Ordeal of Boiling Oil
Trial by boiling oil has been practiced in villages in India and in certain parts of West Africa, such as Togo. There are two main alternatives of this trial. In one version, the accused parties are ordered to retrieve an item from a container of boiling oil, with those who refuse the task being found guilty. In the other version of the trial, both the accused and the accuser have to retrieve an item from boiling oil, with the person or persons whose hand remains unscathed being declared innocent.
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Famous quotes containing the words boiling oil, ordeal, boiling and/or oil:
“Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbacks from emotional retractions and scalding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)
“They who aspire to love worthily, subject themselves to an ordeal more rigid than any other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Most people hew the battlements of life from compromise, erecting their impregnable keeps from judicious submissions, fabricating their philosophical drawbacks from emotional retractions and scalding marauders in the boiling oil of sour grapes.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)
“No skilled hands
caress a stranger’s flesh with lucid oil before
a word is spoken
no feasting
before a tale is told, before
the stranger tells his name.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)