Simao is made to plunge his hand into boiling water

Eleven people on Andre Gomes de Medina’s plantation in Bahia, and more in the neighbourhood around it, had died over the course of a year from illnesses nobody could name. In 1688 the enslaved people there searched the cabin of a man called Simao and found a pot of animal teeth and powders. Simao later told the Lisbon inquisitors it was made from the heads of snakes and served as a cure for venomous bites. Before that he was put through a boiling water ordeal, a judicial procedure closely resembling ones then in use in West Africa. Afterwards he was said to have confessed to killing other enslaved people. Three enslaved people, Domingos, Joanna and Ursula, heard the confession, and the enslaver heard of it only at second hand. Domingos, about twenty five years old, gave evidence to the commissioner himself, and he and Joanna testified to finding the pot. The enslaved ran this investigation from beginning to end.