RITUAL MURDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 8

RITUAL MURDER

KENYA WARRIORS AND GIRLS NAIROBI, November 11. The ritual murder of Mr Theodore Powys, son of Mr T. F. Powys, the novelist, by Samburu warriors on the sheep farm owned by Lady Eleanor Cole in the Laikipia district in October, 1931, was described at a preliminary court hearing at Rumuruti to-dav. Five young warriors of the tribe have been committed for trial on charges of murdering Mr. Powys as a result of the evidence given. Three Dorobo natives who were searching for lost sheep on the day of Mr Powys’ disappearance, to-day, said in evidence that they had met a group of Samburu warriors and observed that one was carrying a human head, and another the arm of a white man. while their spears were stained with blood. Two of the Samburu warriors boasted of having carried out the crime.

Two elders and a government headman, the next witnesses, told of a, weird scene outside a witch doctor’s hut in a Samburu village on the same night. They said that the witch-doctor performed a “ceremonial cleansing” to protect the accused men from the vengeance of the law. During his incantations warriors of the tribe sat in a circle, in the middle of which was the head that the previous witnesses had seen carried by the Samburu warriors. Armed with a large animal horn —exhibited in court —the witch-doctor had walked round slowly chanting his magic song and touching each of the warriors with his talisman. Later, they testified, the tribesmen held a ritual dance, which was attended by the accused warriors and their 12-year-old girl lovers, who sang a song recounting the details of the murder.

The murder of Mr Powys appears to he one of a series of “ritual murders" by fierce Samburu warriors which have horrified Northern Kenya in the past two years. The ritual of the Samburu ordains that they shall dip their spears in human blood before they can claim to be full-fledged warriors. For some months after the discovery of the' headless body it was thought that Mr Powys had been killed by lions. Police investigations showed, however, that he had been murdered. The skull was found f n December, 1933, two years and two months after the crime was committed.