Note 585 — III. INDICATIONS OF THE RITE IN THE BIBLE.

Mr. Forbes tells of a custom, in Sumatra, of taking a binding oath, above the grave of the original patriarch of the Passumah. An animal is sacrificed, cut into small pieces, and cooked in a pot. “Then he who is to take the oath, holding his hand, or a long kriss of the finest sort, over the grave-stone, and over the cooked animal, says: ‘If such and such be not the case, may I be afflicted with the worst evils.’ The whole of the company then partake of the food” (A Naturalist’s Wanderings, p. 198 f.). This seems to be a vestige of the primitive custom of eating on the witness-heap of an oath.