealsand the human sacrifice),cf. A. J. H. Latham,'Witchcraft accusations& economictension in precolonialOld Calabar', of AfricanHistory,13 (1972),pp. 24940. 7. 29. For example,in Benin:Dapper,Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 502. p. 30. For examplesin Asanteandthe Yorubakingdomof Oyo, see T. E. Bowdich,Mission from Cape CoastCastleto Ashantee(1819, reprintedby FrankCass, 1966), pp. 288-91; Samuel Johnson,TheHistoryof the Yorubas (1921, reprintedby ChurchMissionarySociety,Lagos, 1966),pp. 55-6. 31. Wilks,Asante,pp. 592-5.
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RichardBurton, visiting Dahomey in the 1860s, who observedthat what werecommonlytakenas humansacrifices 'are,in fact, the yearlyexecution, as if all the murderers Britainwere kept for hangingon a certainday in in London'.32 This interpretation, however, is not altogethersatisfactory. First, it is clearthat the killing of criminalsat the majorpublic ceremonies had religiousas well as purely religiouspurposes. In the case of Asante, Wilks acknowledges that executed criminalswere believed to form a 'servile class' in the afterlife,33 in Benin and Dahomey sacrificial and victims, even if criminals,were clearlyregardedas offeringsor messengersto gods or deceasedkings. Moreover,it is quite clearthat not all those sacrificed were in fact criminals. In Benin, there are referencesto the sacrificeof slavesandwarcaptivesas well as of criminals,and it is reportedthat if there were not sufficientcriminalsheld in the gaols to makeup the conventional numberof sacrifices additional victimswereseizedfor trivialoffencesin the streets of the city.34 In Dahomey, there is abundantevidence that war captives as well as criminalswere sacrificed.35 In Asante also, there is evidence for the sacrificeof war captives,36and the recent study of that kingdomby Thomas Lewin has shownthat inhabitants the capitalother of than criminals were often seized for sacrifice, especially slaves and foreigners.37 Lewin, still seekingto avoidthe term 'humansacrifice',calls these instances 'ritualizedkilling without trial', which does not seem an obvious improvementon the more familiardesignationpreferredin the presentarticle. These variousconceptualproblemsmay all seem amenableto satisfactory resolution. The conceptualambiguityof the term 'humansacrifice', however, does present enormous difficultiesin the interpretationof the contemporaryEuropean accounts which our principal sources for the historyof humansacrificein West Africa. Europeanobserversundoubtedly, through ignoranceor malice, often interpretedas human sacrifices killings which were really of a differentcharacter for example, judicial executions, witchcraft ordeals, or even political terrorssm. European sourcesthereforeunquestionablygive a greatlyexaggerated impressionof the incidenceof human sacrificein West Africa,and have to be used with the greatestcaution.38
32. Parliamentary Papers,1865 (3503-I), Vol. LVI: Correspondence. relatingto the Slave .. Trade,1864, item 19, Consul Burtonto Earl Russell, 23 March 1864. Burtonalso refers, however,to 'realsacrifices' madein secret. 33. Wilks,Asante,p. 593. 34. Dapper,Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 503. p. 35. Cocquery-Vidrovitch, fete des coutumes',p. 706. 'La 36. Se e.g. J. K. Fynn, Asantea its Neighbours 170s1807 (Longman,1971),p. 50; Joseph Dupuis,3tournal a Residence Ashantee of in (1824, reprintedby FrankCass, 1966),pp. 117, 141,233. 37. Lewin,Asante,pp. 62, 6s5. 38. Cf. Isichei,'Questfor socialreform',p. 470.
WEST AFRICA SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL HUMAN
61
sacrifice of incidence human The sacrificewas widespreadin West clear that the practiceof human is It relatingto West Africamake in earlytimes. EarlyArabicsources to be by Ibn Hawqal,in the Africa referencesto it. The earliestseems the occasional the sacrificeof female slaves at century, who refers vaguely to tenth specificallythe kingmentioning of wealthymen in West Africa, funerals gives a much the eleventh century,al-Bakri of ancient Ghana.39 In dom involvedthe burial in Ghana,which detailedaccountof royalfunerals more grave.40 In servantsof the king in the royal alive) of personal (apparently funeral refersto humansacrificeat the fourteenthcentury,Ibn Battuta the burialaliveof friendsand involvingthe the of king of Gobir, in Hausaland, contributedby the leadingfamiliesof of children of servantsthe king and residentin Gobir, whose son he tells the storyof a foreignMuslim, releasedonly upon payment Gobir: deathand seizedfor sacrificeon the king's was in a letter of the The Egyptian scholar al-Suyuti, of substitutionlarge ransom.41 of Gobir, to the practice refers,againwith referenceto 1490s, sick people in orderto save themselves sacrifice,the killingof slavesby the ary condemsthis as 'inspirationsof death:unsurprisingly,al-Suyuti from into Unbelief', recommending . means Devil. . acts which lead their perpetrators as a moreefficacious of slaves manumisionratherthanthe killing the securingdivine favourin such circumstances.42 of to West Africalikewiseattestthe of The earliestEuropeansourcesrelating societiesin the coastalareas. One of practice humansacrificein various Africa,that by ValentimFernandes earliestEuropeanaccountsof West graves the of wives and attendantsin the the in 1500s, refers to the burial Africa, among extreme west of West ofkings in two societies in the and among the Beafada of modern area theMandingo of the Gambia of human sacrifice Slightly later, there is evidence CatholicmissionGuinea-Bissau.43 the kingdomof Benin. east further along the coast, in Benin to Christianityin vainly to win over the king of endeavouring and aries in 'human sacrifices,idolatries 1539complained of his persistence and feared that they themselves incantationsnight and day', diabolical An accountby tell him to do mightbe sacrificed'shouldhis fetish
so'.44
of Hopkins (eds), Corpus Early 39. N. Levtzion & J. F. P. University Press, 1981), p. 52. History(Cambridge 40. Ibid.,pp. 8s1. in Thomas Hodgkin, Nigerian 41. Ibid.,p. 281. kings of Takrur, 1493, translated Press, 1975), pp. 119-20. 42. Al-Suyuti, letter to the (2nd edn, Oxford University de anthology a d'Afrique(Senegal au Capda Perspectives: historical Occidentale de la CoAte 43. Valentim Fernandes, Description Teixeira da Mota & R. Mauny, Centro de Estudos A. (trans. T. Monod, Monte,Archipels) pp. 39, 79. Societyof Nigeria,2!2(1961), Guine Portuguesa, Bissau, 1951), Missions', . of theHistorical F. C. Ryder, 'The Benin 44. A. pp. 25S9; cf. id., Benin,p. 71.
for ArabicSources WestAfrican
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AFFAIRS AFRICAN
time refers more Portuguesepilot who visited Benin around the same a 'those who are judged to to specifically sacrificesat royal funerals,when to be buried been most dearto and favouredby the king' volunteered have Seventeenth-century in with alive him, and died of starvation his tomb.45 coast: recordinstancesof humansacrificeall alongthe interveningat the sources refersto the killingof slaves Dapperin the 1660s, for example, Olfert the Vai, of modern of funerals noblemenin the kingdomof 'Kquoja'(i.e. sacrificesto gods on the Ivory Leone), to the offering of human Sierra 'greatlords'on the to Coast, the killingof slavesat the funeralsof kingsand at royalfuneralsin the kingdomof Coast,andto the sacrificeof slaves Gold betweenthe Gold Coastand Benin.46 Allada, evidencesuggestingthe earlypractice There is also some archaeological interest,as relatingto an Of particular humansacrificein West Africa. of is or Europeandocumentation lacking, Arab for area which contemporary of a king or chief, excavatedat the is richly furnishedburial,presumably burial,which Ukwu, in the countryof the Igbo east of Benin. This Igbo ninth century, was accompaniedby the isprobably to be dated to the as by the excavator of bodies five or moreindividuals,which areinterpreted at sacrificed the funeral.47 slaves especially funeral These various referencesshow that human sacrifice, at royalfunerals,occurredthroughand sacrifice, more especiallysacrifice however, the out West Africa in early times. In more recent times, much more limited. The of practice human sacrificewas geographically over much of the northernWest Africa,presumably disappeared practice Islamicinfluence,it the through influenceof Islam. Even in areasunder recentperiods. As istrue, humansacrificesometimespersistedinto quite even in Borno, a late as the nineteenth century, for example, we find to the Muslim society, rumoursof the sacrificeof a young girl thoroughly practice the RiverKomaduguYobe at its annualflood.48 But generally, significantscale survivedinto more recenttimes of humansacrificeon any and is of coursebest onlyin the southern,non-Islamicareasof West Africa, direct contact with documented in the coastal areas which were in sacritraders. Even within this southernarea,however,human European than in others. ficewas a much moreimportantinstitutionin some societies practiceof to the Althoughreferencescan be found in Europeansources
Thome south of the Equator, described by a 45. 'Voyage from Lisbona to the Island of San in J. W. Blake (trans. & ed.), Europeans in pilot', originally published in 1550, Portuguese in enterprise of a scope Portuguese to WestAfrica 145s1560: documents illustratethe nature WestAfrica,etc. (Hakluyt Society, 1942), vol. I, pp. 150-1. pp. Beschrijvinge, 403, 433, 480, 493. 46. Dapper, Naukeurige in discoveries EasternNigeria of archaeological 47. Thurstan Shaw, Igbo Ukwu:an account 269. (Faber, 1970), vol. I, pp. 265, Odu,new series, 5 (1971), pp. 40-1. 48. John E. Lavers, 'Islam in the Bornu Caliphate',
63
human sacrificeall along the coast, Europeanobserversseem to have felt that it was practisedon an especiallyhorrificscale in certainspecificWest Africankingdoms, all of which were located in the eastern section of the coastconventionally termedLower Guinea. Moreover,it is not merelya questionof humansacrificehavingsurvived on a large scale in these societies, when it had declined or disappeared elsewhere. The detailedevidence stronglysuggests that the incidenceof human sacrifice actually increasedin certain West African societies in recent times, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is admittedlydifficultto be altogethersure of this. The evidence consists basicallyof the testimony of contemporaryEuropeanobservers. These Europeansources undoubtedlygive the impressionof an increasein the scale of human sacrifice,but this may reflect less any change in the real situation than changing European attitudes towards African societies. The progressive growth of European feelings of racial superiority led Europeanobserversto emphasizethose aspects of Africansocieties which seemed exotic or barbarous,among which human sacrificewas very prominent, and this emphasison human sacrificewas furtherencouraged,as noted earlier,by the use of the issue in polemics over the moralityof the slave trade and of colonial conquest. It is therefore possible that the impressionof an increase in human sacrificegiven in Europeansources may be misleading,and merelyan illustrationof the generalpoint madeby Philip Curtinthat the Europeanimage of Africa'was more Europeanthan African',that is, it was determinedby, and changed in accordancewith, Europeanpreconceptionsrather than African data.49 There are, however, certaininstanceswheredetailedevidencedoes appearto demonstrate an increasein the scale of human sacrifice,the most importantof which requireextendeddiscussion.
