The arrangements made for the trial by combat vary very much. Sometimes the men are armed with their most formidable weapons, and there is a battle à l'outrance. There is fair-play, invariably. Armed warriors watch the contest, and if either should seek to take an unfair advantage, he would be punished.[1]
While it is true that, as a rule, the females are guarded very jealously, it sometimes happens that there is no more than simulated anger when two young persons elope from their tribes. A young man who has engaged the affections of a girl of a neighbouring tribe agrees with her to run away at the first opportunity that offers. In the stillness of the night, or just before sunrise, when the
- ↑ Mr. W. E. Stanbridge gives the following account of the ordeal:—"If the wife desert her husband for a more favored lover, it is incumbent on her family to chastise the guilty pair; the woman is usually speared by her father or brother, and if the punishment is not attended with fatal effects, she is returned to her lawful spouse. The man has either to submit to a certain number of spears being thrown at him, in which case he is allowed a small shield to protect himself, or to fight a single combat with one of her relatives, or with a selected member of the tribe. The following will perhaps serve as an illustration of this custom:—The persons, for the object named, had retired early in the morning to a little dell in a vast undulating grassy plain, surrounded in the distance by conical hills, some wooded and some bare. Not many paces from the lowest part of the dell bursts forth a limpid spring, in a deep little basin encircled with high rushes, which give it the appearance of a huge nest, the reeds and rushes marking its course as it trickles away down a valley at right-angles with the dell. On one side of this dell, and nearest to the spring at the foot of it, lies a young woman, about seventeen years of age, sobbing, and partly supported by her mother, in the midst of wailing, weeping women; she has been twice speared in the right breast with a jagged hand-spear by her brother, and is supposed to be dying. A few paces higher up the valley is a group of men; the aged men arc seated and the others surrounding the brother, who is armed with Leeowil and Mulka, and who is about twenty-eight years old, and of a powerful frame. In the middle of the dell, opposite the group of men, stands the other guilty one, a young man about twenty-three years of age, a model of agility. He is armed with the same weapons as his adversary, and awaits his impetuous onset. A little in his rear, on the other side of the dell, some young men—his friends—stand armed and ready to assist, if injustice be attempted. Unless the fight be with hand-spears, it is very seldom that either of the combatants is killed. The leeowil is a wooden battle-axe, the usual implement used in hand-to-hand encounters; the mulka is a strong piece of wood, used as a shield."
The ordeal was not restricted to the crime of abdnction.
"Any other crime maybe compounded for by the criminal appearing and submitting himself to the ordeal of having spears thrown at him by all such persons as conceive themselves to have been aggrieved, or by permitting spears to be thrust through certain parts of his body—such as through the thigh, or the calf of the leg, or under the arm. The part which is to be pierced by a spear is fixed for all common crimes, and a native who has incurred this penalty sometimes quietly holds out his leg for the injured party to thrust his spear through. When a native, after having absconded for fear of the consequences of some crime which he has committed, comes in to undergo the ordeal of having spears thrown at him, a large assemblage of his fellows takes place; their bodies are daubed with paint, which is put on in the most fantastic forms; their weapons are polished, sharpened, and rendered thoroughly efficient. At the appointed time, young and old repair to the place of ordeal; and the wild beauty of the scenery, the painted forms of the natives, the savage cries and shouts of exultation which are raised, as the culprit dexterously parries, or—by rapid leaps and contortions of his body—avoids the clouds of spears which are hurled at him, all combine to form a singular scene, to which there is no parallel in civilized life. If the criminal is wounded in a degree judged sufficient for the crime he has committed, his guilt is wiped away; or, if none of the spears thrown at him—for there is a regulated number which each may throw—take effect, he is equally pardoned. But no sooner is this main part of the ceremony over than two or three duels take place between some individuals who have quarrels of their own to settle. After these combatauts have thrown a few spears, some of their friends rush in and hold them in their
