29th November 1863 to 15th September 1865, Gelele

Bibliography:

23. A Mission to the King of Dahome. 2 vols., 1864. 24. Notes on Marcy's
Prairie Traveller. Anthropological Review, 1864.

47. Whydah and its Deity. 29th November 1863.

In November 1863 the welcome intelligence reached Burton that the
British Government had appointed him commissioner and bearer of a
message to Gelele, King of Dahomey. He was to take presents from Queen
Victoria and to endeavour to induce Gelele to discontinue both human
sacrifices and the sale of slaves. Mrs. Burton sadly wanted to accompany
him. She thought that with a magic lantern and some slides representing
New Testament scenes she could convert Gelele and his court from
Fetishism to Catholicism. [204] But Burton, who was quite sure that he
could get on better alone, objected that her lantern would probably be
regarded as a work of magic, and that consequently both he and she would
run the risk of being put to death for witchcraft. So, very reluctantly,
she abandoned the idea. Burton left Fernando Po in the "Antelope"
on 29th November 1863, and, on account of the importance attached by
savages to pageantry, entered Whydah, the port of Dahomey, in some
state. While waiting for the royal permit to start up country he amused
himself by looking round the town. Its lions were the Great Market and
the Boa Temple. The latter was a small mud hut, with a thatched roof;
and of the 'boas,' which tuned out to be pythons, he counted seven, each
about five feet long. The most popular deity of Whydah, however, was the
Priapic Legba, a horrid mass of red clay moulded into an imitation man
with the abnormalities of the Roman deity. "The figure," he tells us,
"is squat, crouched, as it were, before its own attributes, with arms
longer than a gorilla's. The head is of mud or wood rising conically to
an almost pointed poll; a dab of clay represents the nose; the mouth
is a gash from ear to ear. This deity almost fills a temple of dwarf
thatch, open at the sides. ...Legba is of either sex, but rarely
feminine.... In this point Legba differs from the classical Pan and
Priapus, but the idea involved is the same. The Dahoman, like almost all
semi-barbarians, considers a numerous family the highest blessing."
The peculiar worship of Legba consisted of propitiating his or her
characteristics by unctions of palm oil, and near every native door
stood a clay Legba-pot of cooked maize and palm