Benin
Along West Africanstates with a specialreputationfor human sacrifice, firstplace, at least in point of time, undoubtedlybelongsto the kingdomof Benin. As noted earlier,the first explicit referenceto human sacrificein Benin occursin a reportof missionariesactive there in 1539. Alan Ryder has arguedthatthe silenceof earlierEuropeansourcessuggeststhathuman sacrificehad only been introducedinto Benin in the early sixteenth century,50but this seems unwarranted. The earliestEuropeandescriptionof Benin, that of PachecoPereirain the 1500s,while not referringspecifically to human sacrifice,does observethat 'the way of life of these people is full
49. Curtin, Image Africa,p. 479. of 50. Ryder, 'The Benin Missions', p. 239; id., Benin,p. 71.
64
AFRICANAFFAIRS
of abusesand fetishesand idolatries,which for brevity'ssakeI omit'.51 It should also be noted that an account of the human sacrifices which accompanied royalfuneralin Benin,writtenc. 1540,describesthese as 'an a ancient custom',52and there is archaeologicalevidence which has been interpreted suggestingthe practiceof humansacrifice Beninalreadyin as in the thirteenth century.53 The evidence for an increase in the scale of humansacrifice afterthe sixteenthcentury,however,is morepersuasive. The reportof 1539 suggests regularhuman sacrifices,but is unspecific about their scale and context. More informationon this is provided in sources of the seventeenth century. The account of Samuel Brun, published in 1623, refers specificallyto the sacrificeof captives taken in Benin militarycampaigns.54 Brun's account,which is based on hearsay, also makesthe wild claimthatno less than2,000 humanvictimswere sacrificed in Benin annually, but more detailed and circumstantialaccounts do not suggest such a large scale of sacrifice. The German surgeon Ulsheimer in 1603 witnessed human sacrificesoffered on a campaignby the Benin army and during an annualfestival when the king appearedin public on horsebackat the head of his troops (evidently the isiokuo,or festival of Ogun, the god of war). The numbers, however, were small, only two human victims being offered on each occasion. 5 In 1652 5 Catholic missionaries in Benin disrupted a religious ceremony in the royalpalaceat which five humanvictims were killed.56 A more elaborate picture of human sacrifice in Benin emerges in the account of Olfert Dapperpublishedin the 1660s. Dapper'saccountof the royalfuneralsof Benin appearsto be based on the accountof c. 1540 alreadycited, but he addsthat besidesthe royalfavouritesburiedalive in the King's tomb many others were killed 'alongthe streetsand in their own homes'. He further notes that slaves were killed at the funeralsof privatecitizens also, citing orleinstancewhen as manyas 80 slaveshad been sacrificed the funeralof at a wealthy woman, and observing generally that 'nobody importantdies therewithout it costingblood'. He gives a detailedaccountof two annual festivals which involved human sacrifices:that at which the king led his troops through the city (here again, presumablythe isiokuo,or Ogun festival), svhen between 1013 slaves were kiiled, and a commemorative festival in honour of the king's predecessor(i.e. the ugie-erhoba), which
51. Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Esmeraldo Situ Orbis(trans. G. H. T. Kimble, Hakluyt de Society, 1937), p. 126. 52. 'Voyage from Lisbona to the Island of San Thome', p. 150. 53. Graham Connah, TheArchaeology Benin(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975), pp. 66, 249. of This evidence, however, comprising a mass burial of over 40 individuals, might possibly relate to a judicial execution rather than to human sacrifice. 54. 'Samuel Brun's Voyages of 1611-20', in Jones, German Sources, 68. p. 55. 'Ulsheimer's Voyage', ibid.,pp. 24, 38. 56. Ryder, 'The Benin Missions', p. 244; id., Benin,p. 105. It is not clear to which of the annual festivals of Benin this refers.
65
involved the sacrificeof human and animalvictims to a total of 40(}500, 'but not more than 23 men in a day', the human victims being normally criminalstakenfrom the gaols. In addition,Dapper refersmore vaguely to the offeringof human sacrificesin the installationritualsof a new king, and to the occasionalkilling of human victims for gods, 'when the priests demandthem', the victims in this casealso being criminals.57 It is debatablehow far Dapper's account should be takenas suggesting an increase in the scale of human sacrificein Benin since earlier times. The greater detail of his account, as compared with earlier sources, evidently derives primarily from his concern to give a comprchensive descriptionof Benin customs, and reflectsthe growth of Europeanknowledge of and interest in the subject of human sacrificerather than any increase in the scale of the practice itself. In two instances, however, where Dapper's account of a specific ceremonycan be comparedwith an earlier source, there is some suggestion of an increaseor elaboration:at the royal funeral,Dapper recordsan additionalcategoryof victims (those killed in the streets and in their homes), and at the annual Ogun festival Dapper'sfigureof 1(}13 victims representsa substantialincreaseover the two victims recordedearlierby Ulsheimer. How far this increasein scale was generalis a matterfor speculation. It has often been suggested that the scale of human sacrificein Benin increasedsubstantiallyfrom the late seventeenthcenturyonwards.58 In fact, the evidence for a generalincreasein human sacrifice,at least before the nineteenth century, is not decisive. In two instances, the evidence does suggestthe introductionof humansacrificesinto ceremoniesin which earlierthese had not figured, but the numbers of victims involved were small. By the late eighteenthcentury three or four human victims were sacrificedeach year at the mouth of the Benin River, in order to attract Europeantrade,59 whereasDapperhad earlierreferredto sacrifices offered to the Sea without specifying that these were human.60 Likewise, the annual'coralfestival' (ugie-ivie), at which the royal regaliawere displaced to the populace, which had been described by Dapper and by a Dutch visitorin 1702withoutexplicitreferenceto humansacrifice,6 by the 1780s 1 did involve humansacrifice,althoughapparently only of a single victim.62 Accountsof other Benin festivalsin the eighteenthcentury,however,offer
57. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 498-504. pp. 58. See e.g. Davidson, BlackMother, pop.236-8; for a critique of this view, cf. Graham, 'The slave trade', esp. pp. 327-30. 59. John Adams, Remarks the Countryextending on from Cape Palmasto the River Congo (1823, reprinted by Frank Cass, 1966), p. 115; cf. Ryder, Benin,pp. 205-6. 60. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 504. p. 61. Ibid., p. 502; David Van Nyendael, 'A Description of the Rio Formosa the River of or Benin', in William Bosman, A Nezv a AccurateDescription the Coastof Guinea(1705, of reprinted by Frank Cass, 1967), pp. 465-6. 62. Ryder, Benin,p. 223.
66
AFFAIRS AFRICAN
given earlierby for figures human sacrificeswhich seem in line with those honour of deceased Dapper. In particular,an account of the festival in as against 23 in (the kings ugie-erhoba) 1736 records 20 human victims, the new yam festival as given the daily tally by Dapper.63 An accountof not mentionedby Dapperor any otherearliersource,in (agwe), a ceremony figureof 18 humanvictims.64 gives a comparable 1786 of more persuasiveevidence for a generalincreasein the scale There is A British trader who sacrifice during the nineteenth century. human that Benin towardsthe end of the eighteenthcenturyhad observed a visited some parts of Africa',65 sacrificesare not so frequenthere as in 'human which probablyreflectedthe increasingscaleof humansacrifice judgement which will be insome other West Africankingdoms (notably Dahomey, During the nineteenth next) ratherthan any decline in Benin. considered with however, Benin was to recover its paramountassociation century, series of Europeanvisitors sacrificein Europeaneyes, as a whole human scale. This the reported offeringof humanvictims allegedlyon a massive a hystericalclimax in the obsessivestress upon human sacrificereached with the publicaof context the British expeditionagainstBenin in 1897, Benin,the City of Blood.66 In tionof a celebratedbookwith the luridtitle in Benin part, no doubt, this increasingemphasison humansacrifice large ratherthan in local realities,and it changesin Europeanattitudes reflected century canbe demonstratedthat Europeanobserversof the nineteenthdetailed sacrificein Benin.67 A grosslyexaggeratedthe scale of human is evidencefor studyof this issue by Alan Ryder,however,notes that there in Benin at this period, as well as of specificelaborations human sacrifice sacrificesfor generalizedimpressions of an increase in scale, including control the weatherand to close roads), purposesnot recordedearlier(to of femaleas on in sacrifices new forms('crucifixion' trees),and the sacrifice ceremonies. Overall, the evidence is well as male victims at the annual sacrifice in convincing for a substantialincrease in the scale of human the 1880s.68 The accession of a new Benin from around the 1830s to by a temporary in king, Ovonramwen, 1888 appearsto have been followed sacrifice,69but the practice attained a decline in the scale of human on Benin in at new height of extravagance the time of the British attack attemptto ward 1897, when numerousvictims were killed in a desperate the large off foreign conquest:contraryto the usual British propaganda, 63. Ibid., p. 188. 219-20. 64. Ibid., pp. 65. Adams, Remarks, p. 1 15. 66. R. H. Bacon, Benin, the City of Blood (Edward Arnold, 1897). in Benin were those of unburied 67. Europeans tended to assume, wrongly, that all 329-30. corpses human sacrifices: cf. Graham, 'The slave trade', pp. 68. Ryder, Benin, pp.247-50. 69. Ibid., p. 248.
HUMAN SACRIPICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA
67
numbers of human sacrificeswere a response to the British expedition, ratherthanvice versa.70

