The assembled native converts, with few exceptions, were formerly savage cannibals.

from the Yoruba Mission to the Church Missionary Society that human sacrifices were offered in honor of the dead body of the head chief, Sasere, in 1893.1 The late Bishop Crowther, a native African in connection with the Church Missionary Society, often testified to the existence of these cruel practices in the valley of the Niger.

The Congo contributes its full quota of gruesome evidence. United States Commercial Agent Dorsey Mohun, in his recent Report to Congress, states that he was an eye-witness to the tragic death of fourteen persons who were buried alive in honor of a great chief who had died.2 Dr. W. H. Leslie, a missionary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, located upon the Congo, states that a native chief presented himself for professional treatment whose hand was so shockingly diseased that at first he thought it would have to be amputated, but by powerful remedies he succeeded in saving all but a small portion of it. The chief remarked to the doctor that "thirty of his subjects had been put to death at different times because he thought they were eating it." 3 "At Lukenga's royal city," writes Dr. Snyder, of the Southern Presbyterian Church Mission on the Congo, "there is being enacted a horrible tragedy. The brother of the king is lying dead wrapped in cloth, under a shed, and, what is more, he has lain there for two months. And why? Because they have not caught and killed enough people to satisfy the demands of their diabolical superstition. They have killed one hundred, and are now trying to catch one hundred more."4 Uganda, according to the statement of Mr. Ashe, King Mtesa confessed that "before the coming of white men to his country he had practised the horrid rites of the kiwendo, when thousands of victims were ruthlessly slaughtered in the performance of the sanguinary rites of Uganda. It was said that when Mtesa rebuilt his father Suna's tomb, the throats of two thousand unhappy human victims were cut at the dead king's grave." 5 In Abyssinia, according to Macdonald, "human sacrifices to their divinities are common among the people of Senjero." 6 In Southern Africa the Kaffirs (those tribes south of the Zambesi) and the Zulus, even in recent times, have been guilty of the same unspeakable atrocities, as Dr. Tyler and Dr. Emil Holub testify." 1 " Report of the Church Missionary Society," 1893-94, p. 26.

2 Quoted in Illustrated Africa, February, 1895, p. 2.

3 The Baptist Missionary Magazine, May, 1894, p. 147.

In

4 The Missionary, November, 1894, p. 485. Cf. Regions Beyond, May, 1895, 5 Ashe, "" Chronicles of Uganda," p. 63.

p. 220.

6 Macdonald, "Religion and Myth," p. 39.

▾ Illustrated Africa, December, 1895, p. 7; March, 1896, p. 4; and The African News, September, 1893, p. 28.

The world's barbarism is by no means ended. In some of its fairest regions the passions of demons seem to rage in the human breast.

The trial by ordeal-its severity and cruelty.

5. CRUEL ORDEALS.-In most instances the ordeals which involve physical torment or exposure to death are resorted to with a view of testing and so discovering the innocence or guilt of some suspected person. These ghastly trials have been widely known in the world in various forms. The ordeal has been sometimes by fire or, again, by water or by the use of poisons or through personal encounter. Torture has also been employed to ascertain if the consciousness of guilt will bear the test. The peculiar horror which attaches to this custom is the probability in numberless instances of putting an absolutely innocent person to death, and in any case, of subjecting the victim to excruciating torture.1

Among the Ainu of Northern Japan various barbarous expedients have prevailed to secure confession where a crime was suspected. One was the hot-water ordeal, which was practised in two ways. According to one method, the victim was placed in an immense caldron of cold water, under which a blazing fire was kindled, and was kept there until the suffering was so intense that a confession was extorted. This severe test, however, was not common unless the evidence of guilt was strong. Still another method was compelling the accused person to thrust an arm into a pan of boiling water. If the test was refused it was regarded as indicative of guilt; or if accepted and the result was a severe scalding, this also was supposed to be evidence against the accused person. Only in case the flesh was uninjured was the innocence fully demonstrated. Other expedients were by grasping hot iron, or a hot stone held in the palm of the hand. Still another, which was especially a favorite in the case of testing the guilt or innocence of women, was to make them smoke an unusual quantity of tobacco and then drink the ashes of the weed. If made ill they were guilty; if not, their innocence was established. A more innocent trial was effected by causing a person to drink a cup of water and then throw the empty cup behind him over his head. If the cup fell the right way upward innocence was demonstrated; if otherwise, guilt was regarded as manifest. Another singular trial consisted of seating the person before a 1 In the semi-pagan "trial by ordeal" among our Saxon forefathers this was actually the case when compurgators did not appear to vouch for the innocence of the accused.

large tub of water with his mouth placed to it in such a way that he must drink continuously until it was all gone. This process perhaps does not seem very terrifying, but in reality it involved intense pain. If the water was all drank the person was innocent, but if he gave up the attempt it was an indication of guilt. The stake ordeal, hanging by the hair, and beating were also resorted to. In China confession is often extorted by processes of ingenious and frightful torture. The diabolical versatility of the Chinese in this respect is notorious.2

Ordeals in India, Siam, and Madagascar.

