ABSTRACT

Indictment rituals do not seem to have been as widespread as the oathmaking rites described in Chapter 3, but have played a role in the development of numerous legal cultures worldwide. For example, research by John G. Gager and others on “curse tablets” (known as defixiones or katadesmoi) indicates that people from ancient Greece who were entangled in legal disputes would not hesitate to commission or personally inscribe thin sheets of lead with curses against those they felt had wronged them. These sheets were then submitted to underworld deities in their temples. Such rites were strikingly similar to Chinese indictment rituals in involving the invocation of underworld deities who were seen as being able to provide justice (Gager 1992: 116-150, 175-199). Moreover, it seems clear that judicial rites in the ancient world resembled those in China in being designed (in Gager’s words) to “deal with the nonlegal side, the emotional dimension, of lawsuits and public trials” (ibid.: 116-117). Indictment rituals continued to be performed in medieval Europe,1 and could also be combined with animals (including pets) being put on trial on charges of having sex with humans and killing innocent people.2 Such rites have lost much of their popularity in the West today, however, which stands in sharp contrast to the indictment rituals still performed among Chinese communities, particularly in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and parts of Southeast Asia.