Dahomey
During the eighteenth century, Benin had been overshadowed in Europeaneyes as the majorpractitioner humansacrificein West Africa of by Dahomey,the principalkingdomin the areaknownas the 'Slave Coast', between the Gold Coast and Benin.71 Before the eighteenth century, Dahomeyhad been a state of only minor importance. The most powerful stateof the Slave Coastduringthe seventeenthcenturywas the kingdomof Allada,while the most importantcommercialcentrewas the small state of Whydah,on the coastto the south-westof Allada. Dahomeywas in origin an offshootof Allada,foundedby a prince of the royalhouse of that kingdom in the interior to the north. But in the early eighteenth century Dahomey emergedas the most powerfulkingdomin the area,and invaded and conqueredboth Alladaand Whydahin the 1720s. European accounts of Allada and Whydah before their conquest by Dahomey in the 172Osrefer to the practice of human sacrificein these kingdoms, but without great emphasis. Dapper, for example, refers to the killings of concubinesand servantsat royal funeralsin Allada,72and later accountsof Whydahrecordthe sacrificeof wives and slaves at royal funeralsthere also,73as well as the practiceof substitutionary sacrifice,the killing of a man to preservethe king when ill.74 There is no suggestion, however, that human sacrifice was practised on any extravagantscale. Royalfuneralsinvolvedthe sacrificeof only two womenand an unspecified numberof men in Allada,and of only eight women and a variablebut also unspecifiednumber of men in Whydah. There is also no record of the offeringof human sacrificesat any of the regularannualfestivalsof Allada or Whydah. By contrast, the scale of human sacrificein Dahomey was enormous. This was alreadyapparentat the time of the first direct Europeancontact with the kingdomin the 1720s. In 1727 an English traderwitnessedthe sacrificeof 400 war captivesin a ceremonyin Dahomey, and heardreports (veryprobablyexaggerated) as many as 4,000 had been sacrificed that after the Dahomianconquestof Whydahearlierin that year.75 Royal funerals
70. Graham, 'The slave trade', pp. 329-30; Home, Cityof BloodRevisited, 8S7. pp. 71. On Dahomey, in addition to the works cited in n. 15 above, a Ph.D. thesis is currently in preparation by John Reid at the University of Stirling, dealing with Dahomey in the nineteenth century, which will clarify further the role of hwnan sacrifice in this kingdom. 72. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 493. p. 73. Jean Barbot, 'Description des Cotes d'Affrique' (unpublished ms of 1688, in Public Record Office, London, ADM. 7/830); Jean-Baptiste Labat, Voyage du Chevalierdes Marchais Guinee, en Isles Voisines a Cayenne a (Paris, 1730), vol. II, pp. 92-5. 74. Bosman, New dr Accurate Description, 383. p. 75. Snelgrave, New Account, 31, 4S9. pp.
68
AFRICANAFFAIRS
in Dahomey involved hundreds of deaths: for example, the funeral ceremoniesfor King Kpengla,who died in 1789, involved,over a periodof two years,the killingof some 1,500 persons,manyof them war captives.76 The contrast with Allada and Whydah earlier is also illustratedby one point of detail, relating to a custom common to Whydah and Dahomey. In both kingdoms,in the periodbetweenthe deathof a king and the installation of his successor disorderlyand criminalbehaviourwas permitted without punishment-evidentlyin order to emphasizethe importanceof royalauthorityfor the maintenance order. But whereasin Whydahthis of involved merely crimes againstproperty,77in Dahomey the king's wives foughtwith one anotherin the royalpalace,hundredsbeing killedand subsequentlyburiedwith the king.78 In addition,the funeralsacrificeswere supplemented in Dahomey by annual commemorative sacrifices for deceasedkings,usuallyknownas the 'AnnualCustoms'or 'Watering the of Graves',at which largenumbersof war captivesand criminalswere killed. Estimatesof the number of victims killed at the Annual Customs during the eighteenth century range between 4(}50 and 20S300g79 eyewitness accountsof particular occasionssuggest totals well below 100,8?but these appearto relate only to those sacrificesoffered publicly, and need to be supplementedby sacrificesofferedin secret (usuallyof women) inside the royal palace.81 Further, ad hoc sacrifices were commonly offered, in which people were killed to carryspecialmessagesto the king's deceased predecessors.82 The total annualslaughterin Dahomey, even apartfrom the royalfunerals,must have run into severalhundreds.83 While the much greater scale of human sacrifice in Dahomey, as
76. Dalzel, Historyof Dahomy,pp. 20s5, 224, 226, 229-30: the king's wives killed 595 of their own number on his death, 68 war captives were killed on the journey of the royal corpse to the capital and 48 men on its journey to the tomb, over 300 captives were killed at the tomb, and a further 500 men, women and children were killed at the official funeral ceremony (the 'Grand Customs') over a year later. 77. Bosman, New a Accurate Description, 366a. p. 78. Dalzel, Historyof Dahomy, pp. 150-1, 204-5: 285 royal wives were killed in this manner in 1774, 595 in 1789. 79. The higher figure is given by Norris for 1775/6, the lower by Isert for c. 1784: Norris, Memoirs theReignof BossaAhadee, 136; Paul Erdman Isert, Voyages Guinee dansles of p. en a IslesCaraibes (Paris, 1793), p. 148. 80. One observer who witnessed three separate 'Customs' in the early nineteenth century never counted more than 65 victims: John M'Leod, A Voyageto Africa(1820, reprinted by Frank cass, 1971), p. 60. Norris in 1772 records seeing the corpses or severed heads of about 80 victims, as well as seven men awaiting execution, but it is no-texplicitly stated that these comprised the total of those sacrificed: Memoirs theReignof BossaAhadee, 934, 100-1, of pp. 106, 11s1. 81. Such executions of females in secret are reported, at least, in the nineteenth century: Burton, Missionto Gelele,p. 233; cf. also F. E. Forbes, Dahomeya The Dahomans (1851, reprinted by Frank Cass, 1966), vol. II, p. 152. 82. M'Leod, Voyage Africa,pp. 634; Burton, Mission Gelele, 234-5. to to pp. 83. In 1864, when the scale of human sacrifice may have been rather less than in the eighteenth century, Burton estimated the total toll at no less than 500 in an average year: Mission Gelele,p. 235. to
69
comparedwith AlladaandWhydah,is clear,the historyof the development of the institutionwithin Dahomey itself is more obscure. It may well be that Dahomey was markedfrom its foundationby a greaterelaboration of humansacrifice thanits parentstateof Allada. In the 1720s it was claimed in Dahomey that the killing of a selection of the war captives taken in victoriouscampaigns'had ever been the Customof their Nation'.84 The enormousscale of sacrificein the eighteenth centurywas perhapsmerely a by-product of the increasing scale and success of Dahomian military operations. Some later sources,however,assertthat the annual Customs had been introduced into Dahomey only by Agaja, the king who was responsiblefor the conquestof Alladaand Whydahin the 1720s.85 Whatis more certainis that the scaleof the AnnualCustomswas further increasedin the earlynineteenthcentury. King Adandozanof Dahomey was deposed in 1818, so tradition alleges, for neglecting to 'water the graves' of his predecessors:in the context, this appearsto mean that his lackof militarysuccesswas not yielding a sufficientsupply of war captives for sacrifice, rather than that he was deliberately running down the ceremonies.86 His successor,Gezo, in contrastextended and elaborated the Customs. After a notable victory againstthe neighbouringkingdom of Oyo in 1823, Gezo instituted an additional annual festival involving humansacrificesto commemorate success.87 It also appearsthat the this numbersof victims offeredat the regularAnnual Customswere increased under Gezo, totals of 300 and of 249 victims being recordedduring the 1830sand 1840s.88 Although,for reasonswhich will be discussedlaterin this article, the scale of human sacrificewas somewhatreduced from the 1850s onwards,it continued to be practisedon a large scale down to the Frenchconquestof Dahomeyin the 1890s.
Asante
During the nineteenth century, the pre-eminence of Dahomey in Europeanperceptionswith regardto human sacrificein West Africa was challengednot only by a resurgentBenin to the east but also by the kingdom of Asante, in the hinterlandof the Gold Coast to the west. Like Dahomey, Asante was a new state, which had been only of minor importance before the eighteenthcentury. During the seventeenthcentury,the Gold Coast and its hinterlandhad been divided into a large number of
84. Snelgrave, New Account, 4S7. pp. 85. Forbes,Dahomey, 1I, p. 88; Skertchly, vol. Dahomey, 118-9. pp. 86. A. Le Herisse, L'Ancien Royaumedu Dahomey (Larose, Paris, 1911), p. 315; cf. Hargreaves, 'IdeologicalInterpretation', 19-20. pp. 87. Burton,Missionto Gelele,p. 126;Skertchly, Dahomey, 179. p. 88. A totalof 300 is reported 1830:TheophilusConneau,A Slaver'sLogBook,or 20 Years' c. Residence Africa(RobertHale, 1977),p. 204. A totalof 249 is reported 1848/9:Forbes, in for Dahomey, I. p. 33. vol.
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AFRICAN AFFAIRS
smallstates;Asanteemergedas the dominantpowerin the hinterlandat the beginning of the eighteenth century, and eventuallyoverranthe coastal areaalso in the 1800s. Seventeenthcenturysourcesreferfrequentlyto the practiceof humansacrifice,especiallyof slaves,at the funeralsof chiefs and important men in the coastalkingdoms,89 thereis one reportalso of the and sacrificeof captives taken in war to a god.90 Doubtless human sacrifice was practisedin the interiorat this periodalso. But nothing suggeststhat humansacrificein this areahad attainedany especiallygrandscale before the rise of Asante.9 1 One of the earliestEuropeanaccountsof Asante,in 1701,alreadyalludes to the sacrificeof captives taken in war.92 The earliest contemporary sources suggestingan especialextravagance scale of human sacrificein of Asante,however,is a reportof 1797claimingthat between 1,400and 1,500 people had been sacrificedfor the funeralsof the royal princes, an excess which allegedly provoked a popular rebellion.93 The funeral of the motherof an Asanteking in 1809 is said to have been markedby the sacrifice of no less than 3,000 human victims, over 2,000 of whom were prisonersof war.94 These accounts,based on hearsay,are very probably exaggerated,but the earliest detailed first-hand descriptionsof Asante, producedby Britishmissionsto the capitalKumasein 1817and 1820, confirm the practice of human sacrifice on an extravagantscale. Human sacrifices wereofferedat privateas well as at royalfunerals,andalso to gods to ensure the success of Asante military operationsand on occasions of national disaster. In addition, human victims were killed at regular Asantefestivals,such as the annualYam festival (Odwira), which involved over 100 deaths a year, and the monthly Adae Festival, at which over 70 people were killed on one occasionin 1820.95 RichardBurton,seekingto defend Dahomey againstchargesof excess in these mattersin the 1860s, could reasonably claimthat Asantewas worse.96 Old Calabar A fourthWest Africanstatewhich acquireda reputation,at least briefly,
