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to which persons suspected of witchcraft, or of being bewitched, 
are subjected. It has been used also to detect the guilt of 
persons charged more rationally with civil offences, burglary, 
murder, &c. It is likewise frequently employed in settling 
litigations as to property, petty larceny, &c., by administering 
it to the dogs of the parties concerned, and, of course, convict- 
ing the owner of the dog killed by the test to the penalties of 
thelaw. In some parts of the island, the conviction is made to 
depend on the life or death of the party drinking the Tanghena; 
if the dose cause death, he is unquestionably guilty ;—if he 
live, his innocence has been demonstrated. But in Emerina, 
where I have resided for some time, the Zanghena forms an 
ordeal strictly by its operation as a powerful emetic. Its mode 
of exhibition is this. The accused person having eaten as 
much boiled rice as possible, swallows, without mastication, 
three pieces of the skin of a fowl, each about the size of a 
dollar. He is then required to drink the £esz, a small quan- 
tity scraped of the Tanghena nut, mixed with the juice of 
Bananas. The “ Panozondoha” (denouncer of the curse or 
imprecation), then placing his hand on the head of the ac- 
cused, pronounces the formula of imprecation, invoking all 
direful curses on him if guilty. Soon after this, large quan- 
tities of rice-water are administered. The contents of the 
stomach are consequently ejected ;—and if, on examination, 
the three pieces of skin are found, all is well, the party is 
pronounced ** Madio,” clean—legally and morally innocent 
of the charge,—but if otherwise, guilt has fixed its stain, that 
stain is indelible, and the disgrace incurred is irreparable. — 
Sometimes the corrosive nature of the poison acts with so 
great rapidity, that life is destroyed during the ordeal. Should 
the test have proved the guilt of the party, and yet the Tan- 
ghena itself not have produced immediate death, he is generally 
killed by the bystanders, a large club, spear, or the rice-pestle, 
being used as the murderous weapon, and the brains of the 
unhappy victim are dashed out on the spot. Strangling is 
sometimes used, as in an instance just communicated to me 
by an eye-witness, in which the miserable sufferer was then 
hurried away, or dragged to a sort of burial before life 
