fève de Calabar

[French]

Calabar beans. Ordeal beans. These were given to test witchcraft. They are poisonous. If the imagined witch succumbed to the poison, this was held to be proof of guilt. If the poison was rejected by vomiting, then person was help to be innocent. Rather kinder than the ducking stool, in which survival was held to be a proof of guilt!

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