89. e.g. 'Ulsheimer's Voyage', in Jones, German Sources,p. 31: 'Wilhelm Johan Muller's Description of the Fetu Country, 1662-9', ibid., pp. 156, 179; Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 480; Bosman, New a Accurate p. Description, 231-2. p. 90. 'Muller's Description', in Jones, German Sources, 169, reporting an incident at Fetu in p. 1666. 91. Few precise figures are given, but Muller records three funerals at Fetu in the 1660s which involved the sacrifice of over 80, over 30, and seven slaves: ibid.,p. 179. 92. Fynn, Asante,p. 50. For subsequent Asante traditions recording the sacrifice of war captives for the funerals of royalty during the eighteenth century, cf. Dupuis,3'ournal, 233; p. C. C. Reindorf, Historyof the GoldCoasts Asante(2nd edn reprinted, Ghana Universities Press, Accra, 1966), p. 82. 93. Fynn, Asante,p. 137. 94. Bowdich, Mission, 289. p. 95. Ibid.,pp. 262, 279, 282-3; Dupuis,3rournal, 116, 14s2. pp. 96. Burton, Mission Gelele, 234. to p.
71
for excessivehuman sacrificewas Old Calabar,on the coast east of Benin. Humansacrificeis alreadyreferredto in a Europeanaccountof this placein the seventeenthcentury,97 there is nothing to suggest a scale at all out but of the ordinaryuntil the early nineteenth century. It is, indeed, fairly clear that at that time the numbers offered as human sacrificesin Old Calabar were escalatingdramatically.98 In Old Calabar,althoughhuman sacrificeswere occasionallyofferedto deities,99the principalslaughterof humanvictims occurredat the funerals of importantmen. The evidence for an increase in the scale of human sacrificeis a seriesof figuresfor specificfuneralsbetweenthe 1780s and the 1840s. These certainlyattest an increasein the scale of mortalityat the funeralsof the great men of Calabar,but interpretation complicatedby is the fact that much of this increase representedthe death of suspected witches through the poison ordeal, ratherthan sacrifices,and the sources do not alwaysclearlydistinguishbetweenthe two. At the funeralof Duke Ephraim,king of Old Calabar, 1786it appearsfroma contemporary in local diarythat 65 peoplewere sacrificed, nine men andwomen(presumably free relativesand wives) being buried with him and 56 slaves being killed in subsequentceremonies;there seems to have been no resort to the poison ordeal.100 At the death of Eyo Nsa, the rulerof the CreekTown section of Old Calabar,in 1820 a visiting Europeanestimatedthat not less than 100 people were sacrificedin a single day.10l At the funeral of Duke Ephraim'sson, also calledDuke Ephraimand also king of Calabar, 1834 in it is claimed that over 200 free men were killed, besides 'slaves without number'102: this figure certainly includes victims of the poison ordeal as well as sacrifices,but a contemporary local documentshows that those killed as witches on this occasionnumberedunder 50.103 On the deathof Eyamba,king of Calabar,in 1847a residentEuropeanmissionaryrecorded an accountof mass slaughter,includingboth sacrificesand deathsthrough the poison ordeal: no overall figure is given, but it is said that 30 of Eyamba'swives werekilledon the firstday alone.104 In 1850, largelyas a resultof Europeaninfluence,funeralsacrificeswere abolishedin Old Calabar. The administration the poison ordeal,howof
97. A. J. H. Latham,Old Calabar 160s1891 (Clarendon Press,Oxford,1973),p. 26. 98. Cf. G. I. Jones, 'The political organizationof Old Calabar',in D. Forde (ed.), Efik Traders Old Calabar of (International AfricanInstitute,1956),pp. 151-3. 99. Cf. Latham,Old Calabar, 35. p. 100. Diary of AnteraDuke, in Forde, Efik Traders, 46, 48-50 (with translation, 97, pp. pp.
101.Memoirs theLateCaptainHughCrowof Liverpool, of (Longman,1830),p. 280. 102. H. M. Waddell,Twenty-Nine Yearsin the WestIndiesdr Central Africa(1863,reprinted by FrankCass, 1970),p. 497. 103. Ibid.,p. 279. 104. Ibid.,p. 295.
99-100).
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AFRICANAFFAIRS
ever, continued,and causedmany deathsat the funeralsof the leadingmen of Calabar down to the abolitionof the poison ordealitself in 1878.1 05
The riverine Igbo
It has been suggestedby ElizabethIsichei that an increasein the scaleof human sacrifice can also be discerned among the Igbo, in the interior betweenBeninand Old Calabar, moreespeciallyin the Igbo city-states and situatedon the River Niger such as Abo and Asaba.l06The evidence in this case, however, is exiguous. There is very little evidence for conditionsin the Igbo countrybeforethe nineteenthcentury,so thatvariations in the scale of sacrificeare difficultto document. Isichei is able to compare the five or six individualsburied with the chief at Igbo Ukwu in the ninth centurywith a figureof 40 slaveskilled reportedat the funeralof the kingof Abo in c. 1845,1?7 since these aretwo differentcommunitiesand but thereis in any caseno certaintythatthose buriedin the graveat Igbo Ukwu representedall those sacrificed,this comparisonis of limited significance. Isichei also cites the case of Asaba,wherethe numberof individualsholding the Eze title, whose installations funeralsinvolvedhumansacrifices and (two on each occasion) is said to have increasedfrom an original two to some 500 by the end of 1870s,an increasefrom200 to 500 occurringwithin a few yearsduringthe 1870s.1?8 This certainlyimpliesan increasingscale of sacrifice,but it is unclearhow farthis increasecan be generalized.In the case of Abo, it may be noted that the account reportingthe killing of 40 slaves at the royalfuneralin c. 1845 also states that 'this practiceis gradually dying out at Abo, if it is not altogetherextinct'.109 The argumentfor a generalincreasein the incidenceof human sacrificein the Igbo country appearsto rest less upon any hard local evidence than upon analogywith the better documentedcases of the neighbouringstates of Benin and Old Calabar, perhapsalso upon Isichei'sgeneraldispositionto believe that and any unpleasant features of pre-colonial Igbo society attested in the nineteenth century must representcorruptionand degenerationfrom an earliermoreharmoniouscondition.
Towardsan explanation of the incidenceof humansacrifice
In attemptingto explain variationsin the incidence of human sacrifice acrossspaceand throughtime in West Africa,one obviouslyrelevantfactor is the size of the availablepool of potentialvictims. Not all membersof
105. Latham, 'Witchcraft accusations', pp. 254-5. 106. Isichei, TheIboPeople,pp. 568, 63; id., History theIgbo,pp. 47, 100-1. of 107. W. B. Baikie, Narrativeof an ExploringVoyageup the RiversKworaa Binue (John Murray, 1856), p. 315. 108. Elizabeth Isichei, 'Historical change in an Ibo polity: Asaba to 1885', . of African History,10, (1969), pp. 4234. 109. Baikie, Narrative,p. 315.
73
societywereequallyliableto selectionfor sacrifice,the victimsbeing drawn preponderantlyfrom specific (and usually disprivileged) groups. The funeralsacrificeswhich were commonover much of West Africainvolved primarilythe killing of wives and slaves of the deceased,and the numbers killed were evidentlyat least loosely correlatedwith the numbersof wives and slaves that the kings and chiefs concernedpossessed. The increasing scale of human sacrificeevident in some West Africansocieties can therefore be linked to the increasingconcentrationof wealth, in the form of wives and slaves, in the hands of wealthy and powerful individuals. In some instances, it is true, slaves were purchasedspecificallyfor sacrifice rather than (or as well as) being selected from the household of the deceased,1 but this practiceobviouslyalso reflectsthe sameprocessof the 10 concentration wealth. Funeral sacrificesincreasedin scale not merely of as an incidentalby-productof this concentrationof wealth, but also as a means of advertisingwealth to the communityand thereby ensuringthat it conferredcommensurateprestige. Human sacrificecan be seen as a particular form of the conspicuousconsumptionin which wealthymen in pre-colonial West Africa habitually indulged in the quest for social standing.1ll The increasingconcentrationof wealth which lies behind much of the increasein the scale of human sacrificein the coastalareasof West Africa can of course itself be linked, at least in large part, to the increasingscale of the tradewith the Europeansfrom the fifteenthcentury upwards. War captives formed an additional category of potential victims for sacrifice, which was of especiallygreatimportance DahomeyandAsante. in In societies which customarily,as a form of thanksgivingfor divine or ancestral assistancein war,sacrificed portionof their captives,the scaleof a human sacrificewould evidently tend to increasewith any growth in the scale and regularityof militaryactivity. Here again,human sacrificewas not merely a by-productof increasingmilitarism,but served as part of its ideologicalapparatus,since the public sacrificeof war captivesadvertised militarysuccessand the obligationto providevictims for sacrificesupplied a justification the wagingof war. In Dahomey, for example,although for in fact only a small proportionof the captivestakenin war were sacrificed (most being kept as slaves in Dahomey or sold to the Europeansat the coast1 12), official ideology created the impression that the principal
tion,p. 231; Baikie, Narratise,p. 315.
110. This is reported e.g. on the Gold Coast and at Abo: Bosman, New a Accurate Descrip-
111. Cf. Jones, 'Political organization of Old Calabar', p. 153; Isichei, TheIboPeople,p. 54. 112. Apologists for the slave trade regularly claimed the reverse, that the majority of Dahomey's war captives were sacrificed: e.g. Dalzel, Historyof Dahomy, 169-70, 173, 209, pp. 221. But in the 1770s Dahomey is said to have been exporting 5,000-6,000 slaves annually (Norris, Memoirs the Reignof BossaAhadee,p. 62), whereas the annual tally of sacrifices of clearly ran into hundreds rather than thousands.
74 purposeof warfarewas to supply The increasingscale of human victimsfor sacrificeto deceasedkings.113 sacrificecan thereforealso be increasingmilitarization society linked to the of Africa, especially the Gold and which is evident in some partsof West centuryonwards,a process of Slave Coasts, from the late seventeenth which the rise of Dahomey and itself a part. This Asantewas militarization,in turn, seems to be linked to the development the Atlantictrade,as of the expandingmarketfor coastincreasedthe economic slavesat the attractiveness war and the of European importationof firearmsstimulatedthe revision of West Afrianmilitary andthe reconstruction tactics of West Africanmilitary organizations. It can further be suggested 114 that the especially large scale was commonly practiceof human sacrificeon an developmentof highly centralized linked to royal authority,and to the monarchies. 115 In some societies, human sacrificeis said to have been a royal perogative:this is stated, example, both of Benin and of for Dahomey.l16 In the case of Benin, appears mean that royal to this authorization was requiredfor the offering human of sacrifices,ratherthan that only the In Dahomey, however, it appearsthat king could offer such sacrifices. the sacrificeof human persons victims by other than the king was formallybanned, althoughthis not taken until the 1840s.1l7 Human sacrifice served royal step was partly through the prestige of authority conspicuous consumption and through creatingan air of fear aroundthe partly royal office a 'demonstration of power', as Olfert Dapper expressed it in the seventeenth King Kpenglaof Dahomey, in an century.1l8 explanation humansacrificeoffered of a European to enquirerin the 1780s, avowed both of these objectives:'You have me kill many men seen at the Customs.... This gives a grandeurto my Customs, far beyond the display of fine things which I buy. makes enemiesfearme, and my This gives me such a namein the bush'.119
