The rituals of ear-boring and the flour ball, both of 
which were used to decide upon a site for a village, illus- 
trate this. In the first rite, a small boy was seated at the 
proposed site. A medicine man then pierced his ear lobe 
with a poison-smeared needle. If the piercing proceded 
easily, the site was supposedly approved by the spirits. 
If not, the people were supposed to search further. In 
the rite of the flour ball, water, flour, and poison were 
rolled together. If the mixture adhered, the site was 
approved. When it flaked, however, ancestral consent 
was lacking and another area was sought. (Young, 1931) 
The general term, mwavi, was used throughout Kast 
Africa as an appellation for all ordeal poisons. This must 
not be confused with moavi, for the latter specifically 
designated Hrythrophleum guineense G. Don. 
Parkia Bussei Harms 
The most important mwav? poison was obtained by the 
East Africans from Parkia Busse: Harms of the Legu- 
minosae. 
This tall tree, which grows in height from 20 to 26 
meters, has an extremely poisonous bark which was used 
especially by the tribes inhabiting the Lake Nyassa dis- 
trict. It was normally employed in the non-fatal manner 
characteristic of its locale. 
In certain cases, however, as will be mentioned later, 
death was not excluded from the proceedings. Among 
the Kaonde people, the poison was given internally, 
mixed with beer. Vomiting and death were the criteria 
for guilt or innocence. The person undergoing the trial 
had to sit on a scaffold in such a manner that no part of 
his body touched the ground. Anyone might administer 
the poison. If he vomited, his relatives fought with the 
person who administered the poison. If he died, his rel- 
atives ran away with the corpse, burned it, ground the 
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