346 A NATURALIST IN CELEBES ch. xiv 



of the rippling waves, the revellers return to their homes, 

 and snatch an hour's rest before the business of the day 

 begins. 



One day the Eesident invited me to be present at the 

 formal oath-taking of a native of the Lotta district. The 

 case to be considered by the magistrate was one in which 

 there was a dispute as to the ownership of a piece of 

 land, and the reputed owner was to swear in the old 

 Alfur manner that this land belonged to him. The parties 

 who were to take part in this oath assembled on the grass 

 plot in front of the Government building, and when the 

 Eesident and other officials appeared the ceremony began. 

 Now it must be understood that in these parts of the 

 world the taking of an oath is not a simple formality, 

 performed upon the spur of the moment without hesitation 

 as it is in civilised communities, but is an extremely 

 solemn mystical ceremony, transacted not only in the 

 presence of earthly witnesses but before an audience of the 

 heavenly hosts, the gods who dwell above, the gods who 

 dwell below, and all the devils and evil genii. The false 

 swearer, moreover, maybe subject to all the horrible torment- 

 ing forms of death which can be conceived by the deities of 

 a barbarous race, as well as to the ordinary legal punish- 

 ments should he be found out. 



When the ceremony began, a- Space was cleared and a 

 piece of white cloth deposited on the ground, two swords 

 crossed were placed upon it, and a loaded musket beside 

 it. The witness, supported by two friends, took his stand 

 opposite the cloth, and two priests, dressed in long em- 

 broidered cloaks and wearing caps with drooping white 

 feathers in them, attended to deliver the invocations. 

 The opening address or invocation delivered by the chief 

 priest was a very lengthy and vigorous discourse, delivered in 

 a local dialect, and many of the words he spoke have, Iwas 



