1 192 APPENDIX.
2 fraud, and perjury are the natural concomitants of such
3 a mode of conducting affairs. Money, fear, and favor,
4 can purchase an oath, can determine a village boun-
5 dary dispute, and screen a criminal from detection, and
6 the infliction of punishment. In some instances an
7 accused person will call for the Dibh, or ordeal of inno-
8 cence, plunge his fingers in boiling oil, bear a heated
9 ploughshare on his hands for 50 to 100 yards, challenge
10 his accuser to the trial by water, and, if he escape unhurt,
11 his purity is declared, and freely acknowledged.
12 AVitchcraft and spells, (Jadoo and Moot), have a pow-
13 erful influence over the fancies and actions of the Chiefs
14 and other inhabitants of the Sikh States. A sudden indis-
15 position, a vomiting of blood, or any unusual ailment,
16 for the nature and cause of which a native cannot very
17 readily account, are generally attributed to the malice
18 and invention of a rival, or to an evil disposed member
19 of the family. The possession of a waxen or dough
20 effigy, some party-colored threads, and small human bones
21 discovered in the dwelling, or about the person of a sus-
22 pected individual, are convincing proofs of guilt and
23 wickedness.*
24 * " The harmless flame, which insensibly," says Gibbon, " melted a
25 waxen image, might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the
26 aflrighted fancy of tlic person whom it was maliciously designed to
27 represent." One of the reasons Raja Juswunt Singh of Nabah, assign-
28 ed for his wish to disinlierit his eldcbt son and heir was, lliat he had been
29 engaged in some mischievous practises, and destructive enchantments,
30 witli one Biiaee Digiianoo, to ruin the health of his father. Sirdar
31 Bhoop Singh of Roopur, advanced a similar charge against his uncle
32 Darwa Singh. Both these Chiefs l)ear the cl>aracter of being well
33 informed men, and wiser than their neighbours. Rutun Koonwur, tho
34 widow of MuMTAD Singh, Chief of Thanesur, adopted a sickly boy, to
35 whom she became immoderately attacliud, and vainly hoped he might bs