party is usually content; for the obligation and risk, to which he
is exposed by results which are reckoned as punishments of heaven
against perjured ones if the rigor of their imprecations is executed,
are greatly feared. If perchance the party is satisfied that he has
truth on his side, at his petition they do not rest content with that
trial, but judgment of red-hot coals or hot iron, [66] such as was
resorted to in Espana and other countries, in centuries ruder and more
immune from laws by the privilege of their innocence and goodness. If
the persons are burned, then their punishment is proceeded with;
and if not, the accuser is obliged to make requital. That custom
seems to have been communicated by the Moros by way of Terrenate,
where it is still observed. However, no one is burned, for since
the Ternatans are so skilled in sorcery, they know herbs of such
efficacy and bewitchments of such power, that they communicate it to
the hands so that they can handle the iron with impunity, as if it
were a nosegay of flowers. Also many of those whom they bury alive,
that being the punishment of adultery and rape, escape. I say this,
for it often occurred that persons escaped from the execution of
this test, in the sight of the Spaniards at Ternate, women whose
guilt was notorious, but who cleared themselves of suspicion among
their people by this proof. I was told many happenings of this sort,
during the time that I spent in those islands [i.e., the Moluccas];
and I was assured that it was done by means of an herb, and I was
shown some that were famous in its knowledge. These were the ones
to whom the accused had recourse in all their exigencies, suborning
their expertness with a quantity of money.

CHAPTER XV

The form of government of these natives

The kings, although so tyrannical in government, and in power so
beyond the affliction and trouble which authority and ostentation
incur, yet according to the condition of their poverty maintain the
form and authority of a court. Peace affairs are in charge of a chief
justice or counselor, called zarabandal. That is the greatest court
title and he decides the causes and suits, and advises concerning the
sentence. In the outside villages where the king does not reside,
the chiefs meddle wherever they wish, without other law than their
power and will, and their unbridled greed; and the one injured has
no recourse, for, in quarrels between the plebeians and chiefs,