The ordeal is a primitive but official way used to determine guilt or innocence of an individual through serious tests such as fire or poison. This method is considered to be supernatural and is effectively used by chiefs of Dolo Ken Paye in the event a guilty individual refuses to come forward or confess to his crimes. Given its reputation, the ordeal is particularly effective in instilling fear in its suspects to the extent of some of them confessing beforehand as observed in the video (Silverman, 2015). It is an effective social control tool in the sense that it helps the chiefs solve conflicts in the community especially between rice farmers and cattle owners. To this end, people would prefer to confess rather than being exposed to the ordeal.
In the United States contemporary society, a similar social control mechanism to the ordeal is the court system. Through prosecution, the United States uses the courts to apply the law of the state in a bid to determine guilt or innocence of an individual. The court or judicial system involves several processes beginning with mere suspicion which warrants an investigation that narrows down the suspect’s location similar to the hot knife used to determine if the suspect is from the community or not. With tangible evidence, one or several suspects are incarcerated through policing similar to before the ordeal where all suspects are advised not to leave the community and arraigned before the ordeal operator for determination (Silverman, 2015). The main process similar to the ordeal is the prosecution in a court of law where the complainant brings forward his claims against the defendant and the court determines the defendant’s guilt or innocence through a series of interrogations and presentation of evidence. This process is equated to the placement of the hot knife on the suspects in the ordeal operation where the guilty are burnt, and the innocent are unscathed.
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Similar to the results of the ordeal, the guilty party is arrested and taken to prison or hold-up, and the innocent ones get to go free. Just as a specialist operator practices the ordeal (Old Man David) so is the prosecution presided by judges in courts. Ultimately, this formal type of social control in the United States is the most common and is effective in keeping the society in check with strict conformity to the laws as well as fidelity to the constitution.
References
Silverman, M. (2015). Cows of Dolo Ken Paye. (2015). Anthropologist; James L. Gobbs, Jr. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVwzLGJ8_1s
