OFFICIAL KILLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 4 (Supplement)

OFFICIAL KILLED.

TRAGEDY IN COCHIN CHINA. *To avenge one of their gods, "The Virgin Forest," Cochin China savages murdered M. Gatille, a Government official, who was opening out' new territory for the construction of a road in Northern Cambodia. His body, which had been missing for several days, has been discovered in the jungle, lacerated and covered with spears. The murder is attributed to a manifestation on the part of the Mois, whose laws and religious rites the Frenchman had violated. The Mois are savage aborigines who inhabit the highlands of Indo-China. They go naked, except perhaps for loin-cloths, and hunt with spears and bows and arrows. Some tribes are still completely unsubjugated and refuse to recognise French rule. As new territories have been opened up the Mois have had to recede further and further inland. Now their only resorts are in the mountains and forests. These are sacred to the Mois, and when the French want roads to penetrate them they have to go about it in a very diplomatic manner. Tfie chiefs of the Mois are summoned to a conference, and after a certain amount of barter their territory is bought from them. Then the gods have to be pacified with sacred rituals and the sacrificing of cattle.

M. Gatille apparently went about his work without parleying with the Mois. He had violated "The Virgin Forest" without consent or permission—and the cods had to be appeased. The Mois, therefore, offered him as a sacrifice.