The Adultery Itself Is Often Only A Matter Of Laying Your Hand, Even
In Self-Defence From A Virago, On A Woman - Or Brushing Against Her
In The Path.
These accusations of adultery are, next to witchcraft,
the great social danger to the West Coast native, and they are often
made merely from motives of extortion or spite, and without an atom
of truth in them.
It is customary for a chief to put his wives frequently to ordeal on
this point, and this is almost always done after there has been a
big devil-making, or a dance, which his family have been gracing
with their presence. The usual method of applying the ordeal is by
boiling palm-oil - a pot is nearly filled with the oil, which is
brought to the boil over a fire; when it is seething, the woman to
be tried is brought out in front of it. She first dips her hands
into water, and then has administered to her the M'biam oath saying
or having said for her that long elaborate formula, in a form
adjusted to meet the case. Then she plunges her hand into the
boiling oil for an instant, and shakes the oil off with all possible
rapidity, and the next woman comes forward and goes through the same
performance, and so on. Next day, the hands of the women are
examined, and those found blistered are adjudged guilty, and
punished. In order to escape heavy punishment the woman will accuse
some man of having hustled against her, or sat down on a bench
beside her, and so on, and the accused man has to pay up.
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