118 like that, and nobody dares touch him, so that the birds and jackals can eat him. If he dies in the city, the people who live in the street where his body lies cannot remove it, withoutfirst obtaining permission from the king to take it away from there and he gives it sometimes for money and other times for free. If a nair is accused of a large theft of the king’s property, he has him put in a locked and tightly-guarded chamber so that he cannot escape and from where they take him to swear an oath in the manner I have already desribed, except that instead of oil, they heat butter and if theyfind him guilty, the take him to an open space and cut him down and lance him. When the Governor summons the accused, he also calls the plaintiff, and when they are there together, he makes ths plaintiff tell him what he knows of the accused. The plaintiff then takes a sheaf of green grass or twigs in his hand and says that the man did such-and-such, and the other one takes the sheaf and says no I didn’t; then the governor orders that two gold coins of little value be placed in front of them, called fanoes, which are each worth twenty two reais. When they have been questioned, the governor tells them that in a week’s time, they will come back andfind out the truth in exactly what each of them claims, and off they go. A week later, they return to the governor’s house and go from there to a temple and take the oath in the same way that I mentioned. There is another governor in the kingdom of Calicut, who is a type of chief justice, called Contarote Carnaxee. He has appointed his men to all villages to whom he has contracted out all judicial cases that do not imply the death penalty, because all other sanctions are monetary. All complaints and offences are reported to him and he informs and explains them to the king and he serves justice on the guilty in the very same way as the governor of Calicut. No women in Calicut are given the death penalty for whatever crime they might commit, female criminals are either fined or exiled;
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy