False testimony in the presence of witnesses and relatives is almost unheard of. I suppose that this marvel is to be attributed to the fear of the dire retribution that would infallibly overtake the false witness.
BY OATHS
Ordinarily no oath is administered nor any other formal means adopted to make certain that the accused or the witnesses will tell the truth, but there is a practice which is sometimes followed whenever the veracity of anyone is doubted. This is called tó-tung or burning of the wax, a ceremony that may be used not only with witnesses but with anyone from whom it is desired to force the truth. I have used it very successfully on numerous occasions in getting information about trails. The ceremony consists in burning a piece of beeswax in the presence of the party to be questioned. This signifies that if he does not answer truthfully his body by some process of sympathetic magic, will be burned in a similar manner. After making his statement and while the wax is being burned, he expresses the desire that his body may burn and be melted like the wax if his statement is untrue. This is another example of the pervading belief in sympathetic magic.
BY THE TESTIMONY OF THE ACCUSED
In the various instances that have come under my observation, the guilty one, as a rule, vigorously denied his guilt until confronted in public assembly by his accusers, so that I judge that custom does not require him to make a self-accusation until that time. But when duly confronted with witnesses, he nearly always admits his guilt.
For if the defendant should deny his guilt and if there were no evidence against him other than suspicion, the injured party would be justified in inflicting injury on anyone else, according to the principles of the private-seizure system. If it should later be discovered that the defendant was the original offender, the innocent parties who were the victims of this seizure would ultimately take terrible vengeance on him. I was informed by the Debabáons that a false denial of one's guilt before the assembled arbiters and relatives is especially displeasing to the deities. I failed to get information on this point from Manóbos, but it would be fairly reasonable to conclude that their belief in the matter is identical with that of the Debabáons.
Should the accused one deny his guilt and should circumstantial evidence point to him as the guilty one, the wax-burning ceremony above described would be performed. If he should still maintain that he was innocent, various methods for the determination of his guilt would be resorted to.