ANCIENT ORIGINS OF THE EWE/FON GROUPS

A. long time ago Adjahuto lived in Adjatado. In those days animals and men lived together. There were two women who were married to a man. The two women always quarreled. When one of them became pregnant, the other, the senior one, said, "You have become pregnant by an animal. This was said to the mother of Adjahuto.

So when the woman gave birth, they began to say that this child was fathered by a leopard. So they quarreled until they fought.

Adjahuto became angry. He left Adja and came to Allada. So when the Adja people pursued Adjahuto, there was a war between them. The war was fought from Adja to Adjadji.

When Adjahuto saw that those pursuing him were stronger, he called on a friend, and asked him to remain stationed at a certain place. When he saw the pursuers approaching, he was to come and warn him. But this friend of Adjahuto, he went and talked with the people who were making war against Adjahuto, and then he went back to Adjahuto. He was plotting to bring Adjahuto into the hands of the enemy.

Adjahuto knew what he did. So he killed his friend. This friend was called Kozoè. Adjahuto took a new name.² He said, "I am called now Adanukozoê-hunton, which means a man of Adja who killed Kozoè. Now that he had killed a man of Adja, he refused to drink from the calabash of an Adja.³

So when Adjahuto warred against his enemies, Tedo helped him. Agasu was their hunter. These were the three vodun who came here. But it is Agasu who came to rank first, because he had the gun, and he found the road.⁴

So when the three came to Allada-these three all came from Adja-Tedo said, "I am tired. He said he wanted to rest. He took a side path and sat down to rest, and that is where the temple of Tedo is today.⁵

So now Agasu and Adjahuto are left. The Adja people continued their pursuit to Allada. Adjahuto went deeper and deeper into the bush. The people came after him. He put his cloth on the ground and said, "I want a river to spring up here so that I might be Separated from my pursuers. So a river sprang up. He had many magic charms. Now he had a spear. He took the spear and said,

"Now, I'm going to throw you, and you must fall at a place where I can come and stay without being killed by the enemy. When he said that, he threw it. So he had people with him. He sent them to look and see where the spear had fallen. "When you see it, don't touch it, he told them.

So the people came and told Adjahuto they found his spear. He went with them, and he said, "Good. It is here I am going to stay. This is called to this day Adjahutohwe, the house of Adjahuto.

There are many houses there. When we make a ceremony for Adjahuto, we go there. The place we call Togodo got this name because he had a river spring up there.

So Adjahuto is there. He begins to have children, and his children are called people born of the leopard; and the wives are called wives of the leopard. His children began to become kings.⁶ When people saw their wives, they called them kposi, wives of the leopard; and when they saw their children, they called them kpovi, leopard children.

As everybody feared the children of Adjahuto, the moment people saw them, they called them Dada Kpodjito, Kings, descendants of the leopard. So, in olden days, when the wives of these men went to market, no one ever met them.⁷ They were called the wives of the leopard, and their faces were covered with beads.⁸ If you ever met them, you were killed. This was so until the time of Behanzin, the last king of Dahomey.

Now in Allada, Adjahuto and Tedo are more important; but in Abomey it is Agasu.

1. This version is from Allada.
2 Deeds of valor, or wisdom, or acts that benefit the group are rewarded by the
public bestowal of a praise name.
3. Drinking from the same calabash is a symbol of friendship.
4. Here used figuratively to express the idea of finding refuge, but also a way to conquest. The symbolic meaning of weapons and tools as "opening the road occurs as an idiom in religious and secular connotation.
5. An elliptical way of saving Tedo lost heart, and the appetite for further adventure.
6 The word king is here used, as in all of XVest Africa, to designate a village head, as well as the head of a more ambitious territorial grouping.
7. Those who heard the tinkling of the bells, fled from the paths, and prostrated themselves so as not to see them.
8. I.e., hanging from a head-dress