The 'Chicken Oath' in Municipal Court
To ensure truthful testimony, a Seattle courtroom turns to a traditional Chinese oath involving the decapitation of a rooster.
The story, cleaned up
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During the trial of Chin Chew for assault and robbery in the Wa Chong block, the court sought to ensure accurate testimony from Chinese witnesses. Missionary J. E. Gardner, an interpreter familiar with the process, described the 'chicken’s head oath' as one where a witness cuts off a rooster’s head while calling upon the gods to curse them and their lineage if they lie, fearing they would otherwise become 'wandering ghosts.' Witnesses were taken to the alley behind the city hall, where they performed the ceremony with josh sticks and written oaths. The defendant, initially resistant, was later willing to undergo the procedure, highlighting the profound cultural weight placed on the oath as a binding legal and spiritual mechanism.
“Chinamen think a great deal of being honored after death... they become wandering ghosts, the most horrible thing a Chinaman can think of.”
This story reveals the intense cross-cultural tensions in Seattle's legal system in the 1890s, where traditional practices were treated as spectacles by the local press while revealing deep-seated anxieties about migrant communities.
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