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In Ashantiland priests and priestesses, who are exceedingly influential and powerful, owe a great deal of their importance to their ability to explain signs and omens, especially to discover guilt and to foretell events.
Among the ancient Scandinavians and Germans it was frequent. Nowhere does it appear on so large a scale as in Mexico; and it existed also in Peru. In Africa it was practiced to a frightful extent in Ashantiland and Dahomiland and more guardedly in Yoruba. In early times indeed it seems to have been slaves and captives taken in war that were commonly sacrificed.
In Ashantiland, in time of war, when the men are with the army, processions of women, wives of the warriors, march through the streets, invoking the gods on behalf of the absent men. +112+. A peculiar form of procession is that in which the worshipers move round a sacred object, perhaps the adoption of a natural form of play.
In the submersion in water of a woman suspected of being a witch the principle of decision was the same as is now practiced in Ashantiland and India if the woman was drowned it was a sign that she was innocent, but if she rose unharmed from the water she was adjudged guilty and was put to death. +926+. The imprecation is similar to the ordeal.
An eclipse is regarded as a presage of death. A similar system of interpretation of signs is found elsewhere. The Masai and the Nandi draw omens from the movements of birds. In Ashantiland the cry of the owl means death. When in Australia the track of an insect is believed to point toward the abode of the sorcerer by whom a man has been done to death, the conception is probably the same.
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