Satu consulted his head men for a considerable time; but at last said: “There are two persons before us who accuse each other of thieving, and it is difficult for us to decide. We will therefore call the nganga, and will try the case to-morrow by the ordeal of the boiling oil; and whichever one is proved guilty must pay a fine of five pieces of cloth.”
After this decision the crowd at once broke up, and that night around the fires there was much speculation as to which of the two would prove the guilty one.
Early the next afternoon a nganga arrived with a deep vessel filled with palm-oil. This was placed on a fire and attended to, while the nganga’s assistants walked about the town. One of these assistants called to Bakula and asked him to show the way to the stream. When they were a little out of the town the assistant turned, and said to Bakula: “If you will give me fifty brass rods my master will put something on your hand and arm so that the boiling oil will not burn you, and you will be proved innocent. Will you pay me the money?”
“No; I am perfectly innocent of the charge,” replied Bakula, “and if there is any truth in the ordeal, it will show all the people that I am guiltless. For many moons now I have doubted witch-doctors, and believed that they tricked us, laughed at us and robbed us.”
“You had better pay the money,” sneeringly retorted the nganga’s assistant, “otherwise you will have to pay the five pieces of cloth.”
“Yes, I know your way,” replied the lad. “It is like this: I promise you fifty rods, then you go to the other and he promises you sixty, and after that you come to me and I promise seventy rods, and he offers eighty, and it is the one who eventually gives you the largest amount that wins the case by ordeal. No, I will not promise a single brass rod, for I know I am innocent, and if the ordeal does not prove it I shall know for a certainty that your ngangas are liars and cheats, and your ordeals trickeries and swindles.”
The assistant, heaping on him much abuse, and throwing at him many epithets of reproach, called him an utter fool, and returned to the town.
Later in the afternoon the drum sounded, and the people hurried to the judging-place. Women had not been to the farms that day or had returned very early; the men had not been to either market, forest or bush; and people had come in from the surrounding villages, for everybody who could be there was present, because no one wanted to miss so sensational a sight as the ordeal by boiling oil.
Satu and his head men sat by themselves a few yards from the saucepan of oil. Bakula and Old Plaited-Beard were at opposite sides of the circle of people that watched the proceedings intently. Old Plaited-Beard was called first, and approached the saucepan with a jaunty air, smirking face, and anticipated triumph in every movement. He submitted his right hand and arm to be rubbed with some decoction[[63]] by the nganga; a piece of kwanga, or native bread, was dropped in the oil, and then, with an insolent flourish, Old Plaited-Beard dipped in his hand and arm and brought out the piece of kwanga. His skin was not scalded, he had passed the ordeal successfully, and was thus proved innocent of the charge.
On the plea that the first ceremonial use of the oil had cooled it too much to be a proper test, the nganga and his assistants heaped fire about the pot, and it was not until the oil began to bubble that the “medicine man” pronounced it ready for the other accused person.