Among the

the trial of another, till the guilty is discovered.1 Wadchagga 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." 2

Among the Hawaiians, in the ordeal called wai haalulu, "prayer was offered by the priest" while a large dish of water was placed before the culprit, who was required to hold his hands over the fluid; and if it shook, his fate was sealed.3 Among the Tinguianes in the district of El Abra in Luzon, if a man is accused of a crime and denies it, the headman of the village, who is also the judge, causes a handful of straw to be burned in his presence. The accused then holds up an earthen pot and says, "May my belly be changed to a pot like this if I am guilty of the crime of which I am accused." If he remains unchanged in body, the judge declares him innocent. The following ordeal is in use among the Tunguses of Siberia. A fire is made and a scaffold erected near the hut of the accused. A dog's throat is then cut and the blood received in a vessel. The body is put on the wood of the fire, but in such a position. that it does not burn. The accused passes over the fire, and drinks two mouthfuls of the blood, the rest whereof is thrown into the fire; and the body of the dog is placed on the scaffold. Then the accused says:- "As the dog's blood burns in the fire, so may what I have drunk burn in my body; and as the dog put on the scaffold will be consumed, so may I be consumed at the same time if I be guilty."5

The "trial of jealousy" mentioned in the Old Testament involved a curse pronounced by the priest to the effect that the holy water which the woman suspected of adultery had to drink should cause her belly to swell and her thigh to rot. In India the ordeal was expressly regarded as a form of the oath, the same word, sapatha, being used to denote both. We have seen above that in the Middle Ages every judicial combat was necessarily preceded by an oath, which essentially decided the issue of the fight and the question of guilt. So also at the moment when the hot iron was raised and the accused took

it into his hand, the Deity was invoked to manifest the truth.1 The ordeal of the Eucharist involved the following formula recited by the victim" Et si aliter est quam dixi et juravi, tunc hoc Domini nostri Jesu Christi corpus non pertranseat gutur meum, sed hæreat in faucibus meis, strangulet me suffocet me ac interficiat me statim in momento." 2

4

To the list of ordeals which contain an oath or a curse as their governing element many other instances might probably be added in which no imprecation has been expressly mentioned by our authorities in their short descriptions of the ceremonies. This is all the more likely to be the case as magical practices often imply imprecations which are not formally expressed. But there may also be ordeals which have a different origin. Thus the custom of swimming witches seems to have arisen from the notion that everything unholy is repelled by water and unable to sink into its depths; and the ordeal of touching the corpse of a murdered person no doubt. originated in the belief that the soul of such a person lingered about the body until appeased by the shedding of the murderer's blood and that "by the murderer's approach, and especially by his polluted touch, the soul was excited to an instant manifestation of its indignation, by appearing in the form in which it was supposed to subsist, viz. in that of blood." However, even though all ordeals have not the same foundation, it seems highly improbable that any people, in the first instance, resorted to this method of discovering innocence and guilt from a belief in a god who is by his nature a guardian of truth and justice.

5

Nor must we make any inference as to the moral character of gods from the mere prevalence of a belief in

1 Beames, in his Translation of Glanville, p. 351 sq.

2 Dahn, op. cit. ii. 16.

3 See, for instance, Westermarck, 'L-'år, or the Transference of Conditional Curses in Morocco,' in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 361 sqq.

4 Binsfeldius, Tractatus de confes

sionibus maleficorum et sagarum, p. 315. In the North-East of Scotland it was believed that, if a person committed suicide by drowning, the body did not sink, but floated on the surface (Gregor, Folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, p. 208).

