… Each Priest or Feticheer hath his peculiar Idol, prepared and adjusted in a particular and different manner, but most of them like the following … They have a great Wooden Pipe flled with Earth, Oil, Blood, the Bones of dead Men and Beasts, Feathers, Hair … [the one] to take an Oath before this Idol … calls the Fetiche by its Name, and recites at large the Contents of what he designs to bind by an Oath, and makes it his Petitionary Request that the Idol may punish him with death if he swears falsely… Willem Bosman
from “Letter X,” A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, 1704