113. an analysis which For uncritically reproduces this official the African in the role ideology, cf. Dov Ronen, 'On 11, (1971),pp. 5-13. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Dahomey', Cahiers dEtudesAfricaines, 114. this process of For militarization, see esp. Ray A. Kea, the Settlements, Seventeenth-Century Coast (Johns Tradea Politiesin Gold pp. Hopkins University Press, 13048; also id., 'Firearms & Baltimore, 1982), Warfare on nineteenth centuries', . of AfricanHistory, the Gold & Slave Coasts from the sixteenth to 12, (1971), pp. 185-213. 115. J. D. Fage, Cf. 'Slavery & the African 10, (1969), p. 402. slave trade in the context of West African History history', . of 116. Benin, see R. E. For Bradbury, 'The Kingdom of (eds), African West Benin', in D. Forde & P. M. Kingdoms the Nineteenth in Kaberry pp.33. For 3-4, Dahomey, see M. J. Herskovits, Century(Oxford University Press, 1967), (J. J. Dahomey, ancientWestAfrican Augustin, an New York, 1938), vol. II, pp. 54-5, 281. kingdom 117. Duncan, Travels John Africa(1847, reprinted by Frank 258; p. 306. The in Western vol.II, Cass, 1968), vol. I, p. human sacrifices at private vol. I, vol. II, pp. p. 32; funerals reported by Forbes, Dahomey, Even the 1840s, 199-200, presumably occurred in the period prior to after however, human sacrifices were this prohibition. senior Burton, Mission chiefs: permitted for the funerals of to Gelele,p. 234. certain 118. Dapper, Naukeurige pp.480,493 (referring to the Gold 119. Historyof Beschrijvinge, Dalzel, Coast and Allada). Dahomy, 220. p.
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
/h
Beyond this, large-scale human sacrifices were often linked to the elaborationof a royal ancestor cult, which can be seen as providing the legitimating ideology for royal power. It is, at any rate, clear that in addition to the human sacrificesoffered at the actual funerals of kings, many of the sacrificesofferedat regularceremonieswere relatedto the cult of deceased kings. This was most clearly the case in Dahomey, where human sacrificeswere offeredvirtuallyexclusivelyto royal ancestors,and were not normally offered to gods.120 The Annual Customs, as noted earlier,were performedin honourof dead kings, the humanvictims being killed so that their blood might Cwater graves'of the past rulersand so the that they themselvescould swell the retinuesof these kings. It has rightly been observedthat the centralpoint of the Annual Customs in Dahomey was to assert and reinforceroyal power.12l It is noteworthy,moreover, that both Agaja,who is said to have introducedthe AnnualCustomsiIl the earlyeighteenthcentury,and Gezo, who extendedand elaborated them in the early nineteenth century, were usurpers: Agaja had succeeded irregularly, preferenceto his predecessor's in children,while Gezo had displaced his predecessor by a coup d'etat.122 Both, therefore, had an obvious interest in reinforcingtheir somewhatquestionablelegitimacyby an extravagant displayof attentionto the cult of their royalancestors. In Benin also, although human sacrificeswere offered to gods and to non-royalancestorsas well as to dead kings, many of the most important instancesof human sacrificeswere linked to royalty. In addition to the major annual festival which involved human sacrifices to past kings, culminatingin sacrificesfor the reigning king's father (the ugie-erhoba)) human sacrificeswere also offered to deceased kings at the arlnualOro masquerade(the ugie-oro),while the annualyam festival (agzve) involved venerationof the mythicalfounderof the royal dynasty, Odudua. Other annual festivals involved human sacrificesfor the king's 'head', i.e. his spirit double or genius (the igwe), and for the royal regalia (the ugie-ivie).l23 Ryder, indeed, suggests that the increase in human sacrifice in Benin during the nineteenth century represented an increasing resortto the ritualpowersof the monarchyin a periodof growingeconomic and politicaldifficulty. 24 In AsantealJo)althoughhumansacrificeswere 1 often offered to deities and to non-royal ancestors,the most extravagant slaughterseems to have been relatedto the royalancestorcult. In particular,many of the sacrificesat the annualYam Festivaland at the monthly
120. Herskovits, Dahomey, vol. II, p. 53. 121. Cocquery-Vidrovitch, 'La fete des coutumes', p. 711. 122. For details, see I. A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey a its Neighbours 1708-1818 (Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 6s2, 19S201. 123. For the festivals of Benin, see esp. R. E Bradbury, The Benin Kingdom a the Edo-Speaking Peoples (International African Institute, 1957), pp. 55, 58-9, Paula Ben-Amos The Art of Benin (Thames & Hudson, 1980), pp. 75-93. 124. Ryder, Benin, p. 250.
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AFRICANAFFAIRS
Adae ceremonieswere offered to deceasedkings, the victims being often killed over the royal stool, the symbol of royal authority.l25 In Asante also, there is some suggestionthat the kings built up the royalancestorcult as a counter to the power of the priests of the gods, who formed a check upon royalauthority.126 As noted earlier in this article, a common argument, originally articulated by Davidson and elaboratedmore recently by Isichei, seeks to link the expansion of human sacrifice in West Africa to the effects of the Atlantic slave trade. The argument is partly that the slave trade encouraged economic differentiation,with the emergence of dominant minorities of wealthy men who indulged in conspicuous consumption throughthe offeringof humansacrifices, partlyalso that the slavetrade but fostereda general'disregard humanlife' whichwas expressedin human for sacrifice.127 Empirically,it is perhapsquestionablehow far a correlation between human sacrificeand participationin the slave trade can be discerned. Not all societies heavily involved in the slave trade practised humansacrifice a largescale,while one of the principalsacrificing on states, Benin, was never more than marginallyinvolved in the slave trade.l28 But at leastas a contributory factor,the slavetrademaywell haveplayedan importantrole in such cases as Dahomeyand Asante. The precisenature of the link between human sacrifice and the slave trade, however, is debatable. In particular,the notion that the slave tradepromoteda 'disregardfor human life' seems unhelpful. Although this is clearlytrue in a moral sense, in an economic sense the implicationsof the slave trade were quite the reverse:as apologistsfor the slave trade argued, the slave trade provided an economic incentive to preserve people for sale rather than killing them, so that if the existence of a marketfor slaves had any effect on the numbersof human sacrificesit would surely have to been to reduceratherthan to increasethem. There is some reasonto believe that the slave trade had some effect on the selection of sacrificialvictims, encouragingthe sacrificeof the old and infirm,and thereforeunsaleable, while leaving the strong and healthy to be sold,129but there is no very
125. Both the Yam and Adae ceremonies involved rites at the Bantama, the royal burial place: see e.g. Bowdich, Mission, p. 279; T. B. Freeman, 3tournalof Various Visits to the Kingdoms of Ashanti, Aku a Dahomi (1844, reprinted by Frank Cass, 1968), p. 136; Reindorf, History of the Gold Coast, p. 131. For sacrifices over the royal stool, cf. e.g. Dupuis,3rournal, p. 142. 126. M. D. McLeod, The Asante (British Museum, 1981), p. 64. 127. Davidson, Black Mother, p. 224; Isichei, The Ibo People, pp. 47, 578; id., History of the Igbo, p. 47; id., History of West Africa, p. 11. 128. Benin was, however, at various periods heavily involved in the export of other commodities (pepper, ivory, gum and cotton textiles), so that the Atlantic trade may still have played a role here in the expansion of human sacrifice, by encouraging the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the palace and chiefs. 129. For examples, see Bosman, New e Accurale Descrzption, p. 231 (on the Gold Coast); Snelgrave, New Account, p. 47 (in Dahomey). Since, however, slave labour was widely employed within West African societies, such selective pressures would presumably have existed to some degree even without an export trade in slaves.
77
obviousway in which Europeanpurchasesof slavesat the coast could have led directly to an increase in the overall numbers sacrificed. The link betweenhuman sacrificeand the slave trade, insofaras it existed, must be seen as a more indirect one, realized through the militarizationof West Africanvalues and institutionswhich the trans-Atlantic marketfor slaves helpedto encouage. It is also noteworthy that the most convincing evidence for a general increase in the scale of human sacrifice in West Africa relates to the nineteenthcentury,that is when the overseasslavetradewas in decline. It seemsprobable,indeed,thatthe expansionof humansacrifice this period at was relatedto the declinein the exportof slaves. Davidsonsuggestedthat the increasein humansacrificein the nineteenthcenturyreflecteda sort of psychologicalcrisis, caused by the 'economic insecurityX which followed the end of the Atlanticslave trade.130 This view seems to rely overmuch upon the specific case of human sacrifices oSered in Benin to attract Europeantrade, mentionedabove, and probablyalso exaggeratesthe politicaland socialdislocationcausedby the end of the overseasslavetrade.131 The increasein human sacrificeat this period was paralleledby a general increasein the scale of domestic slavery in the societies of coastal West Africa,132 is indeed at least to some degreeexplainedby it: if societies and were holding more slaves, then clearly they had more slaves to sacrifice. It is sometimessuggestedthathumansacrificeincreasedin orderto dispose of slaves who were now, with the collapse of overseas markets, unsaleable;133but while this view might applyto the militarystatesin the interior (such as Asante)which were involvedin the actual'production' slaves,it of can hardlyapply to the commercialcommunitieson the coast (such as Old Calabar) which purchasedtheir slaves from the interior. More probably, the explanationis that the decline of the exportof slavescausedsomething of a glut within West Africa, which was reflectedin a general fall in the price of slaves.134 With such a fall in slave prices, kings and chiefs could evidentlyaffordnot only to buy more slaves,but also to kill more,withouta
130. Davidson, BlackMother, 224; cf. p. 238. p. 131. On the the implications of this economic transition for West African soceties, see e.g. R. A. Austen, 'The abolition of the overseas slave trade: a distorted theme in West African history', i. of the HistoricalSocietyof Nigeria, 5, 2 (1970), pp. 257-74; A. G. Hopkins, An Economic Historyof WestAfrica(Longman, 1973), pp. 12s66. 132. Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations Slavery:a historyof slaveryin Africa(Cambridge in University Press, 1983), p. 160. For Asante, see also Wilks, Asante,p. 708; for Dahomey, Robin Law, 'Royal monopoly & private enterprise in the Atlantic trade: the case of Dahomey', 7. of African History, 18, (1977), p. 573; for Benin, Jacob Egharevba, A Short Historyof Benin (3rd edn, Ibadan University Press, 1960), p. 49; for Calabar, Latham, Old Calabar,pp. 91-3; for the Igbo area, David Northrup, TradewithoutRulers:pre-colonial economic development South-Eastern in Nigeria(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978), pp. 22(}3. l33. Kiernan, Lords Human of Kind,p. 215; Isichei, TheIboPeople,p. 63. 134. Lovejoy, Transformations Slavery,p. 139; cf. also Wilks, Asante,p. 177; Isichei, The in IboPeople,p. 62.
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AFRICANAFFAIRS
proportionateincrease in expenditure:the unit costs of human sacrifice were falling.13 s

