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But, 'after an intercourse of some years with Europeans, the villagers near European forts 'added to their system a new deity, whom they termed Nana Nyankupon. Nyankum = rain. Now Major Ellis, later, has to contrast Bosman's account of fetishism with his own observations. According to Bosman's native source of information, men then selected their own fetishes. These are now selected by priests.
A fetich is an inanimate or lifeless object, even if it is the feather, claw, bone, eyeball, or any other part of an animal or even of a man. It is as Bosman's negro said, "any inanimate that falls in our way."
There are no better canoe-men on the coast. They ship only on board the Bristol ships, and they have more than once flogged a cruel skipper caught ashore. Fresco-land is beautified by perpendicular red cliffs, and the fine broad beach is feathered with cocoas which suggest kopra the dried meat of the split kernel. At 3.15 P.M. came Grand Lahou Bosman's Cabo La Hoe 180 miles from Cape Palmas.
When Bosman's negro further goes on to state that if the fetich is discovered by its owner not to prosper his undertakings, as he expected it to do, "it is rejected as a useless tool," he makes a statement which is admitted to be true and which, in its truth, may be understood to mean that when the owner finds that the object is not a fetich, he casts it aside as being nothing but the "inanimate" which it is.
Let us hold over for the moment the question whether fetichism is or is not a form of religion; and let us enquire how far the account given by Bosman's negro accords with the facts.
Bosman's negro, however, says not that the inanimate but that "the new god is rejected as a useless tool." When, then, Bosman's negro goes on to say, "we make and break our gods daily," he is not describing accurately the processes as they are conceived by those who perform them.
By an inquiry into the laws and customs formerly in use, and still in force amongst the Negroes, particularly on the Gold Coast, it will be found, that provision was made for the general peace, and for the safety of individuals; even in W. Bosman's time, long after the Europeans had established the slave-trade, the natives were not publicly enslaved, any otherwise than in punishment for crimes, when prisoners of war, or by a violent exertion of the power of their corrupted Kings.
Bosman's authority was wrong or priesthood has extended its field of business.
But what Bosman's negro suggests, and apparently intended to suggest, is that the fetich worshipper makes, say, a stone his god, knowing that it is a stone and nothing more; and that he breaks his fetich believing it to be a god. Thus the worshipper knows that the object is no god when he is worshipping it; but believes it to be a god when he rejects it as a useless tool.
Where any of the natives were stolen, in order to be sold to the Europeans, it was done secretly, or at least, only connived at by those in power: this appears From Barbot and Bosman's account of the matter, both agreeing that man-stealing was not allowed on the Gold Coast. And adds, "That man-stealing was punished on the Gold Coast with rigid severity and sometimes with death itself." Fr.
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