Part 4 (2/2)
_East India goods_--consisting of bafts, byrampauats, chilloes, romals, neganipauts, niccanees, red and blue chintz, Guinea stuffs, bandanoes, sastracundies, &c.
_Manchester goods_.--Cotton chilloes, cushtaes, neganipauts, photaes, romal handkerchiefs, silk handkerchiefs, &c. _Linen Britanias_, slops, spirits, tobacco, guns, swords, trade chests, cases, jars, powder, umbrellas, boats, canvas, cordage, pitch, tar, paints, oil, and brushes, empty kegs, kettles, pans, lead basons, earthenware, hardware, beads, coral, iron bars, lead bars, common caps, Kilmarnock ditto, flints, pipes, leg and hand manilloes, snuff boxes, tobacco boxes, cargo hats, fine ditto, hair trunks, knives, looking gla.s.ses, scarlet cloth, locks, shot, gla.s.s ware, stone ware, provisions, bottled ale and porter, &c. &c.
The foregoing general enumeration may serve to convey a just conception of the various manufactures requisite in the African trade, and the different branches to which it is allied, yeilding support to a numerous body of merchants, manufacturers, artizans, and many of the labouring cla.s.s of the community.
Generally speaking, the Africans are unacquainted with specie as a circulating medium of commerce, although they form to themselves an ideal standard, by which they estimate the value of the commodities in barter; this, however, fluctuates on various parts of the coast.
From Senegal to Cape Mesurado, the medium of calculation is termed a _bar_; from thence to the eastward of Cape Palmas, the computation is in _rounds_; and on the Gold Coast in _ackies_ of gold, equal to 4_l_. sterling, and of trade only half that value.
At Goree the bar, under the French, was 4, pieces of 24 sous, and 1 of 6; but at present the bar is considered a dollar.
The bar is by no means a precise value, but subject to much variation; the quant.i.ty and quality of the articles materially differing in many parts of the coast, and frequently on rivers of a near vicinity; for example, six heads of tobacco are equal in trade to a bar, as is a gallon of rum, or a fathom of chintz.
A piece of cloth which, in one place, will only pa.s.s for 6 bars, will in others fluctuate to 10; hence the trader must form an average standard, to reduce his a.s.sortment to an equilibrium.
The following are the barter prices now established throughout a considerable extent of the Windward Coast; but it is to be observed, they are subject to fluctuation from locality of situation and other circ.u.mstances.
1 blue baft 6 bars 1 bonny chintz & stripe 8 1 white baft 6 1 byrampaut 6 1 chilloe 6 1 bijudapaut 6 1 cushtae 5 1 bonny blue romal 5 1 niccanee 5 1 sastracundie 4 1 India cherridery 6 1 taffety 15 1 cottanee 12 1 dozen britannias 8 1 piece of bandanas 6 1 barrel of powder 60 1 fowling gun 8 1 burding 6 1 soldier's gun 5 bars 1 buccanier ditto 6 1 dozen of cutla.s.ses 8 1 sword blade 2 1 iron bar 1 1000 arangoes 30 1 bunch of point beads 1 1 bunch of mock coral 1 Red pecado 3lb. for 1 Seed beads, ditto 1 Battery ditto 1 1 Mandingo kettle 1 1 dozen of hardware 3 1 bason 1 1 ton of salt 60 1 fine hat 3 Tobacco, 6lb. to 1 Rum, per gallon 1
Prime ivory is procured at a bar per lb, and _escrevals_, or pieces under 20lb. 1 bar for each 1-1/2lb.
As the natives are unacquainted with arithmetic, their numerical calculations are carried on by counters of pebbles, gun-flints, or cowries.
After the number of bars is decided upon, a counter, or pebble, &c. is put down, representing every bar of merchandize, until the whole is exhausted, when the palaver is finished; and, as they have very little idea of the value of time, they will use every artifice of delay and chicane to gain a bar.
In matters of less consequence they reckon with their fingers, by bending the little finger of the right hand close to the palm, and the other fingers in succession, proceeding to the left hand, concluding the calculation by clapping both the hands together; and if it requires to be extended, the same process is repeated.
