[149] Krapf, Travels in Eastern Africa, p. 173.
[150] Marker, Die Masai, p. 211.
[151] Felkin, ‘Notes on the Madi,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xii. 334.
[152] Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 641 sq.
It has often been said that the oath and ordeal involve a belief in the gods as vindicators of truth and justice, that they are “appeals to the moral nature of the Divinity.”[153] If this were true, moral retribution would certainly be an exceedingly common function of savage gods. But, as we have noticed before,[154] the efficacy ascribed to an oath is originally of a magic character, and if it contains an appeal to a god he is, according to primitive notions, a mere tool in the hand of the person invoking him. So also the ordeal is essentially a magical ceremony. In many cases at least, it contains a curse or an oath which has reference to the guilt or innocence of a suspected person, and the proper object of the ordeal is then to give reality to the imprecation for the purpose of establishing the validity or invalidity of the suspicion.
[153] Tiele, Elements of the Science of Religion, i. 86. Réville, Les religions des peuples non-civilisés, i. 103. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 225. Schneider, Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, p. 255. Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays, i. 126. Dahn, Bausteine, ii. 21, 24. Gummere, Germanic Origins, p. 183.
[154] Supra, [ii. 118 sqq.]
Thus in West Africa the common ordeal which consists in drinking a certain draught or “eating the fetish” is regularly accompanied by an oath or a curse.[155] In the Calabar the accused person, before swallowing the ju-ju drink mbiam, which is made of filth and blood, recites an oath beginning with the words, “If I have been guilty of this crime,” and ending with the words, “Then, Mbiam, Thou deal with me!” And whenever this ordeal is used the greatest care is taken that the oath shall be recited in full.[156] Of the Negroes of the Gold Coast Bosman states that “if any person is suspected of thievery, and the indictment is not clearly made out, he is obliged to clear himself by drinking the oath-draught, and to use the imprecation, that the Fetiche may kill him if he be guilty of thievery.”[157] In Ashantee, “when any one denies a theft, an aggry bead is placed in a small vessel, with some water, the person holding it puts his right foot against the right foot of the accused, who invokes the power of the bead to kill him if he is guilty, and then takes it into his mouth with a little of the water.”[158] Among the Negroes of Northern Guinea, in the case of the “red-water ordeal,” the accused “invokes the name of God three times, and imprecates his wrath in case he is guilty of the particular crime laid to his charge.” He then steps forward and drinks freely of the “red water”—that is, a decoction made from the inner bark of a tree of the mimosa family. If it nauseates and makes him vomit freely, he is at once pronounced innocent, whereas, if it causes vertigo and he loses self-control, it is regarded as evidence of guilt.[159] According to an old account, the Negroes of Sierra Leone have a “water of cursing,” boiled of barks and herbs. The witch-doctor puts his divining-staff into the pot and drops or presses the water out of it upon the arm or leg of the suspected person, muttering over it these words:—“Is he guilty of this, or hath he done this or that; if yea, then let it scald or burn him, till the very skin come off.” If the person remains unhurt they hold him innocent, and proceed to the trial of another, till the guilty is discovered.[160] Among the Wadshagga of Eastern Africa the medicine-man gives to the accused a poisonous draught with the words, “If you fall down, you have committed the crime and told a lie, if you remain standing we recognise that you have spoken the truth.”[161]
[155] See, besides the references below, Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 35 sq. (Negroes of Accra); Beecham, Ashantee, p. 215 sqq.; Ratzel, op. cit. iii. 130.
[156] Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 465.