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ORDEAL BEAN OF CALABAR. 307 
did not die. Next day, another woman, encouraged by her escape, underwent 
the ordeal, and she ate twenty-two beans, and died. There was no vomiting in 
either case. The difference of effect might be owing either to an actual difference 
in the beans administered in the two cases, or to their mode of preparation. The 
fetish-man who administers the poison can manage this beforehand, according 
as he wishes the party to live or die. The natives themselves do not seem to 
have much faith in the bean as an ordeal, rather looking upon a summons to 
undergo the test as a sentence of death, and, if in their power, making their escape 
and going into exile. 
The Rev. Zerus Batu, another missionary, now in this country, who studied 
medicine partially at our school, writes to me in the following terms:—“ I have 
several times been called upon to visit people under the influence of this poison. 
The symptoms, so far as I have observed them, are as follow :—The patient, when 
fairly under the influence, presents a peculiarly stupid, drunken look, the face is 
flushed and swollen, the eyes protruding, the mouth externally has somewhat 
the appearance of a person under salivation. At first there is a considerable 
flow of saliva, which eventually becomes frothy; the pulse is moderately full ; 
the limbs gradually become powerless; the person walks very like an individual 
under the influence of strong drink; the muscles of the tongue, as well as the 
other muscles of the body, soon appear to get into a state of paralysis; the 
breathing becomes laborious, and the patient gradually sinks. Ihave used with - 
good effect both the stomach-pump and emetics. I may state, that the bean is 
generally administered in supposed cases of witchcraft. The accused parties, 
whether male or female, are tried very much in the same way as witches were 
dealt with in Scotland, in former times. The judges are the chiefs of the town. 
Each chief puts down an Eséré on the ground, and the accused party takes 
them up one by one, chews, and swallows them. Sometimes as many as twenty 
or thirty are thus taken. If he vomits, he is mnocent; if he dies, guilty. On 
questioning my boy from Calabar, he tells me that in cases where they wish the 
accused party to die, they rub the Eséré over with the gall of the leopard before 
administering it.” 
It is a common custom in Old Calabar to sacrifice human lives on the death 
of aking. In 1847, when King Eyamba died, the horrid practice was carried on. 
The ordeal of poison by the Eséré bean, commonly called “chop nut,” was also, as 
usual, put in execution to discover who, by the ifod or native witchcraft, had 
killed the deceased man. It was thus employed as a judicial proceeding for the 
detection of crime, according to native ideas; and although the missionaries tried 
then, and at other times, to enlighten the minds of the natives on the subject, 
and had enlisted the succeeding King Eyo in their views, still the chiefs generally, 
could not be persuaded to abandon the use of the Eséré. The following account 
is given in a missionary journal :—“ In the early part of 1852, Archibong, Duke 