Among the Foulahs in particular, commercial transactions are carried on with extreme tardiness; a _palaver_ is held over every thing they have for barter. The season in which they chiefly bring their trade to the coast is during the dry months, and they generally travel in caravans, under the control of a chief or head man. The head man of the party expects to be lodged and accommodated by the factor, and before they enter upon business, he expects the latter _to give him service_, or a present of kola, Malaguetta pepper, tobacco, palm oil, and rice; if they eat of the kola, and the present is not returned, the head man begins the trade, by making a long speech, in which he magnifies the difficulties and dangers he has had to surmount, &c.; mutual interpreters report this harangue. The trade for rice is settled with little delay, but every tooth of ivory requires a new palaver, and they will dispute for a whole day for a bar with the most determined firmness.
When the palaver and trade is gone through, they again expect a present, and if they are pleased with the factor, they march off singing his praises, which they communicate to all they meet on the road.
The annual return from this commerce in colonial productions, has been from _two_ to _three millions sterling_; for although large remittances have been made in bills to the African merchants, yet these bills have been provided for in produce by the planters. Politically considered, it will appear, that its regeneration might have been more appropriately the progressive work of time; and humanely viewed, it will also appear, from my subsequent remarks, that by those means alone the African can be freed from his shackles, and his condition efficaciously improved.
But to proceed with the intention of this chapter, I shall next make some remarks on the religion, customs, and character of the natives of the Windward Coast.
The natives on this part of the coast, and indeed throughout Africa, are in general extremely superst.i.tious; they believe in witchcraft, incantations, and charms, and in certain Mahomedan doctrines, adopted from itinerant devotees and priests of that persuasion, who are numerous among them, and make a trade of selling charms. The Baggoes, Nellos, Susees, Timinees, &c.
occasionally wors.h.i.+p and offer sacrifices to the Devil, and are equally confused in their conception of the Supreme Being, of whose attributes they entertain an a.s.semblage of indistinct ideas, of which it is impossible to give any clear description. They will tell the traveller with great apathy, ”they never saw him, and if he live he be too good to hurt them.” Their acts of devotion are the consequence of fear alone, and are apparently divested of any feelings of thankfulness or grat.i.tude for the blessing they receive from the good Spirit which they suppose to exist. The Devil, or evil spirit, which they suppose to exist also, claims their attention from the injury they suppose him capable of inflicting, and is wors.h.i.+pped under a variety of forms; at one time in a grove, or under the shade of a large tree, consecrated to his wors.h.i.+p, they place, for the gratification of his appet.i.te; a _country mess_, a goat, or other offering of this nature, which they may conceive to be acceptable to his divinity, who, however, is often cozened out of the offering by some sacreligious and more corporeal substance, to whose nature and wants it is more congenial; at some periods great faith is attached to their _fetish_, as an antidote against evil; and at others the alligator, the snake, the guava, and a number of other living animals and inanimate substances are the objects of their wors.h.i.+p. Like other unenlightened nations, a variety of external beings supply the want of the principles of Christianity; hence the counterfeit adoption and subst.i.tution of corporate qualities as objects of external homage and reverence.
_Fetish_, derived from the word _Feitico_, denotes witchcraft among the majority of the maritime nations of Africa: this superst.i.tion is even extended to some Europeans after a long residence in that country, and is an expression of a compound meaning, forming an arrangement of various figures, which const.i.tute the objects of adoration, whether intellectually conceived, or combined with corporeal substances; even the act of devotion itself; or the various charms, incantations, and buffoonery of the priests and fetish makers, who abound among them. In short, it is an incongruous composition of any thing dedicated to the purpose; one kind of fetish is formed of a piece of parchment containing an expression or sentence from the Koran, which is a.s.sociated with other substances, sewed up in a piece of leather, and worn upon several parts of their bodies. Another kind is placed over the doors of their huts, composed of distorted images besmeared with palm oil, and stuck with feathers, some parts are tinged with blood, and the whole is bedaubed with other preposterous applications.
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