Hot oil was a test in the Kandy country by claimant and defendant, and the one whose fingers are burnt loses.
The water ordeal is in vogue in India, in Burma, and in Borneo. In India, the accused stands in water nearly up to his waist, attended by a Brahman, staff in hand. A person near shoots three arrows from a bamboo bow, and a man hurries to pick up the furthermost shaft As lie takes it from the ground, another person runs towards him from the water's edge ; at the carne moment the accused grasps the Brahman's staff and dives beneath time water. If ho remain there till the two arrow-fetchers return, ho is innocent, but if any part of his body appear, he is guilty. In Burma, a stake is driven into the water ; the ac cuser anti accused take hold, and together illunge beneath the water, and he who remains longer submerged is declared to have truth on his side.
In the poison ordeal, white arsenic and butter in a mixture is administered.
In the snake ordeal, a cobra and a ring are placed in an earthen pot, and the accused has to withdraw the ring.
The Borneo Dyaks place two pieces of salt in the water, to represent the accuser and accused, and the owner of the piece dissolving the first loses the cause. Also, two shells are placed on a plate, and lime-juice squeezed over them, and he whose shell moves first is pronounced guilty or innocent, as may have been resolved on. But the more common mode amongst the Dyaks is for the accuser and accused to plunge their heads beneath the water, and he who remains the longer is free.
The Brinjari people use the branch of a nim tree, the Azadirachta Indica. A husband throws it on the ground, and, turning to his wife, says, If thou be a true woman, lift that nim branch.' In land disputes amongst the Hindus, in the Bola or ball test, one of the parties, or a third person, carried a red-hot cannon ball along the alleged boundary, his palms being protected by a layer of pipal leaves. If he remain un scorched, the alleged boundary is determined to be correct.
In the ch'haur ordeal the referee walked the boundary with raw cowskin on his head ; this was often strengthened by the imposition of a term twenty-one days, thirty days, etc., and was contingent on the referee's survival for that time.
In other cases, an oath, Kasm sat'h Iasi, was administered, and the taker walked twenty-one paces with Ganges water, tulsi leaves, the saligram, and the book of Durga in his hands; if he survived twenty-one days, the truth of his statement was deemed established.
The truth of a man's assertion is still often tested by his being asked to repeat it standing in the waters of some tank of peculiar sanctity, as that of the Lachman Kund in Ajodhya.
Eating paddy, praying imprecations on them selves, is another form in Kandy ; also eating a cocoanut in the same manner ; drawing white olas is a third. Striking the earth, the reepolle or red-hot iron, and the cobra put into an earthen pot with money, when the parties withdraw the money ; if either be bitten, he is esteemed guilty.
Arrows are sometimes used in North-Western India as tests of innocence. The opposite ends of two arrows are held by a rattan laid upon the hands by two persons placed opposite to each other ; they are parallel to and just sufficiently apart to allow of the suspected person's hand being held between them. The ends of the arrows merely rest upon the fingers. The arrows are supposed to move towards and close upon the guilty hand.
On the coast of Africa, all criminal charges are tried by the Pynin or judges, who hear and weigh the evidence produced. But if there be no evidence, the cause is decided by a form of ordeal called doom, which consists in administer ing to the person accused a certain quantity of the bark of a tree deemed poisonous. If he retain it on his stomach, he is pronounced guilty, if otherwise, innocent. The refusal to submit to this ordeal is considered as a decisive proof of guilt, and the judges proceed accordingly.
In Bastar, the leaf-ordeal is followed by sewing up the accused in a sack, and letting him down into water waist deep ; if he manage in his struggles for life to raise his head above water, he is finally adjudged to be guilty. Then comes the punishment. The extraction of the teeth, which is said in Bastar to be effected with the idea of pre venting the witch from muttering charms ; but in Kamaon the object of the operation is rather to prevent her from doing mischief under the form of a tigress, which is the Indian equivalent of the loup-garou.
The ordeal beans of Old Calabar, West Africa, are the seeds of Physostigma venenatum.—Capt. Burton's Scinde; Wilk's Mysore; Hindu Infan ticide; Williams' Story of Nato; Fourth Report of the African Institution; Letter from Mr. Meredith on the Gold Coast, December 1809 ; Asiatic Re searches; Ward's Hindoos.