There is no substitution of any kind, except in rare cases. A guilty person must bear his own punishment in some way.
Oaths are common, and are used freely and voluntarily in the course of the discussion. A man who utters false testimony or bears false witness is expected to be thrust out of the assembly, but it is not always done.
When an oath is required, there is no escape from it; he who refuses to swear is considered guilty. Sometimes, under bravado, he will demand to be given “mbwaye” (the poison test), hoping that his demand will not be complied with. When the test is produced, he may seek to escape it by refusing that particular kind and demanding another not readily obtainable. But his attempt at evasion is generally regarded as a sign of guilt.
In court, parties are not obstinate in their opinion; they ask for and take advice from others.
2. Punishment. If it be capital, the accusers are the executioners. Death is by various modes,—formerly very cruel, e. g., burning, roasting, torturing, amputation by piecemeal; now it is generally by gun, dagger, club, or drowning. For a debt that a creditor is seeking to recover, securities may be accepted. But if the accused then runs away, the person giving the security is tried and punished.
A creditor does not usually attach the property of the debtor, though often, in the interior tribes, a woman is seized as hostage. If a long time elapses in deciding the matter, the debtor may be held as prisoner until the debt is paid. Formerly it was very common for the debtor’s family’s property, or even their persons, to be seized as security; and it still is common for a person of the debtor’s tribe to be caught by the creditor’s tribe, and detained until he is redeemed by his own people.
The king of the prisoner’s tribe is called to help release him. If the king himself become a captive, his people combine to collect goods for the payment, and meanwhile give other persons in his place to secure his immediate release. Sometimes differences are settled in a fight, by a hand-to-hand encounter.
3. Blood Atonement and Fines. Revenge, especially for bloodshed, is everywhere practised. It is a duty belonging first to the “ijawe” (blood-relative), next to the “ikaka” (family), next to the “etomba” (tribe).
The murdered man’s own family take the lead,—in case of a wife, her husband and his family, and the wife’s family; sometimes the whole “ikaka”; finally, the “etomba.”
A master seeks revenge for his slave or other servants. Formerly it was indifferent who was killed in revenge, so that it be some member of the murderer’s tribe. Naturally that tribe sought to retaliate, and the feud was carried back and forth, and would be finally settled only when an equal number had been killed on each side,—a person for a person: a woman for a man, or vice versa; a child for a man or woman, or vice versa. A woman (wife of the man killed) does not take the lead in the revenge; his family must take the lead, her family must join in. They would be despised and cursed if they did not do so. The woman herself does not take part in this killing for revenge.