of ordeals by poison became established and organized in 
the cultures of the ancient Africans,several hypotheses 
may be extended as possible explanations. 
Assuming that a belief in witchcraft was far older than 
the natives’ knowledge of poisons, it seems possible that, 
at certain times, the imprecations cast by witch doctors 
with the purpose of apprehending criminals coincided 
with deaths resulting from the mishandling of little- 
known poisons. Over a period of time, a sufficient num- 
ber of incidents of this sort may have occurred enabling 
a relationship between the imprecations and the deaths 
to be noticed. This theory, of course, rests completely 
upon the possible alacrity of the natives in noticing these 
events and establishing a directional meaning for them. 
As tenuous as this may seem, both a faith and a practice 
in this type of judicial procedure could easily have sprung 
from the natives’ constant search for security among 
things beyond their comprehension. Concerning the 
many ramifications of method which evolved, it may 
only be suggested that experimentation and coincidental 
success were the dominating factors. 
A second hypothesis of development is suggested by 
the fact that, in view of his complicated religious out- 
look, the native had no way of knowing in what form or 
manner some manifestation of witchcraft might strike. 
It is possible that a group of food-seeking natives mis- 
takenly gathered a heretofore undiscovered poisonous 
plant instead of one of their standard fare. After inges- 
tion, varying internal factors caused some natives to die 
and others to live. Circumstances may have led to the 
feeling that those who died had had some connection, 
conscious or otherwise, with witchcraft. It is certainly a 
form of primitive logic to attribute inexplicable occur- 
rences to the influence of supernatural beings. However, 
such suggestions only illustrate, in some measure, how 
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