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On the Trail of the Bush King: A Dahomean Lesson in the Use of Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Edna G. Bay
Edna G. Bay*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

Twentieth-century historians of the Fon kingdom of Dahomey have been blessed with an unusually rich and accessible body of primary source material. Published in English and French by a succession of visitors to the kingdom, this literature includes references to Dahomean affairs beginning as early as the seventeenth century and continuing with regularity through its conquest in 1892/93 by the French. The accounts, however, are fullest in number of writers and in detail of observation for the period of the reigns of kings Gezo (1818-58) and Glele (1858-89).

European observers of the Dahomean polity approached the state for a variety of commercial, religious, and political reasons, but typically they were permitted to visit the capital, Abomey, only in conjunction with the major cycle of annual ceremonies, Xwetanu. Because Xwetanu -- or Customs, as the ceremonies were dubbed by the Europeans -- ranged in duration from several weeks to several months, travelers drew their information about the kingdom from the advantageous point of a relatively long period of time spent in close observation of the court at what was unquestionably the most important period of the year. Fascinated and sometimes repelled by the sights they witnessed, they set down their own observations, describing land forms and economic activities, court life and ceremonial, and officers and institutions of the state.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 6 , 1979 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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References

NOTES

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented in the African history seminar, University of Illinois, spring 1978. I owe special thanks for ideas and editorial comments to two participants in that group: Raymond Ganga and Donald Crummey. I am grateful to the Foreign Area Fellowship Program which supported the field work on which this paper is based.

2. One of the few exceptions is Johnson, Marion “News from Nowhere: Duncan and ‘Adofoodia’”, History in Africa, 1(1974), pp. 55–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, a study of John Duncan's account of travels in Dahomey in 1845-46. Johnson concludes that he had not traveled to certain areas north of the kingdom that he claimed to have visited.

3. For discussion of the various facets of Xwetanu see, among others, Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch's general study, ‘La fête des coutumes au Dahomey: historique et essai d'interprétation,’ Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilisations, 19(1964), pp. 696–716CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Polanyi's, Karl economic analysis in Dahomey and the Slave Trade (Seattle, 1966)Google Scholar; Yoder's, John C. political discussion in “Fly and Elephant Parties: Political Polarization in Dahomey, 1840-1870,” JAH 15(1974), pp. 417–443CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maroukis', Thomas C. military analysis in “Warfare and Society in the Kingdom of Dahomey: 1818-1894,” PhD dissertation, Boston University, 1974Google Scholar; and Argyle's, W.J. discussion of religious and ceremonial factors in The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966).Google Scholar

4. Thomas Birch Freeman, untitled typescript, Biog. W. Afr. 5, Stack QI, p. 306, Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London.

5. FO.2/20 Commander George H. Day to Commodore John Adams, 24 February 1857, Public Record Office, London. I am indebted to Robin Law who kindly drew my attention to his own published reference to the Bush King and forwarded the Day quotation to me (personal communication, 18 July 1978).

6. Burton, Richard, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, ed. Newbury, C.W. (London, 1966), p. 268.Google Scholar

7. Ibid, p. 269.

8. Skertchly commented, for example, that Burton, “was intentionally kept in ignorance of many events that occurred during his stay at Abomey, for somehow he had by no means a good name with either the king, lords, or commons.” Dahomey as it is (London, 1874), p. 282.Google Scholar

9. Ibid, p. 271.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid, p. 272.

12. Argyle, , Fon, p. 114, with emphasis added.Google Scholar

13. For example Skertchly, , Dahomey, p. 346.Google Scholar

14. Coquery, Catherine, “Le Blocus de Whydah (1876-1877) et la rivalité franco-anglaise au Dahomey,” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 2(1962), pp. 383–84Google Scholar; Ross, David A., “The Autonomous Kingdom of Dahomey, 1818-1894,” PhD dissertation, University of London, 1967, pp. 124n1, 426–27Google Scholar; Law, Robin, “Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: The Case of Dahomey,” JAH 18(1977), pp. 555–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Coquery, , “Blocus,” pp. 383–84.Google Scholar

16. Polanyi, , Dahomey, p. 58.Google Scholar Early in his work, Polanyi hints that the Bush King was a threatening figure. Human sacrifice as a part of the worship of the ancestors, he claims, “spread fear of the king in the ‘bush’ and helped to maintain discipline through terror.” (p. 23). This idea is not expanded elsewhere in his discussion.

