EAST CENTRAL AFRICAN CUSTOMS. 689 



EAST CENTRAL AFRICAN CUSTOMS. 



Br JAMES MACDONALD. 

 PART I. 



THE following account of a few of the customs common among 

 the tribes of east central Africa, in the region of Lake Nyassa, 

 has been gathered from many sources; most of the statements 

 have been revised and corrected by missionaries and others who 

 have, during the past twelve years, been resident in the lake region. 



As early as 1586, Don Santos, writing of the natives of eastern 

 Africa, inclines to the belief that they once were acquainted with 

 true religion, and that they had degenerated to such a degree that 

 it, and all idea of a former civilization, had been entirely lost. 

 This opinion he based upon the existence among them of trial by 

 ordeal, which he regarded as having its origin in Scripture, and 

 that from this source they must have first obtained it. The 

 worthy Portuguese, had he lived in our day, would hardly have 

 attributed customs, dating perhaps thousands of years before the 

 Exodus, to the Mosaic legislation. One fact he does record which 

 is of deep interest, if his account can be fully relied upon, and 

 that is, that near Tete*, on the Zambezi, men and women were 

 confined in regular pens like cattle, and slaughtered for food as 

 required. These were prisoners taken in war, and who could not, 

 there being a large number, be " used up at once/' 



Of all central African customs trial by ordeal, which is uni- 

 versal, is that which is most revolting to a European brought 

 for the first time into contact with savage life. When a man is 

 accused of any crime, as theft, arson, murder, witchcraft, or the 

 like, evidence is brought against him in the way common through- 

 out the whole continent. This, however, is never final. The 

 accuser's witnesses swear to anything required of them without 

 the slightest compunction of conscience, and as the prosecutor 

 must produce his evidence first, the defendant's witnesses are 

 ready to swear, and do swear, the opposite of all that has been 

 said. Trial is invariably in open court, and nothing said by the 

 witnesses for the prosecution can be concealed from those that 

 are to follow. There are no affidavits, thus making contradiction 

 at once simple and safe. If rebutting evidence were allowed, the 

 most paltry trial would be interminable. For a witness to be 

 called a liar is, in such a case, a compliment. It proves that his 

 evidence told, and that he, by inference, is a very clever fellow. 

 If the same man were accused of bewitching he would regard it as 

 a foul libel and demand the poison bowl without an hour's delay. 



To remedy the defects of trial in court, that by ordeal is 



VOL. XLII. il 



