sq. m. of the interior. They number about a million. They have many traditions of early migrations. It seems probable that the Fanti and Ashanti were originally one race, driven from the north-east towards the sea by more powerful races, possibly the ancestors of Fula and Hausa. There are many words in Fanti for plants and animals not now existing in the country, but which abound in the Gurunsi and Moshi countries farther north. These regions have been always haunted by slave-raiders, and possibly these latter may have influenced the exodus. At any rate, the Fanti were early driven into the forests from the open plains and slopes of the hills. The name Fanti, an English version of Mfantsi, is supposed to be derived from fan, a wild cabbage, and ti, di or dz, to eat; the story being that upon the exile of the tribe the only available food was some such plant. They are divided into seven tribes, obviously totemic, and with rules as to exogamy still in force. (1) Kwonna, buffalo; (2) Etchwi, leopard; (3) Eso, bush-cat; (4) Nitchwa, dog; (5) Nnuna, parrot; (6) Ebradzi, lion; and (7) Abrutu, corn-stalk; these names are obsolete, though the meanings are known. The tribal marks are three gashes in front of the ear on each side in a line parallel to the jaw-bone. The Fanti language has been associated by A. B. Ellis with the Ashanti speech as the principal descendant of an original language, possibly the Tshi (pronounced Tchwi), which is generally considered as the parent of Ashanti, Fanti, Akim, Akwapim and modern Tshi.
The average Fanti is of a dull brown colour, of medium height, with negroid features. Some of the women, when young, are quite pretty. The women use various perfumes, one of the most usual being prepared from the excrement of snakes. There are no special initiatory rites for the youthful Fanti, only a short seclusion for girls when they reach the marriageable age. Marriage is a mere matter of sale, and the maidens are tricked out in all the family finery and walk round the village to indicate that they are ready for husbands. The marriages frequently end in divorce. Polygamy is universally practised. The care of the children is left exclusively to the mothers, who are regarded by the Fanti with deep veneration, while little attention is paid to the fathers. Wives never eat with their husbands, but always with the children. The rightful heir in native law is the eldest nephew, i.e. the eldest sister’s eldest son, who invariably inherits wives, children and all property. As to tenure of land, the source of ownership of land is derived from the possession of the chief’s “stool,” which is, like the throne of a king, the symbol of authority, and not even the chief can alienate the land from the stool. Females may succeed to property, but generally only when the acquisition of such property is the result of their succeeding to the stool of a chief. The Fanti are not permanent cultivators of the soil. Three or at most five years will cover the period during which land is continuously cultivated. The commonest native dishes are palm-oil chop, a bowl of palm oil, produced by boiling freshly ground palm nuts, in which a fowl or fish is then cooked; and fūfū, “white,” a boiled mash of yams or plantains. The Fanti have a taste for shark-flesh, called locally “stink-fish.” It is sliced up and partly sun-dried, and is eaten in a putrid state. The Fanti are skilful sailors and fishermen, build excellent canoes, and are expert weavers. Pottery and goldsmithery are trades also followed. Their religion is fetishism, every Fanti having his own “fetish” or familiar spirit, but there is a belief in a beneficent Creative Being. Food is offered the dead, and a ceremony of purification is said to be indulged in at funerals, the bearers and mourners plunging into the sea or river after the interment.
See Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, vol. 26, pp. 128 et seq.; A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast (London, 1887).