17. Skertchly, , Dahomey, p. 154.Google Scholar

18. ‘The Fon of Dahomey,’ in Forde, C. Daryll, ed., African Worlds (London, 1954), p. 219.Google Scholar

19. Mercier, , “Fon,” p. 233.Google Scholar

20. Ibid, p. 232.

21. Palau-Marti, , Le Roi-Dieu au Bénin (Paris, 1964), pp. 130, 157–58.Google Scholar

22. Palau-Marti does not seem to have considered fully the implications of her suggestion that the Bush King was similar to the zunon (King of the Night). The latter was the father of the reigning monarch in a society where the stool was passed successively through several branches of the royal family. In Dahomey, where a king was theoretically (and usually in fact) the son of the previous monarch, his father could simply never be alive to rule jointly with him.

23. Argyle, , Fon, p. 114Google Scholar, referring to Ellis, A.B., The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 1890), p. 117.Google Scholar

24. Argyle, , Fon, p. 115.Google Scholar

25. Aguessy, , “Du mode d'existence de l'état sous Ghézo,” thèse 3e; cycle, Université de Paris, 1970, pp. 283–89.Google Scholar

26. “Introduction,” in A Mission to Gelele, p. 37.Google Scholar

27. I wish to thank the following for their generous cooperation and comments: R. Aho, V. Kinhoue, A. Glélé, B. Gbehanzin, and M. Chaba. I use the term ‘Dahomean’ here to refer to Fon persons descended from citizens of the kingdom of Dahomey. All are today of course nationals of the People's Republic of Bénin.

28. Herskovits, Melville J. cited Burton, and Skertchly's, descriptions of the Bush King in a footnote (Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom, [2 vols.: New York, 1938], 2: p. 50).Google Scholar He added that “no indication of this dual role and function was given in descriptions of the monarchy obtained from present-day Dahomeans …” I think it likely that Herskovits asked only about the term “Bush King” and did not mention either of the names Gaakpe or Addokpon to his informants, particularly since one of the most complete discussions of Gaakpe and Addokpon's functions was given me by René Aho, Herskovits’ major informant.

29. Gezo, it will be remembered, did not directly succeed Agonglo when the latter died in 1797. Adandozan, usually said to have been Gezo's brother, was named in 1797 and ruled until 1818 when Gezo seized power from him in a coup.

30. Skertchly, , Dahomey, p. 374.Google Scholar

31. Ibid, p. 281-82; Burton, , Mission, p. 276.Google Scholar

32. Skertchly, , Dahomey, p. 203.Google Scholar

33. Ibid, p. 182.

34. Ibid, p. 414.

35. Ibid, pp. 376-77.

36. Burton, , Mission, p. 274.Google Scholar

37. Skertchly, , Dahomey, pp. 426–27.Google Scholar

38. Burton, , Mission, p. 187.Google Scholar

39. Glélé, Maurice Ahanhanzo, Le Danxome (Paris, 1974), p. 157.Google Scholar

40. Agoliagbo, the last Dahomean monarch, was declared king by the French after the deposition of Gbehanzin, and thus his accession to power was wholly illegal in the context of the Fon polity. Even so, he gave himself a name as king-as-prince.

41. It is not clear if Gbehanzin ever performed ceremonies on behalf of Xwemajogbedo. He had not had time to prepare Grand Customs for Glélé before the French invasion of 1892, and I know of no evidence describing ceremonies for 1890 or 1891.

42. Skertchly, , Dahomey, p. 437.Google Scholar