Thepolitics of humansacrifice: local pressures restriction for
The end of human sacrificein West Africa was largely due to external pressuresand influences-the penetrationof Islam southwardsfrom the interiorand the penetrationof Europeaninfluencefrom the coast. There is not much informationon the way in which Islam affectedthe incidence of humansacrificein West Africa:al-Suyuti'scondemnation the practice of cited earlieris one of the very few explicit referencesto the issue in Islamic sources. But it is not to be doubted that the disappearance human of sacrificein the northernareasof West Africareflectsprimarilythe process of Islamization. The impact of Europe is of course much better documented. This was already having some effect in limited areas of West Africa in the seventeenth century. On the Gold Coast, where the Europeansheld a number of fortified posts, human sacrifice was suppressed as far as Europeanauthorityextended, thollgh this was not very far.l36 Outside this very limited areaof direct Europeanauthority,Christianmissionaries were active, and although in general these had little success before the nineteenth century they did make some converts earlier, notably in the kingdom of Warri, to the south-east of Benin, whose royal family was Christian throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 3 7 1 Dapper in the mid-seventeenthcentury noted that the people of Warri madefew animalor humansacrifices,'but regardsuch things as atrocities', and it seems reasonable attributethis unusualattitudeto the influenceof to Christian propaganda.138 But in general European and Christian influence was not significantbefore the nineteenth century. From the 1840s in particularBritish diplomatic(and occasionallymilitary)pressure was employedin an attemptto impose treatiesabolishinghuman sacrifice (as well as the slave trade) on West Africanstates. On the Gold Coast, when a number of coastal states came together formallyunder a British semi-protectoratein 1844 the opportunity was taken to proclaim the abolition of human sacrifice,and in the interior a similar provision was included in the treaty imposed on Asante after the British punitive expeditionin 1874 139 Furthereast, the authoritiesof Old Calabar, under the influence of locally resident European missionaries and traders,
135. Cf. Isichei, Historyof WestAfrica,p. 104. 136. Bosman, New a Accurate Description, 232. p. 137. See esp. A. F. C. Ryder, 'Missionary activities in the Kingdom of Warri to the early nineteenth century', ^. of theHistorical Societyof Nigeria,2, 1 (1960), pp. 1-26. 138. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 507. p. 139. J. F. A. Ajayi & M. Crowder (eds), Historyof WestAfrica, vol. II (Longman, 1974), pp. 204, 213.
79
proclaimedthe abolitionof human sacrificein 1850,14? while the riverine Igbo stateof Abo accepteda treatyabolishingthe practicein 1863.141 But in a numberof cases, this pressurefor the abolitionof humansacrificewas resisted as long as the West African states concerned retained their independence. In Benin, Dahomey and Asaba, for example, the end of human sacrificecame only with the Europeanconquest at the end of the nineteenthcentury. The decline of humansacrificein West Africawas not, however,merely a question of foreign pressures imposing abolition. In some instances pressuresfor the restriction,if not for the complete abolition, of human sacrificeemergedwithin West Africansocietiesthemselves. The internal politics of human sacrificehave been little studied, the only attempt at a general treatment of the issue being the article by Elizabeth Isichei, published in African Affairs in 1978.142 Isichei's analysis, however, is somewhatlimited, since it takes as given that human sacrificeis evil, and sees the movementsagainst the practicein certainWest Africansocieties basicallyas evidence of the existence in Africa of moralvalues congruent with those of Europe and Islam. This has the dual advantage of demonstratingthe respectability(by the Europeanstandards)of African societies, and of suggesting that African societies containedwithin themselves the potentialityto reformtheir own abuses,thus undermining of one the conventionaljustifications the Europeanconquest. Social reform, for however,is best conceptualized as the recognitionof abusesdefinedby not some supra-historical standard,but ratheras the reformulation moral of standardsso as to identify as abuses practicesnot previouslycondemned. It is necessary,therefore,to explainas well as documentand celebratethe emergencyof disapprovalof human sacrifice. This, however, is by no means easy to do, since the evidence available comprises principally accountsof West Africansocieties by Europeanoutsiders,who offer only imperfectand often distortedperceptionsof the motives and objectivesof the Africansinvolved. One obvious source of oppositionto human sacrificewas the reluctance of potentialvictims to be sacrificed. Alreadyin the seventeenthcentury, Dapper reported that in the Kingdom of 'Kquoja' in Sierra Leone the traditionalsacrificesof slaves at the funeralsof noblemenwere 'not much practisedof late', becausethe slavesconcernedeitherranawayin anticipation of their master's death or defended themselves with arms against attemptsto seize them for sacrifice.l43 Lateraccountsshow that the flight of slaves, in orderto avoid being sacrificed,was a standardreactionto the
140. 141. 142. 143. See esp. Waddell, Twenty-Nine Years, pp. 421-3. J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891 (Longman, 1965), p. 210. Isichei, 'Quest for social reform', pp 469-72. Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, p. 403.
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also.144 But this of death large-scaleowners of slaves in others societies humansacrificeas of sort resistancedid not reallyconstitutea challengeto slavesto institution,but merelyreflectedthe unwillingnessof individual an rare for slaves to for volunteer selection as sacrifices. It was apparently of themselves collectively to demand the complete abolition organize rebellions sacrifice, just as it was rare for there to be collectlve human were common the against status of slavery,althoughindividualrunaways enough. action to One exceptional instance where slaves did take collective Old Calabarin the the abolish practice of human sacrificeoccurred in in Old Calabar 1850s. Althoughthe law of 1850banninghumansacrifices and traders,the due was largelyto the influenceof Europeanmissionaries of the law. themselvesplayeda criticalrole in enforcingobservance Calabar slaves section of Old During1850 the farm slaves of the Duke Town by a blood oath to to began organize themselves, binding themselves and 1852, these 'Blood each other, and on two occasions, in 1851 defend their will on the Men'invaded Calabartown in armed bands to impose immediate purpose was to rulingfreemen.145 On both occasions, the supportthe factionsamongthe Duke Town freemen in 1851 to support victim of witchcraft,and in king,Archibong,then ill and supposedlythe of the poison 1852,after Archibong's death, to enforce the application his death. But on both ordealupon those suspected of bringing about seemsto havebeen a subsidithe occasions, preventionof funeralsacrifices British consul after arymotive: in 1851, the settlementnegotiatedby the confirmingthe abolition thewithdrawalof the slaves includeda provision only after an agreeof human sacrifices;and in 1852 the slaves withdrew in any way, for the late king', a ment that 'no more persons should die, poison ordeal,and wordingwhich clearlyembracessacrificeas well as the of an exchangeof guarantees, which can perhapsbe interpretedin terms the ordealand the the slaves agreeingnot to requiremore freemento take any slaves.146 There is some freemenin turn promisingnot to sacrifice applicationof the suggestion, indeed, that the slaves' insistence on the not only the takingof sides in a dispute poison ordealin 1852 represented for vengeance among the free leaders of Duke Town, but also a desire The successof formerlyoppressedthem.147 againstthe freemenwho had
Years, p. 282; Cruickshank, Eighteen 144. For examples from Asante, see Bowdich, Mission, Years,pp. 295, 336, 642-3. Old Calabar, see Waddell, Twenty-Nine vol. II, p. 225. For 'Political organization of Old Calabar', 145. For the Calabar 'Bloodmen', see esp. Forde, (Clarendon Press, a Politicsin the Niger Delta 183s1885 pp. 148-57; K. O. Dike, Trade pp. Old Calabar, 995; K. K. Nair, Politicsa Societyin Oxford, 1957), pp. 154-7; Latham, in Old Calabar
s commerce SouthEasternNigeria 1841-1906: a studyof power,diplomacy
(Frank Cass, 1972), pp. 48-55. Years,pp. 477-8, 499. 146. Waddell, Twenty-Nine Anderson & Ferrier, Edinburgh, 147. Cf. Hugh Goldie, Calabare its Mission(Oliphant, 1890), p. 159.
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the Duke Town slaveswas subsequentlyemulatedby the farmslavesof the CreekTown section of Calabar,who on the deathof King Eyo Honesty in 1858 likewisebound themselvesby a blood oath to resist human sacrifice, and marchedarmedon the town to overawethe freemen.148 This exceptionalresortto collectiveaction by the slaves of Old Calabar may have been inspired by awarenessof Europeandisapprovalof human sacrifice,which had been articulatedby Christianmissionariesresident in Calabarsince 1846. But in addition, it probably owed much to the special situation of slaves in this society, who had been accumulatedin large numbersin a very short period in the early nineteenth century and settled in agriculturalcommunities in the hinterland separatefrom the town.149 This situationwould evidentlyhave facilitatedthe development of a collectiveidentityamongthe farmslaves, in oppositionto the freemen in the towns, and thus also the organization collectiveaction. of In other cases, disputes over human sacrificeproduced not a division between ruling groups and the disprivileged, but a division within the ruling group. In Benin, King Ewuakpe, who seems to have died in c. 1710, is said by traditionto have provokeda rebellionby his chiefs and people by the extravagant scale of human sacrificesofferedat his mother's funeral;ironically,he is also said to have securedhis chiefs' submissionby sacrificing of his own wives to the gods.150 one This rebellionis presumablyidenticalwith one recordedin contemporary European sources as having occurred during the 1690s, which was ended by a compromisepeace in c. 1700.15l The traditionalaccount is most naturally interpreted as recording a protest against the abuse of humansacrifice(verylikely,againstthe sacrifice free citizens,ratherthan of merely slaves, criminalsand war captives)ratherthan againstthe institution itself, but it is noteworthy that a Dutch trader who visited Benin aroundthis time describesBenin religionin some detail without mentioning human sacrifice,which may be held to suggest that the practicehad been temporarilysuspended.152 Ryder suggests that this abolition was due to Ewuakpe'sinitiative, and had indeed been the provocationfor the chief7s rebellion,l53 but the evidence of the traditions suggests that if humansacrificewas indeed abolished,this was more probablyimposedby the chiefs on the king than vice versa. In any case, the abolition, if it occurred,was merely temporary. Possibly its reversalcan be associated with the restorationof royal power in Benin effectedby the crushingof a
