n a fact is to be established,
either on the part of the plaintiff or of the defendant, he is asked if
he can produce any evidence to the truth of what he asserts. On answering
in the affirmative he is directed to mention the person. This witness
must not be a relation, a party concerned, nor even belong to the same
dusun. He must be a responsible man, having a family, and a determinate
place of residence. Thus qualified, his evidence may be admitted. They
have a settled rule in respect to the party that is to produce evidence.
For instance; A. sues B. for a debt: B. denies the debt: A. is now to
bring evidence to the debt, or, on failure thereof, it remains with B. to
clear himself of the debt by swearing himself not indebted. Had B.
acknowledged that such a debt had formerly subsisted but was since paid,
it would be incumbent on B. to prove the payment by evidence, or on
failure it would rest with A. to confirm the debt's being still due, by
his oath. This is an invariable mode, observed in all cases of property.

OATHS.

As their manner of giving evidence differs from ours so also does the
nature of an oath among them differ from our idea of it. In many cases it
is requisite that they should swear to what it is not possible in the
nature of things they should know to be true. A. sues B. for a debt due
from the father or grandfather of B. to the father or grandfather of A.
The original parties are dead and no witness of the transaction survives.
How is the matter to be decided? It remains with B. to make oath that his
father or grandfather never was indebted to those of A.; or that if he
was indebted the debt had been paid. This, among us, would be esteemed a
very strange method of deciding causes; but among these people something
of the kind is absolutely necessary. As they have no sort of written
accounts, nor anything like records or registers among them, it would be
utterly impossible for the plaintiff to establish the debt by a positive
proof in a multitude of cases; and were the suit to be dismissed at once,
as with us, for want of such proof, numbers of innocent persons would
lose the debts really due to them through the knavery of the persons
indebted, who would scarce ever fail to deny a debt. On the side of the
defendant again; if he was not permitted to clear himself of the debt by
oath, but that it rested with the plaintiff only to establish the fact by
a single oath, there would be a set of unprincipled f