Such as could not afford to kill slaves took the head of a slave who had already been sacrificed and placed it in the hole. About ten days after these ceremonies the whole of the royal household ate new yams for the first time in the market-place, the King himself being in attendance. Next day he and his captains set off before sunrise to perform their annual ablutions in the river Dah; almost all the inhabitants of the capital followed him, so that the streets appeared to be deserted. The following day the King, attended by his suite, washed in the marsh at the south-east end of the town and laved the water not only over himself but also over the chairs, stools, gold and silver plate, and the articles of furniture which were set aside for his special use.(194) From another account it appears that the King of Ashantee must eat the new yams before any of his subjects was at liberty to do so.(195) Similarly in the West African kingdom of Assinie, which forms part of the French possessions of Senegal, the king must eat the new yams eight full days before the people may taste them.(196) (M52) A second festival of yams used to be celebrated at Coomassie in December, when the king or a fetish priest consecrated the new yams before they could be eaten by common folk. On one of the days of this December celebration all the laws were suspended, and every man might do what seemed good in his own eyes: he might even, contrary to custom, look at the king’s wives, to the number of several hundreds, when they returned with the king and his suite from washing in the fetish water of Tana. All that day drinking went on, and the noise and uproar were prolonged far into the night. Early in the morning a human victim was sacrificed: the first man found near the gates of the palace was seized, butchered, and cut in pieces, and the executioners danced with the bleeding fragments of the victim in their hands or fastened round their necks. Before he ate of the new yams the king washed himself in fetish water brought from distant springs, and the chiefs performed similar ablutions.(197) In Benin the new yams might not be eaten until the king had performed certain ceremonies, among which one is said to have been a pretence of making a yam to grow in a pot. Dancing, merrymaking, and farces or plays formed part of the festival; the city was crowded with people, and they indulged in a regular orgie.(198)