Le pouvoir. le sang et la mort dans le royaume asante au XIXe siècle

In the 19th century, the Asante kingdom was infamous because of the number and cruelty of human sacrifices in Kumasi. Following an assessment of the extent of this phenomenon, various interpretations proposed by Asante at the time or by European observers are examined. Although human sacrifices had a political function, namely to intimidate people through terror, their fundamental meaning was religious: return to Mother earth the life she had given to mankind.