the center of a circle. The medicine man raised one hand 
in the air, and placed the other on the jaw of the partici- 
pant. Hethen showed the bark to the crowd, washed it 
with his own hands, and grated it into water. Before the 
accused was allowed to drink, he was compelled to spit 
and to rinse his mouth to demonstrate his good faith by 
having nothing hidden. He was then fed rice or cola, 
and was carefully watched as he repeated a prayer of 
imprecation against himself as if he were guilty. Finally, 
he was allowed to drink. As soon as he had emptied the 
cup, it was refilled. There existed no set number of cups. 
Hence, it was filled over and over, even after he had 
started to vomit. This was continued until he had given 
up all the material he had been fed, for this was the sign 
of innocence. If he egested some, but not all, of the 
food, he was sometimes allowed to retire. If the poison 
had not acted as a purge by that hour the next day, he 
was pronounced innocent. During the trial, if the ac- 
cused did not vomit, or was purged, he was deemed 
guilty. (Perrot and Vogt, 1913) 
In one tribe of Cazamance, sixteen cups of poison was 
the maximum limit. If the victim consumed all of them 
without event, he was declared guilty. When this had 
been established, the medicine men would try to induce 
vomiting by feeding him raw eggs. In the event that 
these efforts failed and the person died, or if he were too 
old to be sold as a slave, one of his relatives was taken 
instead, unless his family was rich enough to buy his 
freedom. When the accused did vomit during adminis- 
tration, he was required to move his arms and legs to 
demonstrate their suppleness before he was pronounced 
innocent. 
In addition to the normal use of the ordeal, aspiring 
witch doctors had to submit to it several times as one of 
their final tests. Kings, too, were occasionally subjected 
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