HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
371 
The modes of inflicting capital punishments are numer¬ 
ous—some of them such as exist only in the most bar¬ 
barous states of society. The most honourable execution 
is that in which a criminal is speared or beheaded in his 
own house, without being exposed to the gaze of the mul¬ 
titude. The mother of Radama, Prince Ratafy, and others, 
were put to death in this manner on the accession of the 
present queen. Persons of the rank of nobles, however, 
are usually put to death by suffocation. Cattle-folds, 
where the mire is soft and deep, and, in some cases, soft 
marshy ground, have been frequently selected for this ter¬ 
rible purpose. In some instances this unenviable destruc¬ 
tion has not been observed, and nobles have suffered death 
by spearing, the common mode of execution inflicted upon 
ordinary criminals. 
In the punishment of death by spearing, the hands of 
the criminal are usually tied. He is then thrown on the 
ground, and a spear is driven through his loins. Behead¬ 
ing is another mode of capital punishment. Sometimes 
the criminal is first put to death by spearing, and his head 
afterwards dissevered from the body, in order to be affixed 
to a pole, and exposed to view in some public situation, 
to terrify the people. The heads of banditti, or other 
robbers, are sometimes fixed on poles in the villages they 
have attacked and plundered. 
It is the custom in some of the provinces, particularly 
those on the southern coast, to put the murderer to death 
in the same manner as he committed the murder, whether 
by spearing, shooting, or any other means. 
In a few cases of great enormity, a sort of crucifixion 
has been resorted to, and, in addition to this, burning or 
roasting at a slow fire kept at some distance from the 
sufferer, has completed the horrors of this miserable death, 
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