In the Micronesian Islands, while animism and tabu were strong, there was not the cannibalism of the southern islands.
Thus the Mintra of the Malay Peninsula have a demon corresponding to every kind of disease known to them; the Tasmanian ascribed a gnawing pain to the presence within him of the soul of a dead man, whom he had unwittingly summoned by mentioning his name and who was `devouring his liver; the Samoan held that the violation of a food tabu would result in the animal being formed within the body of the offender and cause his death.
The chief towns on the coast are Grand and Little Bassam, Jackville and Assini in the east and Grand Lahou, Sassandra and Tabu in the west.
Polygamy prevailed among the chiefs and rulers, and women were subject to all the humiliations of the tabu system, which subjected them to many privations, and kept them socially in a condition of inferiority to the other sex.
In its ancient stories were remnants of primitive religion, of tabu, of anthropomorphic gods, of native forms of worship, of magic and divination, of local and tribal cults.