The origin and development of the moral ideas

Thither mothers of twins, widows, thieves, and slaves fly, and if they reach it are safe.”156 In Ashantee a slave who flies to a temple and dashes himself against the fetish cannot easily be brought back to his master.157 Among the Negroes of Accra criminals used to “seat themselves upon the fetish,” that is, place themselves under its protection; but murderers who sought refuge with the fetish were always liable to be delivered up to their pursuers.158 A traveller in the seventeenth century tells us that in Fetu, on the Gold Coast, a criminal who deserved death was pardoned by taking refuge in the hut of the high-priest.159 Among the Krumen of the Grain Coast the house of the high-priest (bodio) “is a sanctum to which culprits may betake themselves without the danger of being removed by anyone except by the bodio himself.”160 In Usambara a murderer cannot be arrested at any of the four places where the great wizards of the country reside.161