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OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUSTOM OF ADMINISTERING THE 

 TANGHIN AS AN ORDEAL IN MADAGASCAR. 



This frightful practice is said to have existed in Madagascar from time imme- 

 morial, and its unerring efficacy in the detection of disease had never been 

 questioned, until Mr. Hastie, our government agent, had acquired such an influ- 

 ence with Radama, the late king, and his court, as to succeed, eventually, in the 

 exposure of its fallacy. This is stated to have been the work of years, but the 

 result was, the total abolition of the practice by Radama ; we are grieved, how- 

 ever, to learn, that it has been revived by his successor. It would appear, 

 from an interesting account in the Botanical Magazine, that the last occasion 

 on which it was practised in Radama's reign, and of which he availed himself to 

 effect its discontinuance, personally regarded his court and attendants. 



The king was affected with a liver complaint, for which the "Skid" (who 

 unites in his own person the office of priest and physician, and who administers 

 the poisonous kernel to the victims) prescribed some inefficacious remedies ; and 

 as the disease became worse, Mr. Hastie gave him some calomel, in doses which 

 he found by experience to relieve himself under similar symptoms. The disease 

 disappeared, but ptyalism was produced, and alarmed the king's family, who 

 believed that he was poisoned, and insisted that all his immediate attendants 

 should be put to the ordeal of the Tanghin ; and the royal skid was most earnest 

 in pressing to have it performed, although he himself, from his rank and place, 

 was among the first to whom it would be administered. In vain the king pro- 

 tested he felt himself cured, and that the indisposition and soreness of the mouth 

 were caused by the medicine which had relieved him, and which would pass off in 

 a few days. The skid insisted : the ministers and powerful chieftains joined with 

 the family in requiring the ordeal ; to which the king, in spite of his conviction, 

 was compelled to consent ; but at the same time, he made it a condition that 

 this should be the last exhibition of the kind ; and he bewailed the necessity 

 which deprived him of so many attached attendants, whose fate he had predicted, 

 while he protested his conviction of their innocence. 



The king's servants, including the skid, were more than twenty in number ; 

 they were shut up at night separately, and not allowed to taste food ; the next 

 morning they were brought out in procession, and paraded before the assembled 

 people ; the presiding skid had the Tanghin fruit in readiness. After some prayers 

 and superstitious evolutions he took out the kernel, which he placed on a smooth 

 stone, and with another broke down a part of it into a soft white mass, like 

 pounded almonds. The victims were then brought separately forward ; each was 

 questioned as to his guilt, and if he denied, his arms were tied behind, and he 

 was placed on his knees before the skid, who put a portion of the pounded kernel 

 on his tongue, and compelled him to swallow it. Then the kernel was shared 

 among all the king's personal servants. On some of the individuals the action 



VOL. II. — —NO. XXI. NOVEMBER. T 



