Like other races with a low degree of civilization, the Moï attribute to physical excess of all kinds a loss of force which puts an individual at a disadvantage in his contest with the powers of the earth or the air. On this belief are based the rules which prescribe the preparations of one who is about to face some judicial test or ordeal. He must pass the previous night in a state of complete abstinence, so that his moral and physical condition shall be perfect for the trial he is to undergo. The golden rule is summed up in a motto of the Adio of Central Africa: "No man may face the ordeal if not pure in body and mind, sinless and unstained." It seems doubtful whether the origin of this belief is religious or experimental. We know that it flourished among the Egyptians from an early period.
It is impossible to obtain even the most superficial understanding of many Moï laws and institutions without investigating the peculiar conceptions of morality on which they are based.
A Moï woman appears before the Council of the Ancients with a charge that some man has touched her without her consent. A fine is inflicted on the accused varying in amount with the importance of the part of the body which he touched. If there has been complete seduction and the seducer refuses to marry the complainant the fine is doubled.
Perhaps it is a husband who complains that his wife has committed adultery on three different occasions with three different men. He himself will be punished, and the sentence will be accompanied by some withering reflections on his incompetence and complacence, hardly flattering to his vanity. I ought to add that this curious judicial perversion is met with only on the shores of the great lakes, where morals are less rigid than in other parts of Indo-China.
I was told that among a few groups adultery is not considered criminal if the woman's accomplice is a relation of her husband. The Batua of the Congo also seem to regard this as an extenuating circumstance, but their neighbours, the Medgé and the Mangbetù, take a precisely opposite view and rigorously forbid brothers to seduce each other's wives. All the Moï consider it a gross aggravation of the offence if the seducer takes advantage of the husband's absence in war or the hunting-field.
I have already recorded that I was frequently prevailed on by the Moï to act as arbitrator in their disputes. I have the gravest misgivings that my judgments did more credit to my kindly intentions than to my legal knowledge.
I always made a point of using all my resources to impress the litigants with a due sense of the importance of the occasion and the dignity of the tribunal.
A scarlet cloth is thrown over my folding table. Next the huge blue-cotton umbrella, whose humble function is to protect our theodolite from the sun's rays, is commandeered to shelter the miserable packing-case which serves me for my curule chair. I don a wide-brimmed Boer hat and my revolver-case is reverentially attached to my belt by my boy, who is crier, clerk, and usher all in one.
To-day the case in the list is: