More often the ordeal of the oath was employed in cases which could not be settled by direct evidence.

E.g., in the reign of Sinmuballit of the Ist Babylonian dynasty the heirs of an estate sued the business partner of their father and obtained the value of the father's business. The case was settled in the temple of the sun-god before nine witnesses, and the heirs signed an agreement not to complain again. But, having suspicion that this business partner was still retaining part of the estate, they sued him again before a judge who caused him to come to the temple of the sun-god and pass the ordeal of the oath. Erib-sin he gave over to the temple of Shamash for cleansing. At the great gate he swore "Whatso

ever belonged to Girragamil from straw to gold is not in my possession," and so annulled their complaint."1 The Code of Hammurabi also recognizes the ordeal of the oath as a means of self-rectification when no evidence can be adduced.

E.g. § 20 provides for the case of a man who has captured a runaway slave and failed to guard him until he could be handed over to his owner. The captor was supposed to have exercised all possible care to prevent the escape of the slave, and he is put to the ordeal of the oath. If he swears in the name of a god that such was the case, he clears himself of suspicion. The Code provides the same ordeal for an agent who, when travelling for a merchant, is robbed of his money or goods. In that case, the agent being alone, no evidence could be adduced to prove that he had been robbed or that he had disposed of the goods for his own benefit. If he takes an oath in the name of a god that he has been robbed, he

establishes his innocence."

The ordinary legal expression for taking the ordeal of the oath is 'to make a cleansing3 before god.'

Thus § 266 of the Code provides for a shepherd whose flock has been visited by some scourge or preyed upon by a lion. In either case he is not responsible to the owner for the loss. 'The shepherd before god shall make a cleansing and the owner of the sheepfold shall take upon himself the damage to the fold.'

In the division of inheritance the eldest brother usually acts as executor, and he often submits to the ordeal of the oath before the emblem of a god, obviously to free himself from any suspicion of having defrauded the other heirs. Owing to the terminology and the practice here described, the place in the temples where men took the ordeal of the oath was called 'the place of cleansing.'5 LITERATURE.-F. E. Peiser, 'Zum Ordal bei den Babyloniern,"

OLZ xiv. [1911] 477-479. On the closely related subject of the oath see OATH (Semitic). S. LANGDON.

ORDEAL (Celtic).—The main references to the use of the ordeal among the Celts occur in the Irish and Welsh laws and in one of the Irish mythico-romantic tales. There are also some apparent references to it in classical sources.

1. Classical references.-Cæsar, in describing the funerals of the Gauls, says that, when a man of rank dies, if the circumstances of his death are suspicious, his relatives hold an examination of his wives after the method adopted towards slaves, and, if their guilt is discovered, they are tortured and put to death. Probably some kind of ordeal was used as a method of discovering guilt. Julian speaks of the Rhine as an incorruptible judge of infants' among the Celts dwelling on its banks, drowning the child of an unfaithful wife, but restoring it to its mother's arms when the birth was legitimate. The method used is described in a poem in the Greek anthology. The child was put on a shield by the husband and thus consigned to the river. This ordeal is connected with the Celtic cult of rivers-the divine river acting here as a judge.8

1 M. Schorr, Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden, Leipzig, 1913,

no. 282 f.

Aristotle speaks of the Celts plunging infants at birth into the cold waters of a river in order to harden them, but does not mention the ordeal. Elsewhere, among Teutons, Hindus, etc., the water ordeal was decided differently. If a person floated, he was judged guilty, the water rejecting him; if he sank, he was innocent, though he was drowned, for in this case the water received him. This method was used both judicially and popularly in the case of witches until comparatively recent times.2

The duel as a means of settling disputes is also referred to. Poseidonios stated that formerly in Gaul at feasts the strongest seized the thigh of the animal served up, and, if any other warrior attempted also to take it, the two fought and the victor received the meat. Among the Celtiberians of Spain, in 206 B.C., P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus found that recourse was had to the duel by two sons of kings who as brothers had held the same throne, in order to settle the succession. They refused Scipio's arbitration and wished as judge only the god of war. Much later Silius Italicus said that this duel was conformable to the national custom.

2. Irish ordeals.-The well-known Irish mythical story of King Cormac's adventure in the land of promise with the god Manannan contains a list of ordeals which has a close correspondence to those referred to in the Irish law-books and serves to explain them. Some of the ordeals in the list and the explanations given of their origin are doubtless mythical, though that only serves to show how firmly the use of the ordeal was fixed in Celtic custom. Morann, son of Carpre Cat-head, is said to have been born with a membrane over his head, which ultimately became a collar when he was placed in the sea and the magic "ninth wave' passed over him. A covering of gold and silver was now placed on it, and it was used to test guilt or innocence. Placed round the neck of a guilty man, it choked him, but in the case of the innocent it expanded and dropped to his feet. Another collar of Morann's came out of a fairy mound, and, placed on the foot or hand of a guilty man, it cut the member off. He obtained a third collar from St. Paul, and wore it round his neck when delivering judgment. Then he never uttered falsehood. Mochton's adze was placed in a fire of black-thorn until red-hot. The tongue of the accused was then passed over it, when it burnt him if guilty, but did him no harm if he were innocent. Another ordeal was that of Sencha, who cast two lots out of the fire, one for the accused, one for the king. If the accused was guilty, the lot cleaved to his palm. A poet's incantation was first said over the lots. The vessel of Badurn was one which his wife obtained from a fairy mound beneath a well. If a man uttered three false words under it, the vessel separated into three parts, but, if three true words were spoken, these united again. The ordeal of the three dark stones consisted of filling a bucket with bog-stuff, etc., and placing in it three stones, white, black, and speckled. If a man drew the white stone out, he had spoken truth; if the black, falsehood; the speckled stone denoted that he was half-guilty. In the ordeal of the cauldron the vessel was filled with boiling water, in which the accused placed his hand. He was scalded if guilty, unhurt if innocent. Another ordeal was that of the old lot of Sen. Three lots were cast into water-the lord's lot, the ollave's lot, and the lot of the accused. If he was guilty, his lot sank; if he was innocent, it floated, as in the case of the child in the Rhine. Still another was that of Luchta's iron. This iron was seen by Luchta in

1 Politica, vii. 15. 2.

2 Hincmar (9th cent.) says: "The water receives certain persons and thus proves them innocent; it rejects others and proves them guilty' (PL cxxv. 668). Cf. J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. J. S. Stallybrass, London, 1882-88, pp. 1077, 1625. 3 Athenæus, iv. 40. 4 Livy, xxviii. 21; Sil. Ital. xvi. 637 1.

Brittany and obtained by him. It was hallowed by wizards, then made red-hot and placed on the palm, with results similar to those of the adze ordeal. The ordeal of waiting at an altar consisted of going nine times round it and then drinking water over which a wizard's incantation had been said. If the person was guilty, the token of sin was manifest on him; if innocent, the water did him no harm. This ordeal is said to have been brought by Cai Cainbrethach out of the land of Israel, and it has some similarity to that described in Nu 511. The text then goes on to tell the story of Cormac and how he obtained his cup from Manannan. The cup broke when three words of falsehood were spoken, but was restored if three true words were spoken. Manannan showed its properties to Cormac and then gave him the cup, and he afterwards used it to distinguish truth and falsehood with the Gael.1

Stokes observes that, if Morann's three collars are different aspects of one collar, and, if Badurn's and Cormac's vessels are identical, this would reduce the number of the ordeals to nine -the number of the divyani pramänāni in later Hindu lawbooks.

A passage in one of the Brehon law tracts speaks of the ordeals of the adze, of the chip of an old tree, of the Lestar Baduirnn (Badurn's vessel), of the three stones in the dark, of standing at the altar, of the cauldron, and of the holy draught, and they are said to be tests established by St. Patrick in the reign of King Laegaire to decide the disputes of the men of the land. The method of using some of these is also explained, though in some instances the explanation is obscure.

The tongue was put across a red-hot adze. 'A chip of an old tree' is glossed as of the horse-rod of the patron-saint, or of his coffin, or of the consecrated tree.' Probably it was some species of lot. 'Lestar Baduirnn,' is glossed, 'i.e. ba, "good," for durn, "on the hand," it used to break on the hand, ie. it used to open or burst asunder, but it remained perfect on the hand of the upright.' Two myths of its origin are then given, one corresponding to that in the story of Cormac, except that here Dornn or Badornn is the name of the woman who obtained the vessel, not of her husband. The gloss on the three stones in the dark is, i.e. to put three stones in a dark place, a speckled stone, a white stone, and a black one.' These were pagan tests. On the other hand, the ordeals used by Christians and instituted by St. Patrick were lot, airisem, and cauldron. Airisem seems to mean standing at the altar, glossed as 'standing at the stone of adoration'; hence it must have been pagan in origin. Of the cauldron it is said that 'what makes pagan tests of them is to bring fuba to them'-probably the use of some old pagan incantations or charms.3 The holy draught is obscurely glossed as the book drink, such as the long book of Leithglinn, its perusal on water.' 4

The ordeal of the red-hot adze is specifically mentioned in one MS in connexion with the case of a woman clearing her character from charges affecting it, when she had failed to find living compurgators. She rubbed her tongue on a redhot adze of bronze or on melted lead (not iron-a proof of the archaic character of the ordeal). The adze was heated in a fire of rowan or black-thorn, magical trees with the Irish Celts. The MS describes this as 'a druidical ordeal.' The redhot metal ordeal is of wide occurrence-among the Arabs, Hindus, and Chinese. The ordeal of the cauldron has been sufficiently explained in the reference from the story of Cormac. The phrase used for it is fir caire, the proof of the cauldron.' Instances of its use in the laws are found in the case where distraining or distress is deferred until the fir caire has taken place in connexion with some other process, but only when the man has gone into an externe territory' for it. Again, the dubhfine, i.e. the uncertain family or members of the tribe smuggled in surreptitiously or concern

The Irish Ordeals, Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise, ed. and tr. W. Stokes, in E. Windisch and Stokes, Irische Texte, iii. [Leipzig, 1891] 206 ff.

2 Ancient Laws of Ireland, Dublin, 1865-1901, v. 470 f.
3 Ib. vi. 384.
4 Ib. v. 473.

5 E. O'Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, London, 1873, ii. 216, citing MS H 3, 17 Trin. Coll. Dublin. 6 Ancient Laws of Ireland, i. 195, 199.

ing whose pedigree doubt had arisen, could receive no share of the family land until they tendered the proof of the cauldron. Again, the illicit offspring of a harlot or of a woman who absconded from her husband must not settle among the tribe without invitation or the test of the cauldron or of the holy expurgation. In the case of the dubhfine the proof of the cauldron is called fir dé, 'test of God,' showing that the older pagan rite had been Christianized. In earlier times the water itself gave judgment; now God gave judgment through the water. This ordeal, which is of wide occurrence,3 is referred to by St. Gregory of Tours in the case of two ecclesiastics, one heretical, one orthodox. One of them suggested the judgment of boiling water. A cauldron was to be placed on a fire and a ring dropped into the boiling water, and each was to attempt to draw it forth. The ordeal of the lots cast into the water has a certain parallel in one suggested by King Laegaire to St. Patrick and the Druids. They were to throw their respective books into water, and he would honour him whose books were unhurt. Patrick agreed, but the Druids dissented because the saint regarded water as a god (probably a reference to baptism). The ordeal by fire was offered by St. Patrick. A Druid was to go into a closed house with the saint's chasuble round him, and one of his clerics

was to wear the wizard's tunic. Then the house was to be set on fire so that God might deal dooms.' The wizard was burnt, though he had gone into that side of the house which had been moistened."

The idea of water, cold or hot, serving for an ordeal is further illustrated by the fact that it and air, sun, moon, etc., were taken as sureties for fidelity to an oath. They destroyed the oathbreaker, as in the case of King Laegaire, who demanded tribute after thus promising not to do 80. 'God's elements gave a doom of death on the king.'

96

The casting of lots was used by the Druids and in much later times was common both among the Irish Celts and in Brittany. But it is referred to in the Laws as an ordeal, its technical name being crann-chur (crann, 'tree,' 'wood,' 'stick'); hence, perhaps, small pieces of wood were used, though it is said in O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish that the crann-chur consisted of

putting in a box or pot black, white, and red drew either black or white. Black meant guilty, pebbles, from which the accused drew until he white innocent. This is the ordeal of the three dark stones in the story of Cormac, and doubtless

The Laws refer to its use in a variety of casese.g., in that of the dubhfine, alternately with the proof of the cauldron; in that of an animal killed The lot was approved of by canon law in Ireland.10 in a pound by other animals; and in several others."

there were various methods of the crann-chur.

The duel or combat was also recognized and is mentioned in the Laws, but it had to be gone through according to strict rule. It was illegal to fight without verbal engagements, viz. 'without proper security by word of mouth for restoring or righting the thing about which he gives the of debt, and hence the duel after verbal engagechallenge.'11 This appears to have been in a case Elsewhere the consent of relatives to the duel ments, literally 'contracts of the lips,' was legal.

1 Ancient Laws of Ireland, iv. 285, 288 f.

2 Ib. v. 457.

3 H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Etudes sur le droit celtique, Paris, 1895, i. 32, 35.

4 de Gloria Martyrum (= Mirac. i.), 81.

5 Stokes, Tripartite Life, London, 1887, pp. 56, 460. 6 Ib. p. 567.

7 J. Loth, RCel xvi. [1895] 313.

8 i. Introd. p. cclxxix; cf. p. clxiv.

9 Ancient Laws, iv. 285, 295, ii. 6; cf. iii. 66, 337, 438.

10 D'Arbois de Jubainville, ii. 100.

11 Ancient Laws, iv. 33.

seeins to have been necessary, and, where that consent was obtained, the victor who slew his opponent was not charged with murder.

If it be a sensible adult that is drawn into the combat-field with the consent of his family, and if there was no crime charged upon the person who drew him, or though there were

a charge he avowed it, whether life-wound or death-wound ensue, he is exempt.'1

Witnesses were also necessary, as the gloss upon a story of two men about to engage in combat shows: There was nothing to delay them from engaging in the combat except that they had not a witness.'2 Where the combatant was 'lawful

spoil,' his arms and clothes were also lawful spoil to the victor.3 Canon law attributed to St. Patrick the regarding of the duel as an offence meriting excommunication-e.g., in the case of a debtor who, in spite of proof, denied his debt and had recourse to combat.

3. Welsh ordeals.-The Welsh codes do not mention ordeals, but a late treatise states that there were three ordeals by the law of Dyvnwal Moelmud, for theft, for galanas (murder or composition for murder), for treason to a lord. They consisted of the hot iron, the boiling water, by putting the limb that did the deed therein,' and combat to such as should demand it lawfully. There was no punishment for the victor in the combat, for it stood instead of proof. But in amending the laws Hoel the Good and his judges observed that this was not just, and they established proof by men. These three ordeals correspond to those already described in Irish procedure, and, though the reference is a doubtful one, this likeness tends to prove that the ordeal had actually been in use among the Brythonic Celts.

LITERATURE.-This is cited throughout the article.

J. A. MACCULLOCH. ORDEAL (Chinese).-The use of the judicial ordeal in China is now mainly confined to the mountainous districts of the south-west, where numerous tribes of non-Chinese origin still maintain themselves in semi-independence. The decay of the ordeal is due partly to a growing disbelief in the superstitions which supported it and partly to the painful teachings of experience which compelled men to realize its fallibility as a test of truth. Its disappearance, however, leaves Chinese legal principles unaffected; Chinese law never accorded it theoretical recognition, but merely granted it a more or less grudging tolerance as a concession to immemorial custom. The fact that the notions and practices relating to ordeal have been regulated and modified by custom, not by law, explains why very few explicit references to the subject are to be found in the Chinese law-books."

There is, however, an interesting passage in that constitutional handbook of the Chou dynasty known as the Chou Li (ascribed to the 12th cent. B.C.), from which we learn something of a legal practice that seems to have closely approximated to what we understand by ordeal. We are told that before a litigant in a civil suit was allowed to state his case in court he was required to hand in a sheaf of arrows (50 or 100), and that in criminal prosecutions initiated by private individuals the accusers were called upon to deposit in court a specified quantity (30 catties or Chinese pounds) of copper. According to the best interpretation

1 'Book of Aicill,' Ancient Laws, iii. 297. 2 lb. i. 251 ff.

3 Ib. iii. 303.

4 D'Arbois de Jubainville, i. 46, ii. 100.

5 Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, London, 1841, p. 707. 6 In this respect China and India are at one. Cf. SBE xxv. [1886] p. cii; see also E. B. Tylor, PC4, London, 1903, i. 141. Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des lois, xxviii. 16 (Euvres complètes, Paris, 1875-79), remarks that under the Salic law trial by ordeal was not a thing legally ordained, but was privately agreed upon and legally permitted.

7 See E. Biot, Le Tcheou-Li, Paris, 1851, ii. 311; and SBE xvi. [1882] 103. The Chinese word here translated copper' is

of this procedure, when a litigant or prosecutor handed in a sheaf of arrows or 30 catties of copper, his action was equivalent to (and was probably, indeed, accompanied by) a solemn declaration of the justice of his cause and a self-condemnation to righteous punishment if he were guilty of uttering untrue statements or making false accusations. The arrows were emblematic of unswerving and unerring truth. Straight as an arrow' was, and is, as well understood an expression in China as it is in the West, and the arrow's flight was regarded as an unmistakable symbol of moral rectitude. Similarly, the prosecutor who brought accusations against another was expected to show proof that he was willing to abide by the consequences of a complete elucidation of the rights and wrongs of The metal which he deposited in court was a symbol of the justice to which he made his appeal. In demanding justice against his opponent he invoked retributive justice upon himself if his shrank from an appeal to the test of the arrows or accusations were false. Hence the man who the copper was confessedly uncertain of the truth or justice of his cause, or was secretly aware that his opponent was in the right. Thus, if only one of the parties to a case ventured to submit to the test, judgment went against the other by default.

his case.

'Certain ordeals,' as Tylor has said, are closely related to oaths, so that the two shade into one another. Let the curse which is to fall on the oath-breaker take effect at once, it then becomes a sign condemning the swearer-in fact, an ordeal.' Lack of detailed information makes it difficult to decide whether the arrow and metal tests referred to in the Chou Li should be regarded as ordeals or merely as quaint and picturesque methods of oath-taking. It is certainly true, however, that in China, as elsewhere, many of the usages connected with oath-taking are almost identical with some forms of ordeal, and it is not always easy to draw distinctions between the two.

A Chinese chronicle contains an account of the

following episode, which it assigns to the middle of the 13th century.

incense. His wares were of inferior make, but, when any of his

There was a certain man whose trade it was to sell temple

customers grumbled at their price or expressed doubts as to their quality, he was in the habit of certifying to their excellence by means of the following oath: 'If this incense is not as excellent as I say it is, may a goblin meet me on the road and annihilate me!' One day, as he was crossing a bridge behind his shop, he was seen suddenly to fall prone on the ground as though he had been tripped up by some uncanny spectre visible to himself alone. When the bystanders ran to his assistance, he was already dead.

Stories of this kind, turning on a solemn invitation to the powers of the spiritual world to bring sudden death or calamity on the swearer if his words are untrue, are very common in Chinese annals. Confucius himself, on a certain memorable occasion, is said to have uttered such an oath. rendered by Biot gold or (other) metal. In this passage the word can hardly mean gold. The amount to be paid into court would have been prohibitive; and the obligation to pay the same amount in all cases, irrespective of the nature and magnitude of the interests involved, would have implied the creation of an arbitrary and irrational uniformity which could hardly have failed to defeat the ends of justice. The original uses the character chin, which in modern Chinese usually signifies gold, but which formerly indicated metal of any kind, iron. A modern Chinese commentator (not cited by Biot) ex

and was applied indifferently to gold, silver, copper, tin, and plains the word as signifying, in this particular passage, iron.

Iron certainly suits the context well enough, for that metal would aptly symbolize the inflexibility of justice; it is perhaps more probable, however, that the metal was copper, which, indeed, was often known as huang t'ich, yellow iron,' and which, though a ductile metal, has an exceptional degree of tenacity. We learn from other sources that copper was in ancient times frequently used in connexion with judicial procedure, and there would therefore be nothing exceptional in its use here. English readers will find a reference to the use of copper in judicial proceedings in J. Legge, Chinese Classics, Hongkong, 1861-72, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 605.

1 EBrl xx. 174.

'Confucius went to pay a visit to a lady whose moral character did not stand high in public estimation. A disciple ventured to remonstrate with him for having done so; whereupon Confucius cried out with an oath, "If I have done anything wrong, may God strike me dead, may God strike me dead!'

In a Chinese lawsuit, when the statements made or evidence given by the two parties are irreconcilable, and the truth cannot be elicited by ordinary methods, the parties sometimes adjourn from the law-court to a temple, and there perform the ceremony known as tu chou-the ordeal (or rather wager) by imprecation.'

The swearer unplaits his queue (if he has one), and lets his hair fall down over his shoulders, as though he were a criminal condemned to death. He then kneels before the altar, and utters the words upon the truth of which he is ready to stake his life. 'If I am guilty of the charge, or if my evidence is untrue, or if I have made a false accusation [as the case may be], I call upon the god to strike me dead before his altar.' The procedure varies in detail according to local custom or special circumstances. Sometimes the oath-taker proceeds by writing on a piece of paper the pa-ko-tzu, the eight characters' denoting the essential facts relating to his personal identity and time of birth. After lighting a stick or two of incense he kneels before the altar, and, uttering a set form of words, condemns himself and all his family to death if the statement to which he has sworn is perceived by the god to be untrue. The eight characters' are ceremonially burned, and the oath-taker's life is then wholly at the disposal of the deity addressed.

The procedure known as fa-huang-piao, the sending of a yellow missive,' is similar to this. The swearer writes his accusation or evidence, accompanied by an oath-formula, on a piece of white paper. He also writes his name, address, and residence, the name of the temple where the ceremony is to take place, and the name of the divinity invoked. The oath-formula varies according to circumstances, but is usually framed in such terms as these: 'If I did so-andso, may I die before sunset to-day!' or 'If I have spoken falsely, may I never be able to stand up again!' The white paper is folded up and enclosed in a covering or envelope of yellow paper, which is then committed to the flames. When it has been wholly consumed, the belief is that the message has reached its destination and that it will receive the due attention of the god whose intervention has been invited.2 As a rule, the deity in question is the cheng-huang, the 'city god,' who presides over the fortunes of the walled town in which the district magistrate's court is situated. The ceremony may, however, be performed in other temples besides that of the cheng-huang, and the deity invoked may be almost any one of the numerous gods, spirits, or canonized personages who throng the Taoist pantheon.

It is well known that a Chinese witness will often claim the right to consecrate his oath by cutting off the head of a fowl. This is a symbolical way of saying,If I am lying, may I be killed as I kill this cock!' This rite is still fairly common in inland China and is not unknown in the annals of British law-courts in Hongkong and the 'mixed courts' of the treaty-ports. Sometimes the killing of a real cock is dispensed with and a paper image of the animal substituted. The image is held up in front of the setting sun, and the swearer cuts off the head of the image just as the sun sinks below the horizon. According to another practice, the witness puts a number of beans into a basin and pounds them into a paste. By this action he condemns himself to be clubbed to death if his evidence is false. Yet another old custom was the ceremonial breaking of an arrow, which signified that the witness was willing to be broken in two if he committed perjury. Another practice was to blow out a candle-flame and to utter the words, 'If I have lied, may I be extinguished like this candle' (ssu ju huo mich).

It is obvious that even the most solemn forms of oath-taking will be of little practical value in 1 H. A. Giles, Confucianism and its Rivals (Hibbert Lectures, 2nd ser.), London, 1915, p. 71.

2 For brief accounts of these customs see L. Wieger, Moral Tenets and Customs in China, London, 1913, p. 521 f.; and H. Doré, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, Shanghai, 1912, pt. i. vol. ii. no. 4, p. 344 f.

3 Cf. a story in the Liao Chai, tr. H. A. Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio2, Shanghai, 1908, p. 212f.

4 Cf. Legge, vol. v. pt. i. p. 5; and Giles, Strange Stories, p. 358.

helping a magistrate to discriminate between true and false evidence, unless he feels justified in assuming the sincerity of the witness's belief that perjury will involve him in serious difficulties with the unseen powers. A guilty man will hesitate to send a 'yellow missive to the spirit-world if he feels morally certain that the spirits will receive it and will take him at his word. But, though many Chinese-perhaps the great majority-are rather sceptical in these matters, conscious guilt is liable to reveal itself involuntarily in some slight outward sign, such as the blanching of the cheek or tremor of the hand. These signs will be instantly noted by an attentive and experienced magistrate, who, in spite of his own scornful disbelief in the objective efficacy of an elaborate oath-taking ceremonial, from the appearance and general bearing of the will often draw shrewd and valuable deductions parties and their witnesses.

The suggestion that the parties should adjourn to the city temple to swear oaths and dispatch 'yellow missives' usually comes not from the magistrate himself but from one of the parties concerned-not always the innocent one. But cases have been known when a clever magistrate has elicited the truth by making the parties undergo a bogus ordeal of his own devising. The following is an instance of how a magistrate succeeded by this means in unmasking the guilt of a man who had been accused of theft.

He informed the accused that he must prove his innocence by successfully undergoing the 'bell-touching ordeal.' He explained that in a certain temple there hung a bell which had the singular power of detecting the presence of thieves. When touched by a thief, he said, it would give forth sound, but, when touched by other persons, it would remain silent. The magistrate then gave orders that all the prisoners in his gaol, including the man accused of theft, should be marched off to the temple and made to stand in front of the temple-bell. He himself followed them, and gave a touch of solemnity to the proceedings by approaching the bell with reverence, as though it were a symbol of divinity, and uttering a short prayer suitable to the occasion. Having then caused a large curtain to be suspended in front of the bell so as to conceal it from view, he gave secret orders that the portion of the bell nearest to the curtain should be smeared with ink. This having been done, he bade the prisoners advance one by one and touch

A

the bell by thrusting their hands under the curtain. number of prisoners did as they were told, and as each of these withdrew his hand the magistrate noted that it was stained with ink. Then came the turn of the suspected thief. Believ ing that the magistrate's words would come true and that the bell, which had hitherto remained silent, would emit a sound if he touched it, he put his hand under the curtain as the others had done, but carefully abstained from bringing it into contact with the magic bell. He withdrew his hand, but his satisfaction at the success of his manœuvre was short-lived. Observing that there was no trace of ink on the man's fingers, the magisof the accused made manifest. Thereupon, we are told, the trate promptly declared that the case was closed and the guilt outwitted thief made a full confession.

That such bogus ordeals may often be far more useful than real ones will be readily conceded. The drawback is that the more successful and ingenious they are the smaller will be the likelihood that they can be resorted to on subsequent occasions with the same prospects of success.

There is a curious book of Chinese medical jurisprudence known as the Hsi-yuan-lu, which was formerly in the hands of all Chinese coroners and was widely used in official circles up to a very recent date. Though the book was compiled as late as the 13th cent. of our era, many of its prescriptions and directions are manifestly based on very ancient folk-lore and the surviving traditions of pre-historic magic, while some of the methods which it prescribes for discovering the truth in matters affecting criminal procedure are strongly suggestive of ordeal. We may cite, e.g., the test of the yin-yang water,' which was no less irrational than the Christian ordeal of the Bible and the key. It is, or till recently was, Chinese law that, if a man finds his wife in the arms of a lover, he may, with impunity, put her to death, provided he does it immediately on discovery, before his natural

wrath has had time to cool, and provided he kills the lover at the same time. The proper way to effect the killing is to cut off both heads, if possible, by a single blow of a sword. To kill one of the guilty parties only will not excuse the homicide, for it will show that he acted with cool deliberation and might therefore have restrained himself from killing either. The reason why the killing is condoned is not that Chinese law regards human life as a thing of small account (for that is the opposite of the truth), but that it recognizes the weaknesses of human nature and makes allowance for acts committed under an ungovernable impulse. It sometimes happens, however, that the husband may be called upon to prove, in court, that his wife and her paramour were really guilty of the offence for which he killed them; and he may have serious difficulty in satisfying the magistrate of this, if the relatives of the dead man or woman insist that no act of adultery had been committed or was meditated. In that case the homicide may offer to abide by the results of the yin-yang test, which the Hsi-yüan-lu describes as follows: "Take a water-jar and fill it with water, one half from the river and the other half from the well. This is called "yinyang water." Take a stick and stir the water into a swiftly whirling eddy. Then take the heads of the decapitated corpses of the man and woman and place them without delay in the water. If the pair were really guilty, the heads will turn nose to nose; but, if they were innocent, they will turn back to back, one above and the other below in the jar.' 2

Strictly speaking, this is not a case of ordeal, but of divination, or rather it is a kind of post mortem ordeal if we regard it primarily as a test of the guilt or innocence of the slain wife, and divination if we regard it as a test to prove the guilt or innocence of the surviving husband."

There is reason to believe that ordeal by fire was not unknown in China in former days, though the ceremony of walking over hot coals, which is occasionally practised in certain localities, is not necessarily, if ever, connected with judicial procedure. În Buddhist annals there is a legend that tells us of a victory obtained by Buddhism over Taoism by means of a fiery ordeal. The incident is assigned to the 1st cent. A.D.

Certain distinguished members of the Taoist priesthood strongly objected to the emperor's patronage of Buddhism, and offered to prove that theirs was the true religion by an appeal to miracle. Take the books of the barbarians [i.e. the Indian missionaries of Buddhism] and our own holy writings,' they said, and set them afire. If theirs are consumed, let them be banished; if ours are burned, we are prepared to suffer death.' This suggestion met with the emperor's approval, but to the surprise and mortification of the Taoists, who relied for their success on their proficiency in magic arts, all their books except one were utterly consumed in the flames. The sacred objects of the Buddhists, on the contrary, were preserved intact; for 'the flames were miraculously transformed into petals of waterlilies, by which all the books and images were enfolded and supported.' 4

It was remarked at the outset that the ordeal is nowadays confined mainly to the tribes of nonChinese origin which inhabit the mountainous regions of the south-west. These tribes form a 1 This is because the river is yang (active and therefore male) and the well is yin (passive and therefore female).

91.

2 E. T. Williams, in JRAS, N. China Branch, xxxviii. [1907]

3 Ordeal and divination are both methods resorted to for discovering the truth'; but the ordeal is undergone by the person accused to vindicate his innocence,' whereas divination is practised by third parties to fix the guilt of a crime on a particular person' (C. S. Burne, The Handbook of Folk-lore, new ed., London, 1914, p. 131).

4 R. F. Johnston, Buddhist China, London, 1913, p. 137 ff. Cf. the Zoroastrian story of the ordeal successfully undergone by Aturpat in the reign of Shahpuhr II. about A.D. 330 (SBE iv. [1895] p. xlvii). For an amusing account of the rivalry between the two orders of friars in Salamanca in the reign of Philip II., and the fiery ordeal which resulted, see Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Letter cxi. Giles (Strange Stories, p. 243) tells the story of the Buddhist monk who I was to be thrown into a cauldron of boiling water in a fiery pit, when suddenly a lotusflower came forth, the fire was extinguished, and the water became cold.'

considerable proportion of the population of Yunnan, Kuei-chou, and western Ssu-ch'uan. It may be observed that the ordeals known among these scattered communities are identical with many of those practised by the peoples of the Shan States, Siam, Cambodia, and Burma. This is readily accounted for by the fact that some of the Indo-Chinese races are ethnologically connected with the Lolo, Miao, Moso, and other tribesmen of the Chinese south-west, and that the latter, in spite of many centuries of isolation in an alien environment, have maintained many of the social usages and traditions of their more prosperous kinsmen.1

Writing of the Lolo, Colborne Baber says:

'Trial by ordeal is common. An article of value having been place are assembled by the medicine-men, and a handful of raw stolen and the thief remaining undiscovered, the people of the rice is served out to everyone. A solemn period of mastication follows, after which the resultant is spat out, and a stain of blood on the chewed mouthful infallibly betrays the culprit. fession always ensues. It is affirmed that the gums of the guilty bleed, and that a con

The following is an account of a trial by ordeal which took place among a community of Black Miao as recently as 1911.

A quarrel arose between two women, the elder of whom objected to the younger coming to her house, on the ground that the younger woman's visits always brought bad luck. Her husband, for instance, had died after one such visit and her son after another. The younger woman's indignation at this charge was so intense that violent hostility broke out between the two households. Finally the relatives of the accused woman demanded the right of vindicating her character by means of the ordeal of boiling millet. A day was appointed and a great crowd gathered to see the trial. A large cauldron was brought out and set over a rudely prepared fireplace. Into this a mess of millet was put to boil and an axe-head was laid in the bottom of the cauldron. When the contents began to boil, the young woman's champion stripped his arm bare. His duty was to reach down into the boiling porridge and snatch out the axehead with his naked hand. If the skin were blistered, then the

young woman's cause was lost; if not, her honour was vindi

cated. Each side had also wagered a stake of some Tis. 25 [i.e. about 688.]. To snatch out the axe-head was the work of an instant and the man's hand and arm came out uninjured from the scalding bath. It was clear therefore that the young lady was not the minister of bad luck.' 3

We may conclude by citing a somewhat similar in one of the tribal districts of N. Yunnan. case of ordeal which took place still more recently Writing under the date of 20th June 1915, a correspondent of a Shanghai newspaper thus describes the proceedings:

'Some Chinese workmen were engaged in putting up some school buildings in connexion with missionary work. A twenty. cent piece was missing one day, and the owners, the carpenters, accused the masons of theft. The masons stoutly denied the charge, and then there was an appeal to trial by ordeal. At night, when the missionary was not about, a large iron pan of boiling water was got ready, and into this a half-dollar was thrown. The selected representative of the accusing carpenter first put his hand and arm into the water and took out the coin. Then the head mason had to follow suit. The carpenter's arm received no injury, but the mason was so badly burnt that it was many weeks before he could resume work. I examined the two arms and do not know why one was badly burnt and the other escaped injury. The carpenters concluded that the masons were guilty, and claim that the missing coin was returned to them on the quiet while they were sleeping. Such trial by ordeal is quite common in these parts.' 4

LITERATURE. This is indicated in the article.

R. FLEMING JOHNSTON.

1 For an account of the ordeals practised among the Siamese and neighbouring peoples see G. E. Gerini's art. on the subject in The Asiatic Quarterly Review, 1895.

2'A Journey of Exploration in W. Ssu-ch'uan,' Royal Geographical Society, Supplementary Papers, London, 1886, i. 70. Precisely the same test existed in Vedic India (see ORDEAL [Hindu), 3 (c)).

3 FL xxii. [1911] 234. The boiling-water test is common throughout the Far East. For Japan see art. DIVINATION (Japanese), vol. iv. p. 805. It is also noteworthy that an axe was used in ancient Japanese ordeals as it is used to-day among the tribes of S.W. China, though in China the axe is placed in a tub of boiling water, whereas in Japan the axe was heated red-hot and placed on the palm of the hand' (ib.).

4 North China Daily News, Shanghai, 6th July 1915. In Vedic India there was an ordeal whereby an accused person was ' required to take a gold-piece from a vessel of heated ghi and oil.' See art. DIVINATION (Vedic), vol. iv. p. 830a, and Ordeal (Hindu), 3 (c).