ORDEALS AND OATHS. 313 



a mistake, for in fact the Chinese use no oaths at all in their law-courts. 

 Now, we have to distinguish these real oaths from mere asseverations, 

 in which emphatic terms, or descriptive gestures, are introduced mere- 

 ly for the purpose of showing the strength of resolve in the declarer's 

 mind. Where, then, does the difference lie between the two ? It is 

 to be found in the incurring of supernatural penalty. There would 

 be no difficulty at all in clearing up the question, were it not that 

 theologians have set up a distinction between oaths of imprecation 

 and oaths of witness. Such subtilties, however, looked at from a 

 practical point of view, are seen to be casuistic cobwebs which a 

 touch of the rough broom of common-sense will sweep away. The 

 practical question is this : does the swearer mean that by going 

 through the ceremony he brings on himself, if he breaks faith, some 

 special magic harm, or divine displeasure and punishment ? If so, the 

 oath is practically imprecatory ; if not, it is futile, wanting the very 

 sanction which gives it legal value. It does not matter whether the 

 imprecation is stated or only implied. When a Bedouin picks up a 

 straw, and swears by him who made it grow and wither, there is no 

 need to accompany this with a homily on the fate of the perjured. 

 This reticence is so usual in the world, that as often as not we have to 

 go outside the actual formula and ceremony to learn what their full 

 intention is. 



Let us now examine some typical forms of oath. The rude natives 

 of New Guinea swear by the sun, or by a certain mountain, or by a 

 weapon, that the sun may burn them, or the mountain crush them, or 

 the weapon wound them, if they lie. The even ruder savages of the 

 Brazilian forests, to confirm their words, raise the hand over the head 

 or thrust it into their hair, or they will touch the points of their weap- 

 ons. These two accounts of savage ceremony introduce us to customs 

 well known to nations of higher culture. The raising of the hand 

 toward the sky seems to mean here what it does elsewhere. It is in 

 gesture calling on the heaven-god to smite the perjurer with his thun- 

 derbolt. The touching of the head, again, carries its meaning among 

 these Brazilians almost as plainly as in Africa, where we find men 

 swearing by their heads or limbs, in the belief that they would wither 

 if forsworn ; or, as when among the Old Prussians a man would lay 

 his right hand on his own neck, and his left on the holy oak, saying, 

 "May Perkun (the thunder-god) destroy me!" As to swearing by 

 weapons, another graphic instance of its original meaning comes from 

 Aracan, where the witness swearing to speak the truth takes in his 

 hand a musket, a sword, a spear, a tiger's tusk, a crocodile's tooth, 

 and a thunderbolt (that is, of course, a stone celt). The oath by the 

 weapon not only lasted on through classic ages, but remained so com- 

 mon in Christendom that it was expressly forbidden by a synod ; 

 even in the seventeenth century, to swear on the sword (like Hamlet's 

 friends in the ghost-scene) was still a legal oath in Holstein. As for 



