DAHOMEY (Fr. Dahomti), one of the colonies of the group of French West Africa. Dahomey is bounded south by the Gulf of Guinea, east by Nigeria (British), north by the colonies on the Niger and upper Volta, and on the north-west by the Togo, the eastern portion of which was placed under French mandate by an Anglo-French agreement of July 10, 1919. With a coast-line of only 75 m. (I° 38' E. to 2° 46' 55" E.) , the area of the colony is 22,000 sq.km. and the population 980,000, of whom i,ioo are European. As far as 9° N. the width of the colony is no greater than the coast-line. From this point, the colony broadens out both eastward and westward, attaining a maximum width of 200 miles. It includes the western part of Borgu (q.v.), and reaches the Niger at a spot a little above Illo. Its greatest length north to south is miles.
For some 5o m. inland the country is flat, and, after the first mile or two of sandy waste is passed, covered with dense vegeta tion. At this distance (5o m.) from the coast is a great swamp known as the Lama marsh. It extends east to west some 25 m. and north to south 6 to 9 miles. North of the swamp the land rises by regular stages to about 1,65o ft., the high plateau falling again to the basin of the Niger. In the north-west a range of hills known as the Atacora forms a watershed between the basins of the Weme, the Niger and the Volta. A large part of the interior consists of undulating rather barren with occasional patches of forest. The forests contain the baobab, the coco-nut palm and the oil palm. The fauna resembles that of other parts of the west coast, but the larger wild animals, such as the elephant and hippopotamus, are rare.
Climate.—The climate of the coast regions is very hot and moist. Four seasons are well marked : the harmattan or long dry season, from Dec. I to March 15; the season of the great rains, from March 15 to July 15; the short dry season, from July 15 to Sept. 15; and the "little rains," from Sept. 15 to Dec. I. Near the sea the average temperature is about 8o° F. The harmattan prevails for several days in succession, and alternates with winds from the south and south-west. During its continuance the ther mometer falls about 10°, there is not the slightest moisture in the atmosphere, vegetation dries up or droops, the skin parches and peels, and all woodwork is liable to warp and crack with a loud report. Tornadoes occur occ asionally. During nine months of the year the climate is tempered by a sea breeze, which is felt as far inland as Abomey (6o in.). It generally begins in the morning, and in the summer it often increases to a stiff gale at sundown. In the interior there are but two seasons: the dry season (Novem ber to May) and the rainy season (June to October). The rains are more scanty and diminish considerably in the northern regions.
Inhabitants.—The inhabitants of the coast region are of pure negro stock. The Dahomeyans (Dahomi), who inhabit the central part of the colony, form one of 18 closely-allied clans occupying the country between the Volta and Porto Novo, and from their common tongue known as the Ewe-speaking tribes. In their own tongue Dahomeyans are called Fon or Djedjes. They are tall and well-formed, proud, reserved in demeanour, polite in their intercourse with strangers, warlike and keen traders. The Mina, who occupy the district of the Popos, are noted for their skill as surf-men, which has gained for them the title of the Krumen of Dahomey. Porto Novo is inhabited by a tribe called Nago, which has an admixture of Yoruba blood and speaks a Yoruba dialect. The Nago are a peaceful tribe and even keener traders than the Dahomi. In Whydah and other coast towns are many mulattos, speaking Portuguese and bearing high-sounding Portu guese names. In the north the inhabitants—Mahi, Bariba, Gur mai—are also of negro stock, but scarcely so civilized as the coast tribes. Settled among them are communities of Fula and Hausas. There are many converts to Islam in the northern dis tricts, but the Mahi and Dahomeyans proper are nearly all fetish worshippers.
