Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/46

 ABI PONES ABNEU actress of the day. She bade adieu to the stage April 12, 1799, and left at her death a Jegacy to each of the theatrical funds. ABIPOftES, a tribe of South American Indians who inhabited the district of Chaco in Paraguay, but now occupy the territory lying between San- ta Fe and St. Jago, east of the Parana river. Our accounts of this singular people are mainly derived from Dobrizhoffer, who lived among them seven years at the end of the last centu- ry. His volumes were translated from the Latin by Miss Coleridge (3 vols. 8vo, 1822). The whole tribe at that time did not number above 5,000. They practise tattooing. The men are of tall stature, good swimmers, and expert horsemen. The women practise infan- ticide to a great extent, but suckle those in- fante they permit to live for the space of two years. In counting they can go no further than three. See A. d'Orbigny, UHomme Ame- rica in, vol. ii. ABJ I RATION, Oath of, usually, an ..at I, by which one renounces allegiance. But ancient- ly in England, and before 21 James I., ch. 28, 17, one who had been guilty of a felony, and who had fled for safety to the sanctuary of a church or churchyard, might upon confession of his crime take an oath before a coroner that he would abandon or renounce the country for ever, and thereupon he was permitted to leave it in safety. The statute just named took away the privilege of sanctuary, and with it this privilege of abjuration. Formerly too, in England for example, under the statute of 35 Elizabeth, ch. 1 any person above the age of 16 years who refused to hear divine service or incited others to abstain from attending it, and by speech or in writing denied her majes- ty's authority in causes ecclesiastical, was re- quired to conform and make submission to the church, or else to abjure the realm forthwith and for ever, before the justices at the assizes or in sessions. The oath of abjuration in respect to the sovereign came into use in Eng- land after the restoration, and was changed from time to time until in the 6 George III. it took the form which it retained till 1858. All clergymen and public officers were re- quired to take it on coming to their places, to- gether with the separate oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The statute of 21 and 22 Victoria, ch. 48 (1858), displaced these three oaths by a single one which embraced the elements of all of them. It ended with the words, "and I make this declaration on the true faith of a Christian." In ordinary cases Jews had been excused from adding these words, but until 1858 no statute authorized their omission from the parliamentary oath ; so that when in 1850 Baron de Rothschild, and in lol Mr. Salomons, had come into the house and refused to take the oath in its full form, they were declared incapable of sitting as members. The statute of 21 and 22 Victoria, ch. 49, however, author- ized the houses to dispense with the obnox- ious words in the case of Jews, and this au- thority was thereupon exercised in favor of Baron de Rothschild ; and in 1860 a standing order on the .subject was made to avoid the in- convenience of special resolutions in separate instances. But the statute of 29 and 30 Victoria, ch. 19 (1866), removed all difficulty by dropping the embarrassing clause altogether from the parliamentary oath. Under the United States statute relating to naturalization, the subject of a foreign state who seeks to become an Ameri- can citizen is required to declare on oath or affirmation, before the court to which he ap- plies, that he absolutely and for ever renounces and abjures all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign power, authority, or sovereignty what- ever, and particularly, and by name, to the foreign prince or potentate, state, or sover- eignty of which he has been hitherto a subject. ABkHASIA, or AbchasU, the country of the ! Abkhasians, a warlike tribe between the Black sea and the Caucasus, which has been con- quered by the Russians. It is bounded N. and i N. E. by the land of the Circassians, E. by I Suanethi, S. E. by Mingrelia, and S. and W. by the Black sea. Its area, vaguely limited, is about 10,000 sq. m. Under the Roman empe- ror Justinian the Abkhasians became Chris- tians, but subsequently they adopted Moham- medanism, to winch religion they still nomi- } nally belong, though their religion in fact I consists of a barbarous mixture of Christian, Moslem, and heathen notions and usages. The country was formerly divided into ten commu- nities, the most important of which were Ab- khasia proper (with 80,000 inhabitants), the Tziebelda (8,000), Samurzakan (9,800), and the country of the Jigets or Zadzes (10,000). Ab- khasia proper has again had since 1771 an he- reditary dynasty of its own, that of the Hher- vashidze, which since 1824 has been under Russian sovereignty. The residence of the prince is at Soyuk-Su (pop. about 5,000). On the coast the Russians have fortified several places, the most important of which is Sukhum Kaleh, or Baglata (pop. 300), supposed to be the site of the ancient Dioscurias, where ac- cording to Pliny 300 different tribes used to trade. About 15,000 Abkhasians have of late emigrated from Russia to Turkey. ABLITION, a religious ceremony in many por- tions of the world. In the Catholic church it means the cleansing of the cup after the Lord's supper, and is applied to the wine and water with which the priest who consecrates the host washes his hands. ABNER, the son of Ner, cousin of Saul and the general of his troops. He was greatly lovi-d by Saul, and faithful to him until his death, and then transferred his allegiance to Ishhosheth, Saul's son, to whom he preserve! the throne of Israel for seven years against tin- rival claims of David. At length, Ishbosheth having accused him of improprieties with one of his father's concubines, he went over to the cause of David. But the aid he might have ren- dered to that king was cut off by ]>> -nl(!i n