148. Waddell, Twenty-Nine Years, pp. 643-4. 149. See esp. Latham, Old Calabar, pp. 91, 95. 150. Egharevba, Short History of Benin, pp. 39-40. 151. Van Nyendael, 'Description of the Rio Formosa', pp. 466-7; cf. Ryder, Benin, pp. 114-5, 118-9. 152. Van Nyendael, 'Description of the Rio Formosa', esp. pp. 455-6. 153. Ryder, 'The Benin Missions', pp. 251, 254; id., Benin, pp. 114-5.
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AFFAIRS AFRICAN
in the rebellion of chiefs by Ewuakpe's successor Akenzua further 154 1710s. some role in the In Asante also, disputes over human sacrificeplayed but the details are of deposition two kings duringthe eighteenthcentury, in 1764, is from being clear. King Kusi Obodum, who was deposed far chiefs and people by by said one traditionalaccountto have alienatedhis human sacrifices.155 This, however, is probablya misunderforbidding military other accounts stress rather Kusi Obodum's lack of standing: true complaintagainsthim and success,156 it seems likelythereforethatthe was failing to against Adandozanin Dahomey in 1818) was that he (as than that he had banned sufficientwar captivesfor sacrifice,rather secure which led to the sacrifices. A similarambiguitysurroundsthe disputes reportof 1797 contemporary of deposition King Osei Kwamein 1798. A people for the funeralsof two that states the killingof excessivenumbersof was ended princeshadled to a rebellionagainstOsei Kwame,which Asante kill or sacrificeanyone',but byan agreementthat 'the king may no longer at the coast.157 thatconvicted criminalsshould instead be sold as slaves that this was really a total Hereagain, however, it seems improbable and more abolitionof human sacrifice (far less of capital punishment), on the limitations and controls likelythat it was an attempt to impose of free citizens. practice,perhaps specifically to restrict the sacrifice recordeda generationlatergives a an Moreover, accountof these disputes his subjectsthe quitedifferentaccount,which makesthe king ratherthan Osei Kwame was deposed for his initiatorof reform. This claims that religiousfestivals to attachment Islam,which had led him to prohibitmany he still continued to offer human involving human sacrifice, although Kwamewas not victimsto the royalancestors.158 This suggeststhat Osei sacrificealtogether,as to concentrate so much seekingto suppresshuman supposition,the its practiceupon the cult of the royalancestors. On this Osei Kwame,it may be suggested, to accountsmay perhapsbe reconciled: humansacrifice soughtto enhanceroyalpower by prohibitingor reducing the oppositionin turn sought to impose cults, while for the non-ancenstral not the legitimacy limitson the ancestralsacrifices. Whatwas at issue was but ratherthe rival claims for victims of the of human sacrificeas such, turn expressedthe royal ancestorcult and the cults of the gods, which in tensionbetweenroyaland chieflypower. of the British The situation which arose in Asante in the aftermath There was punitive expedition against it in 1874 is somewhat clearer.
154. 155. 156. 157. 158.
Benin,pp. 118-9. Egharevba, ShortHistoryof Benin,p. 40; cf. Ryder, Historyof theGoldCoast,p. 130. Reindorf, 8F98. pp. e.g. Dupuis,3tournal, 238-9; Fynn, Asante,pp. Fynn, Asante.o. 137. p. Dupuis,ffournal, 245; cf. Wilks, Asante,p. 253.
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then a move to abolish human sacrifice,as was requiredby the treaty of 1874, and laws to this effect were promulgatedin 1876 and 1881. The practicaleffect of these laws seems to have been, in 1876 to restrictsacrifices to convicted murderers,and in 1881 to abolish public executions at religious ceremonies.159 In part, of course, these reformswere merely a responseto British pressure,born out of a desire for better relationswith the British. As the king of Asante himself explained in a letter to the Britishauthoritiesin 1876: 'The King and people knowingvery well that human sacrificeis distressingto the feelings of whitemen, and that their friendshipwill not go well with them while they keep up that custom, they determined to abolish it'. 160 But more than this was involved. It appearsfrom Ivor Wilks'workthat the issue of humansacrificeservedas a symbol in a struggle between modernizers and traditionalistsin late nineteenth century Asante, between those who supportedand those who opposed the reshapingof Asante institutions and values on the model of those of Europe. The discontinuationof the sacrificeof war captives implicitin the law of 1876 servedspecificallyto symbolizethe renunciation of the militarist (or, in Wilks' own term, 'imperialist')policies which had earlier been dominant in Asante, but which had been decisively discreditedby the defeatof 1874.16l An essentiallysimilardispute arosein Dahomeyin the 1840sand 1850s, though in this case it was the traditionalistsratherthan the modernizers who were to prevail. As noted earlier, King Gezo who acceded to the throne in 1818 at first increasedthe scale of human sacrificein Dahomey, but from the 1840s he beganto reduceit. In 1847 a Britishobserverwas alreadyreporting,with more enthusiasmthan accuracy,'the abolition,in a greatmeasure,of humansacrifice'. 162 What this meantin practiceseems to have been the banning of human sacrifices by private individuals, alreadymentioned,and the endingof capitalpunishmentfor certainspecific offences.163 Gezo seems also to haveproclaimedan end to the sacrifice of female victims, althoughEuropeanobserversbelieved that such sacrifices were continuedin secret.164 There was apparently also a significant reductionin the numberof victims killed publiclyat the AnnualCustoms, which fell to 32 in 1850.165 In the 1850s,Gezo went further. In 1853he actuallysent a messageto the Britishthat he 'wouldgive up the practiceof
159. Wilks, Asante,pp. 627-30. 160. Ibid.,p. 628; cf. the similar message of 1891 quoted by Lewin, Asante,p. 162. 161. For the conflict between 'imperialist' (i.e. war-oriented) and 'mercantilist' (tradeoriented) ideologies in Asante, see esp. Wilks, Asante, pp. 674-88. Wilks himself, however, does not make the connection between human sacrifice and 'imperialism'. 162. Duncan, Travels, vol. 11, p. 305. 163. Ibid.,vol. I, p. 141; vol. II, p. 195. 164. Forbes, Dahomey, vol. II, p. 152. 165. Ibid.,vol. I, p. 33; vol. II, p. 171.
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human sacrificesaltogether'.166 Although the British authorities were scepticalabouthis sincerity,it appearsthat he did carryout his proclaimed intention,insofaras he now killed only criminals,and no longer war captives, at the Annual Customs.167 Gezo also made arrangements the for reduction,though not for the completeabolition,of humansacrificeat his own funeral,banningin particularthe customarymutual slaughterof the royalwives.168 However,oppositionto Gezo's reforming policieswas led by a senior chief, the Mehu, supported by the heir apparent to the throne.169 When Gezo died in 1858, there were rumoursthat his death was a supernatural punishmentfor his reforms(or alternatively, he had that been murderedby his human oponents), and there was a disputed succession to the throne, reflecting the division of the Dahomian chiefs betweena partywho are saidto havewishedto abolishthe annualsacrifices andanotherwhich wishedto retainthem. In the eventit was the reactionary party which won and installed their candidate,the heir apparent,as king.170 After 1858, the human sacrificesin Dahomey were not only maintained,but moderatelyincreasedin scale, with the killing of war captives as well as of criminals. 7l Althoughthe scaleof humansacrificewas l to fall againlaterin the nineteenthcentury,this was due to the povertyand lack of military success of the monarchy rather than to any desire for reform.172 It was left to the French to suppress human sacrificeafter theirconquestof Dahomeyin 1892. Gezo's move to reduce human sacrifice in Dahomey was partly a responseto British diplomaticpressure,applied by a series of officialand unofficialemissariesfrom the 1840s onwards,and partly also due to the influenceof some of his white associates,notablythe Brazilianslave trader
