in each NATION. Thus an Ashantee or a Fantee may belong to the same
stock of kindred as a member of the Assin or Akini nation. When an
Ashantee of the Annona stock of kindred meets a Warsaw man of the
same stock they salute and acknowledge each other as brothers. In
the same way a Ballarat man of the Kangaroo stock in Australia
recognises a relative in a Mount Gambier man who is also a Kangaroo.
Now, with one exception, all the names of the twelve stocks of West
African kindreds, or at least all of them which Mr. Bowditch could
get the native interpreters to translate, are derived from animals,
plants and other natural objects, just as in Australia.[1] Thus
Quonna is a buffalo, Abrootoo is a cornstalk, Abbradi a plantain.
Other names are, in English, the parrot, the wild cat, red earth,
panther and dog. Thus all the natives of this part of Africa are
parrots, dogs, buffaloes, panthers, and so forth, just as the
Australians are emus, iguanas, black cockatoos, kangaroos, and the
rest. It is remarkable that there is an Incra stock, or clan of
ants, in Ashantee, just as there was a race of Myrmidons, believed
to be descended from or otherwise connected with ants, in ancient
Greece. Though Bowditch's account of these West African family
divisions is brief, the arrangement tallies closely with that of
Australia. It is no great stretch of imagination to infer that the
African tribes do, or once did, believe themselves to be of the
kindred of the animals whose names they bear.[2] It is more or less
confirmatory of this hypothesis that no family is permitted to use
as food the animal from which it derives its name. We have seen
that a similar rule prevails, as far as hunger and scarcity of
victuals permit it to be obeyed, among the natives of Australia.
The Intchwa stock in Ashantee and Fantee is particularly unlucky,
because its members may not eat the dog, "much relished by native
epicures, and therefore a serious privation". Equally to be pitied