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The one thing we seem to miss is the Esculapian character. . It may be that this is included in his characteristic of an omniscient and all-powerful god, but it does not.seem to be especially mentioned. * Mission to the King ae Dahomey, 2 vols. , _8v0. . § Burton, vol. IT. p. 139. Murray; 1864, || Des Marchais’ (1725) Voyages, ii. p. 185, et seq. + Capt. Snellgrove’s Narrative in Astley, i iii, 489. _ ¥ A copy of this platéis given in Astley, vol. ITY. + Bosman.in aeley: plate 7. AFRICA. Bt) Women, when touched by the serpent, are said to become “possessed.” They are seized with hysteria, and often bereft of reason. When so affected they are secluded in hospitals prepared for their reception, and generally afterwards are considered as priestesses,—Fetish women,—though returned to civil life. The bulk of the priestesses are girls devoted either before their birth or at a very early age to the service of the god. They are brought up in the temple, taught singing, dancing, and various accomplishments, exactly as the nautch girls are in the temples of Southern — India, and when of age are married to the god. On this occasion they are marked with the image of the god by pricking the skin with needles and rubbing in indigo, or some blue dye, which is indelible. This seal.is said to be set upon them by the god himself,* and, as in Greece, no one dare to divulge his mysteries. Besides this earthly serpent, there is another, the heavenly one, commonly called Danh. It is the rainbow, and makes the Popo beads, and confers wealth on man. Its emblem is a coiled and horried snake of clay, in a. pot or calabash.t The second god in the Dahoman Pantheon is represented by lofty and beautiful trees. They are prayed to and presented with offerings in times of sickness, and especially of fever. -The most revered of these is the cotton tree (Bombax), whose wives equal those of the snake, and the Loco, the well-known poison tree of the West African coast. The latter numbers few Loco-si or wives, but, on the other hand, has its own fetish pottery, which may be bought in every market.{ The youngest brother of the triad is Hu, the ocean. Tha Huno, or ocean priest, is now considered the highest of all, a fetish king at Whidah, where he has 500 wives. The offerings to this god are rice, corn, oil, beans, and also cloth, cowries, and other valuables; but at times the king sends as an ocean sacrifice, from the capital, a man carried in a hammock, with the dress, the stool, and umbrella of a noble. A canoe takes him out to the sea, and he is thrown to the sharks. The human sacrifices or “customs,” as they are usually called, of Dahomey, are one of the most remarkable religious observances of the world. They have been frequently described, but by no one so fully or intelligently as by Captain Burton, in his volumes we have just been quoting from.§ They are divided into greater and lesser customs. At the former not less than 500 or 600 victims are. sacrificed ; at the latter, at which Captain Burton and his companions assisted, 80 or 40 seem to suffice. The idea seems to be that when, the king leaves this world’ it is necessary his wife, his servants, and his domestic animals should accompany him, and they are all slaughtered accordingly. The lesser customs are an annual act of ancestral worship in honour of the departed king, and also to keep up his stock,. though in the land of the immortal this seems unnecessary. Besides that, whenever a battle is fought or any great event happens, a messenger is despatched to propitiate the * From Suetonius we learn that when Atia, the mother of Augustus, was touched by the serpent in the temple of Apollo, she was marked with a stain (macula) like a painted serpent, so that she did not afterwards dare to appear in the public baths.—Sueton. in Aug. c. 94. { Burton, ii. 148. } Burton, ii. p. 140, 1,141. § Burton. As dlinost the whole work is devoted to this subject, it is siebillocs to specify pages. E2 36 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, late king by keeping him “aw fait” in the news of his late ‘dagen’: It is said the present king would not be unwilling to do away with, or at least to modify, some of the most rev olting features of this great slaughter, but that his subjects would - regard such an act as a neglect of his most sacred duties, and he might lose his throne as a punishment for such impiety.