ORDEALS.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 5

ORDEALS.

Trial by ordeal, though seldom heard of in Europe in modern days, was not unknown to ancients, was familiar with the Middle Ages, and is still practised to a considerable extent in many parts of the world. There was an old custom in France by which when a theft was committed, the local magistrates, at a meeting of the inhabitants, after having called forth the thief, held up a stick under which every one must pass. According to a German writer the modern duel is simply a relic of the ordeal irt which there was supposed to be a divine intervention with natural law in favour of the innocent, and it resembles in principle the practice of torture, the only difference being that in the latter the event depends on the will of the accused, and a man on the rack being as little able to declare the truth as in former times to prevent without fraud the effects of fire or boiling water.

But it is in the East and other parts of the world that we find the most curious ordeals, a good many of which are practised at the present day. Trial by ordeal, though forbidden by the Koran, is to be found in some form or other throughout the Mohammedan world. The Hindus recognize ten kinds of ordeals. The ordeal of the, balance is applied to women, children, the aged, blind, lame, and sick men, and to Brahmins. After a fast of twenty-four hours the accused bathes in holy water, prayers are offered up, and oblations are presented to the fire. The beam of the balance is them adjusted, the cord fixed, and the accuracy of the scales ascertained. The accused then sits in the scale, and while being weighed the priests prostrate themselves, repeating certain incantations and after an interval of six minutes the accusation paper is bound around the head of the accused, who invokes the balance thus : "Thou, O balance, art the mansion of truth; declare the truth therefore, and clear me from all suspicion. If I am guilty sink me down ; but if I am innocent, raiso me aloft." The,accused is then rewieghed. If found heavier, he is found guilty ; but if lighter, he goes free.

In the trial by fire the accused, in India, walks barefooted into a mass of burning peepul leaves ; in Siam over a pit filled with burning charcoal. The ordeal of taking a piece of gold out of a pot of hot oil is common in India. If the aepused do so without being scalded he is deemed innocent. In another fire ordeal the accused touches fire or heated metal, and if burned he is guilty. In the great Hindu epic poem, "Uamayana’’ the abducted heroine was made to prove her purity by parsing through a bonfire. Nowadays of all ordeals those by fire are held in highest repute in India.

In Japan a reputed thief bears on his hand a piece of thin paper having the figures of three deities. On this a piece of red-hot iron is placed, and • f his hand escapes, he is set free. The\Hajez Arab licks red-hot iron an oVtfeal. The water ordeal is in vogue lhsjndia, Burrnah, and Borneo. In India Accused, .stands in water up to his waist, attended by a Brahmin, staff in hand. A yierson near shoots three arrows from a'bamboo bow, and a man hurries to pick up the furthermost shaft. As he takes it from the ground another person runs toward him from the water’s edge. At the same moment the accused grasps the Brahmin’s staff and dives beneath the water. If he remains -under the water till the two arrow-fetchers return, he is innocent; but if any part of his body be visible, he is guilty. In Burrnah a stake is driven into the water ; the accuser and the accused, taking hold of it simultaneously, plunge beneath the water, and he who remains longest submerged is declared to have truth on his side. In the poison ordeal white arsenic and butter in a mixture is administered ;. in the snake ordeal a cobra and a ring are placed in an earthenware pot, and the accused has to withdraw the ring. The other ordeals recognised in India are: Chewing grains of rice and spitting them out unstained with blood ; drinking water in which an idol has been washed without getting ill ; drawing concealed images of virtue and vice out of a vessel filled with earth ; and holding the leaves of the holy basil, sacred to one of the principal deities. *

ThQ custom of relying upon supernatural aid for the settlement of cases in which natural evidence is wanting or human judgment is unequal to the task is common to all less advanced, semi-barbarous, and savage peoples of the w T orld. Some ordeals are simply magical, being processes of divination turned to legal purpose. Thus in Burrnah suits are sometimes determined by plaintiff and defendent being each furnished with a candle, equal in size and both lighted at once. He whose candle outlasts the other is declared innocent. The Borneo .Dyaks place two pieces of salt in the water, to represent the accuser and the accused, and the owner of the piece dissolving the first loses the cause. Also two shellfish representing the disputing parties are placed on a plate, and lime-juice is squeezed over them, and he whose shellfish moves first is pronounced guilty or innocent as may j have been resolved on. But the more] common mode amongst the Dyaks is i for the accuser and accused to plunge ; their heads beneath the water, and he who remains the longer is free. I The ordeal of the red drink, employed at this day by negroes of the Gold i Coast of Africa, resembles very close- ! ly the ancient Hebrew custom of ■ administering the bitter water. This red drink is a decoction made by pounding in a w r ooden mortar and steeping in .water the inner bark of one of the mimosa trees, producing as astringent, narcotic, and, when i taken in large quantity, emetic liq- j uor. The last two instances bear a j strong affinity to the poison ordeal 1 of the Hindus. Sometimes even the dead body is used as an instrument for finding out the guilty party. The aborigines of Australia will ask the corpse carried on his bier of boughs who bewiched him, and it is said the j dead man will make one of the! boughs move and touch the man who j killed him. This ordeal also prevails among some of the negro tribes of j Africa, where the corpse is believed ‘ tib cause its bearers to dash against soma one’s house, which secusen the!