172 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



until he reaches the eighth, when he throws the ball on a heap of 

 dry grass inside the ninth. If his hands, which are then examined, 

 be not burned he is pronounced innocent. 



"In Japan the reputed thief bears in his hand a piece of thin 

 paper having the figures of three deities. On this a piece of red-hot 

 iron is placed, and if his hand escapes he is pronounced free."^* 



In Tibet fire ordeal was an important feature of adjudication and 

 several methods were practiced: 



"In matters of importance they give judgment in two ways. One 

 is by placing two stones, one white and the other black, in a vessel 

 of boiling oil, and, without seeing, by causing one of the stones to 

 be taken out by the hand. If the stone be white and the hand un- 

 injured, that man is in the right, without the other party having to 

 dip his hand; if, on the other hand, he first encounters the black stone, 

 even if he does not injure his hand (for this ordeal they make use 

 of a certain secret or magical art), he is adjudged liar, and the other 

 must insert his hand likewise. The other method of giving judg- 

 ment is to heat a long, round bar of iron, and when red hot to cause 

 the hand to be drawn along the whole bar, and if the hand be not 

 injured the right is on his side."^^ 



The Greeks also practiced this ordeal. The accused had to creep 

 through fire, or was given red-hot iron which he had to hold in his 

 hands without discovering any sense of pain. In Antigone of Soph- 

 ocles Creon is assured that all the guards were ''ready for all 

 commands, 



Either red-hot bars to take up with our hands. 

 Or pass through fires, or by the gods to swear 

 That neither in the body did enter 

 Nor privy to the wicked action were."^^ 



And the Emperor Theodore Lascaris of Nicea, attributing his sick- 

 ness to magic, caused all those whom he suspected to handle the red- 

 hot iron; thus joining, as has well been remarked, to the most dubious 

 crime in the world the most dubious proof of innocence. ^^ 



The foregoing references are extracted from the Journal of the 

 Anthropological Society of Bombay, 1902. (Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 24-28.) 



Fire tests and ordeals are quite uncommon in America and do not 

 follow the Old World types, being rather like purifications. Witch- 

 craft is thus tested among the Wyandot. "When the accused is 

 adjudged guilty he may appeal to supernatural judgment. The test 

 is by fire. A circular fire is built on the ground, through which the 

 accused must run from east to west and from north to south. If no 



M Edward Balfour. Cyclopaedia of India, Madras, 1871, vol. 4, pp. 260-261. 

 » Horace della Penna in Narrative of the Mission of Qeorge Bogle, pp. 324-325. 

 w Antigone V. p. 270. 

 «'Blackstone,p. 343. 