In India festivals are sometimes the scenes of ordeals by passing through fire to exhibit fortitude and devotion in evidence of the religious sincerity of devotees. Among some of the native tribes, as, for example, the Mairs and Kois, it was customary to challenge one accused to prove his innocence by thrusting his hand into boiling oil or by grasping red-hot shot. In case any one among the Kois died a natural death it was considered to be the result of the machinations of some enemy, and when the most likely person was settled upon, the corpse of the deceased was brought into his presence, and he was called upon to demonstrate his innocence by undergoing the ordeal of thrusting his hand into boiling oil or water. In Siam and neighboring countries the trial by ordeal has long been known. The tests were similar to those already mentioned, though several of them were of exceptional cruelty. The interest in the subject at present is happily only historical, as the tests are not now practised. In Madagascar the ordeal by poison, or the use of tangéna, was formerly shamefully frequent. One out of every ten of the people, it has been computed, has been subjected to it, and half of the victims have died. According to the Rev. W. Ellis, "three thousand people perished every year a sacrifice to this superstition, for the belief, of course, was that while innocent people survived the ordeal, it invariably proved fatal to the guilty."5

Africa has the melancholy distinction of continuing these practices, although in sections of the Continent under the control of European 1 Batchelor, "The Ainu of Japan," pp. 135-138.

2 Norman, "The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," chap. xv., on Chinese Horrors."

3 "Pictorial Tour Round India," p. 47. Cf. "The History of Christianity in India," p. 87.

• "Trial by Ordeal in Siam," by Captain G. E. Gerini, The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, April and July, 1895.

• Horne, "The Story of the London Missionary Society," p. 175. Cf. Ratzel, "The History of Mankind," vol. i., p. 467.

administration such cases are now usually the subject of judicial investigation. In former times in Old Calabar the death of a chief was

Their prevalence in
Africa.

supposed to be because he was bewitched by some one. The suspected persons would be at once subject to the ordeal of drinking the powdered esere-bean, on the supposition that if guilty they would retain it and die; if innocent, they would be relieved of it and survive. The result was usually the death of the victims.2 Other grim variations in different sections of the Continent are mwavè-drinking in Nyassaland, reported as late as 1893, by Livingstonia missionaries of the Free Church of Scotland and mentioned also in a private letter from Dr. Laws, dated May 3, 1895,3 and the test of thrusting the hand into boiling water. In the latter case if the skin comes off the guilt is demonstrated, and the victim is then cut to pieces and burned. These superstitious customs have become to such an extent a part of the social code of savagery that nothing short of legal restriction backed by force can uproot them, except the enlightened teachings of Christianity. In the islands of the Pacific these strange and fiery ordeals

1 The Missionary Record, December, 1893, p. 354.

2 Dickie, "The Story of the Mission in Old Calabar," p. 44.

3 "The final arbiter of veracity was the ordeal by boiling water, in some cases, but most commonly by the mwave poison (the bark of the Erythrophlæum Guineense). In one tribe several hundreds of persons have been compelled to take this poison at one time, and from such a wholesale administration from thirty to forty deaths have been known to take place. Following the use of the mwavè came quarrels over property, because if the victim died, his wife, or wives, and children became the slaves of the accuser, and his property also passed to him. On the other hand, if the accused vomited and recovered he could claim reparation from his accuser. The power to put these sequelae of the ordeal into effect depended very much on the influence and fighting power of the relatives, and of course bloodshed often was the result. You can also readily imagine what an instrument of oppression the ordeal could be made by a chief or powerful neighbor who had a grudge against any one, or wished to get possession of his goods."-Rev. Robert Laws, M.D., D.D. (F. C. S.), Kondowi, Livingstonia, British Central Africa.

Cf. Free Church of Scotland Monthly, September, 1893, p. 202; The African News, January, 1894, p. 12.

4 "Witchcraft and poison-drinking are a recognized part of the social fabric of the Central African tribes. The main part of their legal customs is founded on these two things, and a natural consequence is the degradation of the administration of justice into a matter of chance, or the decision of the witch doctor and the strength of the poison he mixes. It is obvious that Christianity can make no truce with this sort of thing, and is in duty bound not merely to refuse to recognize it, but to do everything in its power to stop it, and to teach the natives by precept and example the Christian law of justice."-Rev. J. S. Wimbush (U. M. C. A.), Likoma, Nyassaland, British Central Africa.