A Horrible Custom in Dahomey.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 236, 7 January 1888, Page 3

A Horrible Custom in Dahomey.

jn the centre of the courtyard a platform was erected, hung with silks, velvets and flags, including that of Dahomey— a white ground with a figure in black holding alof fc a decapitated head in one hand and a cimi. fcer in the other. On this platform stood the King, surrounded by his noblea, among whom I had a prominent seat, while below struggled a mas 3 of fifty thousand or more people, kept in some order by the woman guard. The affair began by the King, personally, throwing into a sliding trench various packages of goods, consisting of cottons, clothes and cloths, knives, muskets, pipes, and tobacco, all of which were fought fiercely for by the crowd below. Then came the grand point— the slaughter. The victims were brought forth, lashed into boat-shaped baskets, in a sitting position, with knees drawn up to the chin, and lifted into the elide, from which they went down to the crowd below. Then there came a horrible scramble. Thousands, with long and bright knives, thrt,w themselves on the victim, and in a moment he was hacked to pieces, as well as were some of his hackers, the victor being the one who came off with the head. This was kept up for three hours, the number killed amounting to about two hundred, until the crowd below was reeking and smeared with blood. A more horrible sight was never witnessed, and it did nob lessen the horror with me to bo told that this is not a mere useless slaughter, as civilised nations suppose, but a day of execution, the decapitated being criminals, traitors, and prisoners of war, who have been "offensive political partisans." It is the highest holiday in the year, and the only one where much slaughtering i 3 done ; and there is no doubt that the King himself wishes to abolish that part of it, but dares not.