Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee; With a Descriptive Account of That Kingdom (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ... PART II. HISTOKY. TO_ speak of the death of a former King, the Ashantees imagine to affect the life of the present equally with inquiring who would be his successor; and superstition and policy strengthening this impression, it is made capital by the law to converse either of the one or the other. The inability of the natives to compute time, and the comparatively recent establishment of the Moors, may be pleaded as additional apologies for the imperfect history I have collected. According to a common tradition, which I never heard contradicted but once, the Ashantees emigrated from a country nearer the water-side, and subjecting the western Intas, and two lesser powers, founded the present kingdom. These people being comparatively advanced in several arts, the Ashantees necessarily adopted a portion of their language with the various novelties; which probably created the limited radical difference between their language and that of the Fantees; for I could not find, after taking the greatest pains, more than 200 words unknown to the latter. The weights of the Inta country, in particular, were adopted with their names, by the conquerors, without the least alteration. The tradition, scanty in itself, is very cautiously adverted to, the Government politically undermining every monument which perpetuates their intrusion, or records the distinct origins of their subjects: but, from the little I could collect, it appeared to have been an emigration of numerous enterprising or discontented families, to whom the parent state afterwards became subject. I am inclined to think (the account of their coming from a country nearer the sea being too general for conjecture to revolt from) that they emigrated from the eastward of south, where the...