vine--was pounded and mixed with water and drunk: if the body ejected
the poison it was a sign of innocence. This method was the surest and
least troublesome--for the investigation, sentence, and punishment were
carried out simultaneously--unless the witch-doctor had been
influenced, which sometimes happened, for there were various means of
manipulating the test.

These tests were applied when it was desired to discover a thief, or
when a village wanted to know whose spirit dwelt in the leopard that
slew a goat, or when a chief wished to prove that his wife was faithful
to him in her heart, but chiefly in cases of sickness or death. They
believed that sickness was unnatural, and that death never occurred
except from extreme old age. When a freeman became ill or died, sorcery
would be alleged. The witchdoctor would be called in, and he would name
one individual after another, and all, bond and free, were chained and
tried, and there would be much grim merriment as the victims writhed in
agony and their heads were chopped off. The skulls would be kept in the
family as trophies. Occasionally the relations of the victims would be
powerful enough to take exception to the summary procedure and seek
redress by force of arms, and a vendetta would reign for years.

If a man or woman were blamed for some evil deed an appeal could be
made to the law of substitution, and a sufficient number of slaves
could be furnished as would be equivalent for themselves, and these
would be killed in their stead. The eldest son of a free House, for
instance, would be spared by the sacrifice of the life of a younger
brother.

The fact that a man's position in the spirit-world was determined by
his rank and wealth in this one, demanded the sacrifice of much life