The chief port and the seat of government is Kotonu, the starting-point of a railway to the Niger. An iron pier, which extends well beyond the surf, affords facilities for shipping. Kotonu was originally a small village which served as the seaport of Porto Novo and was burnt to the ground in 189o. It has con sequently the advantage of being a town laid out by Europeans on a definite plan. Situated on the beach between the sea and the lagoon of Porto Novo, the soil consists of heavy sand. Good hard roads have been made. Owing to an almost continuous, cool, westerly sea breeze, Kotonu is, in comparison with the other coast towns, decidedly healthy for white men. Porto Novo (pop. 21, 643, with 268 Europeans), the former French headquarters and chief business centre, is on the northern side of the lagoon of the same name and 20 m. north-east of Kotonu by water. The town has had many names, and that by which it is known to Europeans was given by the Portuguese in the 17th century. It contains numerous churches and mosques, public buildings and merchants' residences. Whydah, 23 m. west of Kotonu, is an old and formerly thickly-populated town. Its population is 9,610. It is built on the north bank of the coast lagoon about 2 m. from the sea. There is no harbour at the beach, and landing is effected in boats made expressly to pass through the surf, par ticularly heavy here. In consequence of the thousands of orange and citron trees which adorn it, Whydah is called "the garden of Dahomey." West of Whydah, on the coast and near the fron tier of Togoland, is the trading town of Grand Popo. Inland in Dahomey proper are Abomey (q.v.), the ancient capital, Allada, Kana (formerly the country residence and burial-place of the kings of Dahomey) and Dogba. In the hinterland are Carnotville (a town of French creation), Nikki and Paraku, Borgu towns, and Garu, on the right bank of the Niger near the British frontier.
Agriculture and Trade.—The agriculture, trade and com merce of Dahomey proper are essentially different from that of the hinterland (Haut Daliome). The soil of Dahomey proper is naturally fertile and is capable of being highly cultivated. It consists of a rich clay of a deep red colour. Finely-powdered quartz and yellow mica are met with, denoting the deposit of disintegrated granite from the interior. The principal product is palm-oil, which is made in large quantities throughout the country. The district of Toffo is particularly noted for its oil palm orchards. Palm-wine is also made, but the manufacture is discouraged as the process destroys the tree. Next to palm-oil the principal vegetable products are maize, guinea-corn, cassava, yams, sweet potatoes, plantains, coconuts, oranges, limes and the African apple, which grows almost wild. The country also produces ground-nuts, kola-nuts, pine-apples, guavas, spices of all kinds, ginger, okros (Hibiscus), sugar-cane, onions, tomatoes and papaws. Cattle, sheep, goats and fowl are scarce. There is a large fishing industry in the lagoons. Round the villages, and here and there in the forest, clearings are met with, cultivated in places, but agriculture is in a backward condition. In the grassy uplands of the interior cattle and horses thrive, and cot ton of a fairly good quality is grown by the inhabitants. The plan tations have been developed by Europeans and production amounts to about 1,200 tons. The prosperity of the country depends chiefly on the export of palm-oil and palm-kernels. Copra, kola-nuts, rubber and dried fish are also exported, the fish going to Lagos. The adulteration of the palm-kernels by the natives, which became a serious menace to trade, was partially checked (1900–o3) by measures taken to ensure the inspection of the kernels before shipment. Trade is mainly with Germany and Great Britain, a large proportion of the cargo passing through the British port of Lagos. Some 30% of the commerce is with France. Cotton goods (chiefly from Great Britain), machinery and metals, alcohol (from Germany) and tobacco are the chief imports. The volume of trade is 368,000,00o francs (imports, I 86,000,000 francs; exports 182,000,000). By the Anglo-French Convention of 1898 the im position of differential duties on goods of British origin was for bidden.
The history of Dahomey begins about the commencement of the 17th century. At that period the country now known as Dahomey was included in the extensive kingdom of Allada or Ardrah, of which the capital was the present town of Allada, on the road from Whydah to Abomey. Allada became dismembered on the death of a reigning sovereign, and three separate kingdoms were constituted under his three sons. One state was formed by one brother round the old capital of Allada, and retained the name of Allada or Ardrah; another brother migrated to the east and formed a state known under the name of Porto Novo; while the third brother, Takudonu, travelled northwards, and after some vicissitudes established the kingdom of Dahomey. About 1724-28 Dahomey, having become a powerful state, invaded and conquered successively Allada and Whydah.
King Gezo ascended the throne about the year 1818, and dur ing a reign of 4o years raised the power of Dahomey to its highest pitch, extending greatly the border of his kingdom to the north. He boasted of having first organized the Amazons, a force of women to whom he attributed his successes. The Amazons, how ever, were State soldiery long before Gezo's reign, and what he really did was to reorganize and strengthen the force.