5 Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scot land, iii. 187.

a future world where men are in some way or other punished or rewarded for their conduct during their life. Such a belief is said to be fairly common among uncivilised races; and, although in several cases it is undoubtedly due to Christian or other foreign influence,2 agree with Dr. Steinmetz that we are not entitled to

assume that it is so in all. It seems that the

savage mind may by itself, in various ways, come to the idea of some kind of moral retribution after death. First, the condition of the dead man is often supposed to depend upon the attentions bestowed on him by the survivors. Mr. Turner was told that, in the belief of the St. Augustine Islanders in Polynesia, the souls of the departed “if good" went to a land of brightness and clear weather in the heavens, but "if bad" were sent to mud and darkness; and the answer to his next question informed him. that in this case "goodness "meant that the friends of the deceased had given him a good funeral feast, and that "badness" meant that his stingy friends had provided nothing at all. Although Mr. Turner sees no moral distinction in these terms, there may be one nevertheless. Speaking of the Efatese, in the New Hebrides, Mr. Macdonald observes :-" A man's condition in the future would be, to some extent, happy or miserable according to his life here. Supposing he were a worthless fellow, very scanty worship would be rendered to him at his death and few animals slain to accompany him to the spirit world; and thus he would occupy an inferior position there corresponding to his social worthlessness here. This belief, our informant adds, "has undoubtedly great influence in making men strive to live so as to obtain the good opinion of their fellows, and leave an honourable memory behind them at death. The Bushmans, who maintain that the dead will ultimately go to a land abounding in excellent food, put a spear by the side of a departed friend in order that, when he arises, he may have something to defend himself with and procure a living; but, if they hate the person, they deposit no spear, so that on his resurrection he may either be murdered or starved." The dead may also have to suffer from the curses of those whom they injured while alive. At Motlav, in the

3

1 Steinmetz, Studien, ii. 366 sqq. Idem, Continuität oder Lohn und Strafe im Jenseits der Wilden,' in Archiv f. Anthropologie, xxiv. 577 sqq.

2 Turner, Samoa, p. 292 sq.

3 Macdonald, Oceania, p. 209. 4 Campbell, Second Journey in the Interior of South Africa, i. 29.

Banks' Islands, relatives "watch the grave of a man whose life was bad, lest some man wronged by him should come at night and beat with a stone upon the grave, cursing him."1 At Gaua, in the same group, "when a great man died his friends would not make it known, lest those whom he had oppressed should come and spit at him after his death, or gougov him, stand bickering at him with crooked fingers and drawing in the lips, by way of curse."2 The Maoris were careful to prevent the bones of their dead relatives from falling into the hands of their enemies, "who would dreadfully desecrate and ill-use them, with many bitter jeers and curses." 3 A person may, moreover, himself during his lifetime directly provide for his comfort in the life to come, and if the act by which he does so is apt to call forth approval its result is easily interpreted as its reward. Thus the Kukis of India believe that all enemies whom a person has killed will in his future abode be in attendance on him as slaves; and this belief probably accounts for their opinion that nothing more certainly ensures future happiness than destroying a number of enemies.5 We have further to notice the common idea that a person's character after his death remains more or less as it was during his life. Hence the souls of bad people are supposed to reappear in the shape of obnoxious animals" or become evil spirits, and this may lead to the notion that they have to do so as a punishment for their wickedness.$ And as the revengeful feelings of men likewise are believed to last beyond death, offenders may in the

1 Codrington, op. cit. p. 269.

2 Ibid. p. 269.

3 Colenso, Maori Races, p. 28.

Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 46. 5 Macrae, Account of the Kookies,' in Asiatick Researches, vii. 195.

6 Hill and Thornton, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 4. Katzel, op. cit. i. 317 (Solomon Islanders). Junghuhn, Die Battalander auf Sumatra, ii. 338 (natives of Bali and Lombok). Cross, quoted by Mac Mahon, Far Cathay and Farther India, p. 203 (Karens). Waitz,

Anthropologie der Naturvölker, ii. 419 (Maravi). Southey, History of Brazil, iii. 392 (Guaycurus). Powers, Tribes of California, pp. 144 (Tatu), 155 (Kato Pomo).

Bailey, 'Wild Tribes of the Veddahs,' in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. ii. 302, n. (Sinhalese). von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 349 (Bakairi).

8 See Steinmetz, Studien, ii. 376; Idem, in Archiv für Anthropologie, xxiv. 603 sq.