FANTIN-LATOUR, IGNACE HENRI JEAN THÉODORE
(1836–1904), French artist, was born at Grenoble on the 14th of
January 1836. He studied first with his father, a pastel painter,
and then at the drawing school of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and
later under Couture. He was the friend of Ingres, Dalacroix,
Corot, Courbet and others. He exhibited in the Salon of 1861,
and many of his more important canvases appeared on its walls
in later years, though 1863 found him with Harpignies, Monet,
Legros and Whistler in the Salon des Refusés. Whistler introduced
him to English artistic circles, and he lived for some time
in England, many of his portraits and flower pieces being in
English galleries. He died on the 28th of August 1904. His
portrait groups, arranged somewhat after the manner of the
Dutch masters, are as interesting from their subjects as they are
from the artistic point of view. “Hommage à Delacroix” showed
portraits of Whistler and Legros, Baudelaire, Champfleury and
himself; “Un Atelier à Batignolles” gave portraits of Monet,
Manet, Zola and Renoir, and is now in the Luxembourg; “Un
Coin de table” presented Verlaine, Rimbaud, Camille Peladan
and others; and “Autour du Piano” contained portraits of
Chabrier, D’Indy and other musicians. His paintings of flowers
are perfect examples of the art, and form perhaps the most
famous section of his work in England. In his later years he
devoted much attention to lithography, which had occupied
him as early as 1862, but his examples were then considered so
revolutionary, with their strong lights and black shadows, that
the printer refused to execute them. After “L’Anniversaire”
in honour of Berlioz in the Salon of 1876, he regularly exhibited
lithographs, some of which were excellent examples of delicate
portraiture, others being elusive and imaginative drawings
illustrative of the music of Wagner (whose cause he championed
in Paris as early as 1864), Berlioz, Brahms and other composers.
He illustrated Adolphe Jullien’s Wagner (1886) and Berlioz
(1888). There are excellent collections of his lithographic work
at Dresden, in the British Museum, and a practically complete
set given by his widow to the Louvre. Some were also exhibited
at South Kensington in 1898–1899, and at the Dutch gallery
in 1904.
A catalogue of the lithographs of Fantin-Latour was drawn up by Germain Hédiard in Les Maîtres de la lithographie (1898–1899). A volume of reproductions, in a limited edition, was published (Paris, 1907) as L’Œuvre lithographique de Fantin-Latour. See A. Jullien, Fantin-Latour, sa vie et ses amitiés (Paris, 1909).
FANUM FORTUNAE (mod. Fano), an ancient town of Umbria,
Italy, at the point where the Via Flaminia reaches the N.E.
coast of Italy. Its name shows that it was of Roman origin,
but of its foundation we know nothing. It is first mentioned,
with Pisaurum and Ancona, as held by Julius Caesar in 49 B.C.
Augustus planted a colony there, and round it constructed a
wall (of which some remains exist), as is recorded in the inscription
on the triple arch erected in his honour at the entrance to
the town (A.D. 9–10), which is still standing. Vitruvius tells
us that there was, during Augustus’s lifetime, a temple in his
honour and a temple of Jupiter, and describes a basilica of which
he himself was the architect. The arch of Augustus bears a
subsequent inscription in honour of Constantine, added after
his death by L. Turcius Secundus, corrector Flaminiae et Piceni,
who also constructed a colonnade above the arch. Several
Roman statues and heads, attributable to members of the Julio-Claudian
dynasty, were found in the convent of S. Filippo in
1899. These and other objects are now in the municipal museum
(E. Brizio in Notizie degli scavi, 1899, 249 seq.). Of the temple
of Fortune from which the town took its name no traces have
been discovered.
(T. As.)
FAN VAULT, in architecture, a method of vaulting used in the
Perpendicular style, of which the earliest example is found in
the cloisters of Gloucester cathedral, built towards the close of
the 14th century. The ribs are all of one curve and equidistant,
and their divergency, resembling that of an open fan, has
suggested the name. One of the finest examples, though of later
date (1640), is the vault over the staircase of Christ Church,
Oxford. For the origin of its development see Vault.
FĀRĀBĪ [Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān ul-Fārābī] (ca.
870–950), Arabian philosopher, was born of Turkish stock at
Fārāb in Turkestan, where also he spent his youth. Thence he
journeyed to Bagdad, where he learned Arabic and gave himself
to the study of mathematics, medicine and philosophy, especially
the works of Aristotle. Later he went to the court of the
Ḥamdānid Saif addaula, from whom he received a warm welcome
and a small pension. Here he lived a quiet if not an ascetic life.