Gezo was succeeded by his son Glegle (or Gelele), whose at tacks on neighbouring states, persecution of native Christians, and encouragement of the slave-trade involved him in difficulties with Great Britain and France. It was, as Lord Russell said, to check "the aggressive spirit of the king of Dahomey" that Eng land in 1861 annexed the island of Lagos. Nevertheless, in the following year Glegle captured Ishagga and in 1864 unsuccessfully attacked Abeokuta, both towns in the Lagos hinterland. In 1863 a step was taken by France which was the counterpart of the British annexation of Lagos. The kingdom of Porto Novo ac cepted a French protectorate, and an Anglo-French agreement of 1864 fixed its boundaries. This protectorate was soon afterwards abandoned by Napoleon III., but was re-established in 1882. At this period the rivalry of European powers for possessions in Africa was becoming acute, and German agents appeared on the Dahomeyan coast. However, by an arrangement concluded in 1885, the German protectorate in Guinea was confined to Togo, save for the town of Little Popo at the western end of the lagoon of Grand Popo. In Jan. 1886 Portugal—in virtue of her ancient rights at Whydah—announced that she had assumed a protectorate over the Dahomeyan coast, but she was induced by France to withdraw her protectorate in Dec. 1887. Finally, the last inter national difficulty in the way of France was removed by the Anglo French agreement of 1889, whereby Kotonu was surrendered by Great Britain. France claimed rights at Kotonu in virtue of treaties concluded with Glegle in 1868 and 1878, but the chiefs of the town had placed themselves under the protection of the British at Lagos.
Dahomey conquered, the French at once set to work to secure as much of the hinterland as possible. On the north they pene trated to the Niger, on the east they entered Borgu (a country claimed by the Royal Niger Company for Great Britain), on the west they overlapped the territory claimed by Germany as the hinterland of Togo. The struggle with Great Britain and Germany for supremacy in this region forms one of the most interesting chapters in the story of the partition of Africa. In the result France succeeded in securing a junction between Dahomey and her other possessions in West Africa, but failed to secure any part of the Niger navigable from the sea. (See AFRICA: History, and NIGERIA.) A Franco-German convention of 1897 settled the boundary on the west, and the Anglo-French convention of 1898 defined the frontier on the east. In 1899, on the disintegration of the French Sudan, the districts of Fada N'Gurma and Say, lying north of Borgu, were added to Dahomey, but in 1907 they were transferred to Upper Senegal-Niger, with which colony they are closely connected both geographically and ethnologically. From 1894 onward the French devoted great attention to the develop ment of the material resources of the country. In 191I they de posed the chief, a member of the old royal family, whom they had installed at Abomey. His territory was divided among petty chiefs under the direct control of the French resident, and the whole country became the colony of Dahomey and dependencies. In 1912 a Franco-German convention delimited the Dahomey-Togo land boundary; but two years later Togoland was invaded and conquered by the French and British.
The "Customs."—The Dahomey "customs" have given the country an infamous notoriety. They appear to date from the middle of the 17th century, and were of two kinds: the grand cus toms performed on the death of a king; and the minor customs, held twice a year. The horrors of these saturnalia of bloodshed were attributable not to a love of cruelty but to filial piety. Upon the death of a king human victims were sacrificed at his grave to supply him with wives, attendants, etc., in the spirit world. The grand customs surpassed the annual rites in splendour and blood shed. At those held in 1791 during January, February and March, it is stated that no fewer than 50o men, women and children were put to death. The minor customs were first heard of in Europe in the early years of the i8th century. They formed continuations of the grand customs, and "periodically supplied the departed mon arch with fresh attendants in the shadowy world." The actual slaughter was preluded by dancing, feasting, speechmaking and elaborate ceremonial. The victims, chiefly prisoners of war, were dressed in calico shirts decorated round the neck and down the sleeves with red bindings, and with a crimson patch on the left breast, and wore long white night-caps with spirals of blue ribbon sewn on. Some of them, tied in baskets, were at one stage of the proceedings taken to the top of a high platform, together with an alligator, a cat and a hawk in similar baskets, and paraded on the heads of the Amazons. The king then made a speech explain ing that the victims were sent to testify to his greatness in spirit land, the men and the animals each to their kind. They were then hurled down into the middle of a surging crowd of natives, and butchered. At another stage of the festival human sacrifices were offered at the shrine of tile king's ancestors, and the blood was sprinkled on their graves. This was known as Zan Nyanyana or "evil night," the king going in procession with his wives and of ficials and himself executing the doomed. These semi-public mas sacres formed only a part of the slaughter, for many women, eunuchs and others within the palace were done to death privately. The skulls were used to adorn the palace walls, and the king's sleeping-chamber was paved with the heads of his enemies. The skulls of the conquered kings were turned into royal drinking cups, their conversion to this use being esteemed an honour. Sir Richard Burton insists (A Alission to Gelele, King of Dahome) that the horrors of these rites were greatly exaggerated. He denies that the king floated a canoe in a tank of human blood or that the victims were tortured, and affirms that, on the contrary, they were treated humanely, and in many cases even acquiesced in their fate. It seems that cannibalism was a sequel of the customs, the bodies of the slaughtered being roasted and devoured smoking hot. On the death of the king the wives, after the most extravagant demonstra tions of grief, broke and destroyed everything within their reach, and attacked and murdered each other, the uproar continuing until order was restored by the new sovereign.
