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The Ashantee War: fetish tree in village near Cape Coast Castle...sketch by our special artist, 1874 Creator: Unknown.

Légende

The Ashantee War: fetish tree in village near Cape Coast Castle, from a sketch by our special artist, 1874. 'The fetish tree, in a village only a mile from Cape Coast Castle, is an institution worthy of note. These poor heathen [sic] make a fetish or second-rate god of anything that is at all out of the common - a rock, a stream, a serpent, or a plant of singular growth. Their priests have inclosed the tree with a palisade of sticks. The devout worshippers come up with bottles of rum, which they empty into the hollow space around the trunk of the tree. After giving their deity in this way a good strong dose of their favourite intoxicating drink, they cast in the bottles and say their prayers over the spilt liquor and broken glass. This religious observance will certainly do them more good, body and soul, than to drink the rum themselves, which is the ritual of our English heathen. But when our Artist suggested that some of the Fantees might, perhaps, taste a drop before helping the tree-god to the contents of the bottle, they were very much offended, and thought him a wicked infidel'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.

Crédit

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Notre référence

HRM25A32_255

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

Licence

Droits gérés

Format disponible

27,2Mo (2,4Mo) / 31,5cm x 21,7cm / 3716 x 2558 (300dpi)

Mots clés

nature Europe Africa animal tree Caucasian people black male boy boys child children job man men religious plant plants arts bird birds country religion naked nude white art guy occupation belief continent British European chicken chickens African central uniform village dress shrine artist rustic war location Armed Forces century magic drawing Britain profession newspapers press print Ghana expedition concept APPAREL B&W sketching nudity africans Army warfare engraved engraving nakedness fetish Gold Coast pith helmet 19th century black & white black and white B W armed services British Army nineteenth century rural trees The Print Collector Asante Ashanti Ghanaian Illustrated London News rural life TGN topee wood engraving ILN newspaper Unknown Regionalism Anglo-Ashanti Wars 19th-century clothing & dress fashion & clothing Cape Coast The Illustrated London News Third Anglo-Ashanti War First Asante Expedition Sagrenti War Third Anglo-Asante War