166. Parliamentary Papers, 1854 (0.6), vol. LXIII: Correspondence.relatingto the Slave .. Trade,1853H, item 118, Rear-Admiral Bruce to Secretary of the Admiralty,25 April 1853. 167. M. Laffitte, Le Dahome: souvenirs voyagea de mission de (Alfred Mame, Tours, 1874), p.92; Pierre Bouche, La CotedesEsclaves le Dahomey Plon, Nourrit & Cie, Paris,1885), a (E. p. 342. 168. Parliamentary Papers,1865 (3503-I), vol. LVI: Correspondence. relating theSlave .. to Trade,1864, item 19, Consul Burton to Earl Russell, 23 March 1864. This account reports that Gezo had made his chiefs to swear 'to disallow the general slaughter which, before his time, always followed his demise': Hargreaves, 'Ideological Interpretation', p. 50, takes this as implying the total abolition of funeral sacrifices, but the account in Burton, Missionto Gelele, p. 232, n. 48, shows that only the mutual slaughter of the royal wives was at issue. 169. Repin, 'Voyage au Dahomey', EtudesDahomeennes, (1950), p . 95, reporting the 3 situation in 1856. 170. Bouche, La Cote des Esclaves,pp. 342, 368; cf. Laffitte, Le Dahomey, 92; Burton, p. Mission to Gelele, pp. 235, 299. See also Hargreaves, 'Ideological Interpretation', esp. pp. 47-52; & the forthcoming work of John Reid, cited above, n. 71. 171. 800 human victims were killed for Gezo's funeral; Parliamentary Papers,1859 (2569-1), vol. XXXIV, Sess. II: Correspondence. relating theSlave Trade,1858-9, item 17: Consul .. to Campbell to Early of Malmesbury, 7 Feb. 1859. At the Annual Customs, Burton in 1864 counted 39-40 victims, not including sacrifices at the royal tombs which he did not witness: Mission Gelele,pp. 233, 276, 311. to 172. Cf. Edouard Foa, Le Dahomey Hennuyer, Paris, 1895), p. 289. (A.
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Francisco Felix da Souza.173 But especially in the 1850s, more was at issuethana cosmeticdeferenceto non-Dahomianopinion. It appearsthat the reduction in human sacrifice was part of a general programmeof modernization and accommodation British pressurewhich Gezo adopto ted at this period,the principalfeatureof which was the renunciation the of slave trade (which Gezo had accepted under pressure of a British naval blockade,in 1852) and an active commitmentto commercial agriculture as an alternativesource of export earnings. This programmenecessarily implied the demilitarization the Dahomianstate, not only becausewar of had been the sourceof the slaves exportedbut also becausethe Dahomian military ethos involved a disdain for agriculture. As Gezo himself had urged, in fendingoff Britishpressurefor the end of the slavetradein 1850: 'My people are a military people, male and female.. . I cannot send my women to cultivate the soil, it would kill them. My people cannot in a short spaceof time becomean agricultural people . . . All my nation,all are soldiers'.174 In the 1850s, however, Gezo did make the attemptto shift Dahomey'sorientationfrom war to agriculture,suspendingthe customary annualcampaignsand incorporating into the AnnualCustomsceremonies endorsingthe new agriculturalrole of the monarchy.l75 The reduction of human sacrificewas a necessarycorollaryto this policy because of its centralassociationwith Dahomianmilitarism,the AnnualCustomsinvolving traditionallythe sacrificeof captives taken in war to report the latest militarysuccessesto the past kingsof Dahomey. The abortion of Gezo's reform project is extremely instructive, in illustratingthe central importanceof human sacrificefor the ideology of royalpower in Dahomey. There was evidentlya fundamental contradiction in Gezo's attemptto lend royalauthorityto a campaignagainsthuman sacrifice,as part of a wider campaignagainstDahomianmilitarism,when royal authority had been traditionallybased upon a royal ancestor cult marked by large-scale human sacrifice, which was simultaneously a celebration of Dahomian martial values. Gezo himself was evidently awareof the problem, for in 1848 he told the British, when still evading their proposalsfor reform: 'He held his power by an observanceof the time-honoured customs of his forefathers;and he would forfeit it, and
173. For da Souza's influence, see Forbes, Dahomey, vo1. I, p. 107. Ironically, when da Souza died in 1849 human sacrifices were offered for his funeral: ibid., vo1. I, pp. 32-3. 174. Parliamentary Papers, 1852 (1455), vol. LIV: Papers relative to the Reduction of Lagos, item 13, inclosure 3, Journal of Lieutenant Forbes, on his Mission to Dahomey, entry for 4 July 1850; cf. Forbes, Dahomey, vol. II, pp. 187-8. 175. For the elaboration of the Annual Customs to include ceremonies celebrating the role of the monarch as king of 'the bush', i.e. 'of the farmer folk and country as opposed to the city', see esp. Burton, Mission to Gelele, pp. 268-9. The analysis by Edna G. Bay, 'On the trail of the Bush King: a Dahomean lesson in the use of evidence7, History in Africa, 6, (1979), pp. 1-15, underestimates the relevance of this for the expansion of exports of agricultural produce, as well as assuming implausibly that the institution pre-dates the earliest evidence for it in contemporary sources in the 1850s.
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entail upon himself a life full of shame, and a death full of misery, if he rejectedthem'.176 In the eventthese forebodingsweresubstantially justified, even if we concede that Gezo himself was allowed to die a natural death. In the absence of the sort of psychological shock provided in Asante by the catastrophicdefeat by the British in 1874, the attempt to subvertthe ideologicaltraditionsof the Dahomianmonarchyproved selfdefeating. As RichardBurton,lookingbackon this episode in the 1860s, was forcedto conclude,there was simply no prospectof royalauthorityin Dahomeybringingan end to humansacrifice:'To abolishhumansacrifice is to abolishDahomeyitself'.177 Humansacrifice expandedin scalein had West Africa largelythrough its associationwith royal authorityand with militarism,and for a highly autocraticand militarizedkingdom such as Dahomey it was not a remediableexcess, but a centraland indispensable partof its ideologicalsuperstructure.
Conclusion
In conclusion,it should perhapsbe stressedthat the historicalproblem of humansacrifice West Africalies not in its mereexistence,sincehuman in sacrificein one formor anotheris attestedin earlyperiodsof the historyof virtuallyevery areaof the world. The principalproblemis not even the survivalof humansacrificein West Africainto recenttimes, since formsof human sacrificeenjoyeda comparable longevity elsewherealso: for example, in India, where the burning of widows (formallyby their voluntary choice)at theirhusbands'funeralscontinuedin Bengaluntil suppressedby the British colonial authorities in 1829, or in Japan, where a famous Generalcommittedsuicideat the funeralof an Emperoras late as 1912.178 What requiresexplanationis ratherthe practiceof human sacrificeon an especially large (and, the evidence suggests, actually increasing)scale in certainparticularsocieties of pre-colonialWest Africa. The persistence of religious traditions which, unlike Islam or Christianity,legitimated humansacrificewas evidentlya necessary,but not a sufficientconditionfor the scale of humansacrificepractisedin societies such as Benin, Dahomey andAsante,andadditionalfactorsneed to be adduced. While the analysis offered in this article will doubtless require modificationin the light of furtherresearch,certaingeneralpoints do seem to be clear. Humansacrifice in West Africawas predominantly funeralsacrifice,offeredto deceased humansratherthan to gods, and served above all to advertisewealth and
of Dahomey, 9 Nov. 1848. 177. Burton, Missionto Gelele,p. 235. 178.For these and other comparative instances, see the general study by Nigel Davies, HumanSacrifice Historyand Today(MacMillan, 1981), in which is, however, disappointingly superficial in its treatment of Africa.
176. Parliamentary Papers, 1849 (399), XXXIV: Missionsto the King of Ashanteee vol. Dohomey [sic], item 2, inclosure, Report by B. Cruickshank, Esq., of his Mission to the King
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to reinforceroyalauthority. In addition,in certaininstanceswhere sacrificialvictims were drawnespeciallyfrom war captives(as in Dahomeyand Asante) human sacrificeappearsto have served as part of the ideological apparatus militarism. Conversely,oppositionto humansacrifice of within West Africansocieties, in additionto instancesof resistanceon the part of prospectivevictims,occasionally aroseas a by-productof attemptsto check royalautocracy to challengethe dominanceof militaristicideology. To or the extent that the concentrationof wealth and political power and the militarizationof West Africansocieties was promotedby involvementin the Atlanticslave trade,there is some substanceto those views which have sought to link the elaborationof human sacrificein West Africa to the impact of the slave trade, although it must be conceded that there were other forces than the slave trade which encouragedsocial differentiation, politicalcentralization militarism. The implicationsfor the incidence and of humansacrificein West Africaof the decline of the overseasslave trade in the nineteenth century, however, were contradictory: reducing the by cost of slaves in local markets,it made human sacrificecheaperand thus facilitateda further expansion of scale, but at the same time by undermining the economicbasis of militarismit encouragedattemptsto redirect energiesfrom slave 'production'to less martialforms of commerce,which might involve (as in Asante and Dahomey) an attackon the institutionof humansacrifice. Controversies over humansacrificethus reflected,at the ideological level, the crisis of adaptationposed for some West African societiesby the economicchangesof the nineteenthcentury.

Human Scarifice in Precolonial West Africa

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The Royal African Society

HUMAN SACRIFICE IN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

BossaAhadee,Kingof Dahomy,an inland

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

Mother, 153 4. pp.

WEST SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL HUMAN

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

WEST AFRICA SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL HUMAN

for ArabicSources WestAfrican

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIPICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

numbers of human sacrificeswere a response to the British expedition, ratherthanvice versa.70

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

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HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

proportionateincrease in expenditure:the unit costs of human sacrifice were falling.13 s

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

HUMAN SACRIFICEIN PRE-COLONIAL WEST AFRICA

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