Traditionally, no Dusun ever needed a judge to fight for their case. The truth was revealed in a ceremony called mitugi. The two parties in need of judgement will be judged using a pot of boiling water in front of the villagers.
A momolian "shaman" would start the ritual by boiling a pot of water. Then she (a shaman was normally a she) would chant over the water to reveal the truth. When the water boiled, the two disputing parties would be called over to dip their hands in the water.
Those who have once witnessed the ceremony testify that one of the parties would end up with a scald, apparently the guilty party. The other one would come out unscathed.
I wonder how did that happen...An elderly aunt said it's because everybody believed in that kind of judgement. And because the momolian had done a thorough chant asking the nature to cooperate, to reveal the truth to save the innocent party. The energy was purified, sort of. Thus, the truth was revealed that way.
If a mitugi were to be conducted nowadays, I wonder if anyone would ever survive it at all :-)
4 comments:
I never heard about this one pula :) It's pure cooking-your-own-hand this one :)
Nice way of showing that there are other ways of making good judgments when faced with disputes. Wisdom of the old.....:)
never heard of this but...really amazed we 'had' this...does it still exist to present? would be easier instead of paying lots of money to go to court :P
R.N.T, A and W- very amazing indeed. I just realized that the more I time I spend moginggat with the elderlies, the more wisdom of the old I get to discover :-)
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