Amazonian Army.—The training of women as soldiers was the most singular Dahomeyan institution. About one-fourth of the whole female population were said to be "married to the fetich," many even before their birth, and the remainder were entirely at the disposal of the king. The most favoured were selected as his own wives or enlisted into the regiments of Ama zons, and then the chief men were liberally supplied. Of the fe male captives the most promising were drafted into the ranks as soldiers, and the rest became Amazonian camp followers and slaves in the royal households. These female 1' vies formed the flower of the Dahomeyan army. They were marshalled in regi ments, each with its distinctive uniform and badges, and they took the post of honour in all battles. Their number has been variously stated. Sir R. F. Burton, who, in 1862, saw the army marching out of Kana on an expedition, computed the whole force of female troops at 2,500, of whom one-third were unarmed or only half armed. Their weapons were blunderbusses, flint muskets, and bows and arrows. A later writer estimated the number of Amazons at I ,000, and the male soldiers at i o,000. The system of warfare was one of surprise. The army marched out, and when within a few days' journey of the town to be attacked, silence was en joined and no fires permitted. The regular highways were avoided, and the advance was by a road specially cut through the bush. The town was surrounded at night, and just before daybreak a rush was made and every soul captured if possible; none were killed except in self-defence, as the first object was to capture, not to kill. The season usually selected for expeditions was from January to March, or immediately after the annual "customs." The Amazons were carefully trained, and the king was in the habit of holding "autumn manoeuvres" for the benefit of for eigners. Mary Europeans have witnessed a mimic assault, and agree in ascribing a marvellous power of endurance to the women. Lines of thorny acacia were piled up one behind the other to repre sent defences, and at a given signal the Amazons, barefooted and without any special protection, charged and disappeared from sight. Presently they emerged within the lines torn and bleeding, but apparently insensible to pain, and the parade closed with a march past, each warrior leading a pretended captive bound with a rope.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Notre Colonie de Dahomey, by G. Francois (1906), Bibliography.-Notre Colonie de Dahomey, by G. Francois (1906), and Le Dahomey (1909), an official publication, deal with topography, ethnology and economics; L. Brunet and L. Giethlen, Dahomey et dependances (19oo) ; Edouard Foa, Le Dahomey (1895) ; A. le Herisse, L'ancien Royaume de Dahomey (r91 i) ; Dahomey, a British Foreign Office handbook (1920) . Religion, laws and language are specially dealt with in Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, by A. B. Ellis (1890), and in La Cote des Esclaves et le Dahomey, by P. Bouche (1885) . Much historical matter, with particular notices of the Amazons and the "Customs," is contained in A Mission to Gelele, by Sir R. Burton (1864). The story of the French conquest is told in Campagne du Dahomey, by Jules Poirier (1895) . The standard authority on the early history is The History of Dahomey, by Archibald Dalzel (some time governor of the English fort at Whydah) . The Bibliog raphie raisonnee des ouvrages concernant le Dahomey, by A. Pawlowski (1895), is a useful guide to the literature of the country to that date.