* . None of the works above referred to make it clear what the negro’s ideas of immortality are, probably because none such exist. That they have an idea of a future. state, and that they consider this world as merely one of transition, is evident. All pass on to the next and better world, but with the same wants, feelings, and ‘desires that they possessed while sojourning here, and apparently with the same distinction of rank.. The last king, however, is the @ne especially honoured, and the reigning monarch, when he dies, expects the schief worship to be paid to him, and no doubt he is the one who takes the greatest interest.in sublunar affairs. They never vise apparently to the rank of gods, but if they do not die ae are at least very soon iorgotten. tT When. contemplating this, to us, strange religious development, Whe question inevitably arises, How far are we to consider this Dahoman worship as a living fragment of the oldest religion of the world, or how far may it have grown up in more modern times ? The traditions of the country are, as might be expected, far too vague to be of any avail in such an enquiry, and we are left.to draw our conclusions from such information as we can gather elsewhere. We. know from the Egyptian monuments that neither the physical features nor the social status of the negro have altered in the slightest degree during the last 4,000 years. If the type was then fixed which has since remained unaltered, why not his religion alsoP There seems no @ priori ’ difficulty. No other people in the whole world seem so unchanged and unchangeable. ‘Movements and mixtures of races have ‘taken place everywhere else. Christianity has swept Serpent ‘Worship out of what were the limits of the Roman world, and Mahomedanism has done the same over the greater part of Northern Africa. Neither influence has yet penetrated to the Gold Coast, and there apparently the negro holds “his old faith and his old feelings fast”? in spite of the progress of the rest of the -world. It may be very horrible, but so far as we at present know it is the oldest of human faiths, and is now practised with more completeness in Dahomey than. anywhere else, at least at the present day. AMERICA. There are few things in connexion with the ancient mythology of America more certain than that there existed in that country before its discovery by Columbus extreme veneration for the serpent. Whether or not this should be designated “ worship” is not so clear. The total absence of any native literature renders it extremely difficult to realise the exact interpretation to be put on any observed phenomena, and we * Burton, ii. 176, + Among the Zulus the snake is held in great respect, and is not willingly killed ; as théir dead ancestors are supposed to reappear in the form of snakes.——Colenso, on the Pentateuch, p. VI. p. 142. AMERICA, 37 gather very little trustworthy ‘information from the early Christian missionaries or historians, They were either too.ignorant or too prejudiced to take a dispassionate, view of what they saw, and were too much. inclined to see the serpent of Eve, or the deluge of Noah, in the vague traditions of the natives; though, to account for these, they were obliged to make St. Thomas missionary to. Mexico—before it was founded—as well as first Bishop of Madras. The consequence is, that we are . dependent either on a very imperfect examination of the S Sculptures, or on very vague oral traditions, for our knowledge of the subject; and it neéd. hardly be added, that with only such data it is extremely difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. At the same time, however, it must be admitted that if a systematic examingtion of such data as exist were undertaken, with special reference to Tree and Serpent Worship, a great deal might yet be effected; but as no one has yet attempted the investigation, the subject must for the present be left in its original obscurity. The principal deity of the Aztec Pantheon seems Tezcatlipoca, or Tonacatlecoatl, literally the Sun Serpent. According to Sahagun, in his character of God of Hosts, he was addressed by the Mexican high priest: “ We entreat that those who die in *“* war may be received by thee, our father the sun, and our brother the earth, for * thou alone reignest.”’* The name of the primitive goddess, the wife of Tezcatlipoca, was Cihuacohuatl, or Tonacacihua, the female serpent or the female sun. She, according to. the Mexicans, gave to the light at a single birth two children, one male the other female, to whom they refer the origin of mankind.+ A. still more remarkable myth is that of Quetzal-coatl, literally the feathered serpent. Ile is by some represented as born of a pure virgin in the province of Tollan; by others as a stranger coming from a “ far countrie,” some time between the sixth and ninth century of our era. Be this as it may, he was the great. lawgiver and civilizer of the inhabitants of Anahuac. He taught them religion, gave them laws, instructed them in agriculture and the use of metals, and the various arts of life. Ife is generally represented as an old man, with a white flowing beard and venerable aspect. Ile was, in fact, the Lycurgus and the Bacchus of Central America, and having finished his mission he withdrew, like the former, it is said, by sea, promising to return.