MISSING IN BRAZIL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19042, 16 June 1936, Page 4

MISSING IN BRAZIL

FEARS FOR MISSIONARY

VISIT TO N.Z. RECALLED

Many Wellington people must have made the acquaintance of at least one of the missionaries thought to have been, murdered by wild Indians in , . Brazil. The leader of the party, Mr. F. J. Roberts, was in Wellington lecturing only last year, within a few m6nths of his departure on an expedition, from which, according to another member of his mission acquainted with the nature of his work, he and his companions are never likely to return. . A recent cable message stated that three missionaries, Mr. F. J. Boberts, Mr. F. H. Wright, and Mr. F. C. Dawson, were believed to have been ambushed and murdered by savage Indians l in the wild region of the Rio Zingu, Brazil. Searchers had found the missing men's canoe smashed, and their huts unoccupied, and had heard an account of the ambush from a remote tribe. The attack was stated to have taken place about a year ago; but news had only recently, been received.

Personally acquainted with the three men, and herself an. active member of their organisation, the Unevangelised Fields Mission, Miss G. F. Yerbury, at present lecturing in Wellington, said that there was little hope of their being found alive. ,

The tribes among which the. three men were working were wild and hostile. The only white people on whom they had ever before set eyes had disappeared under similar circumstances and their fate had never been known. These Indians killed on sight; they still practised cannibalism. The missionaries went in constant peril of their lives. In his last letter, Mr. Roberts, leader'of the-party, had - said',..''What we've heard of the Kayapo Indians would turn your hair grey, but we're going there just the same." INDICATION OF FATS

Two others of the mission, Mr. H. H. Banner and Mr. W. Johnstone, normally stationed on Gurupy River, had gone into the jungle among, the wild natives in search of the missing three, but had evidently failed to find them. It was their report to London headquarters. that had formed the basis of the cable message. The fact of the ambush, coupled with the finding of the broken canoe and the deserted huts, was to those with knowledge of the ways of these savages sufficient in* dication of their fate. .

Mr.' Roberts was in Wellington at the beginning of last year, said Miss Yerbury. He was lecturing in Nelson and Wellington, and had made a lasting impression on those who met him. "Ho had a great personality and was a fine speaker; no one who had heard him could ever have forgotten him," said Miss Yerbury. "He was a real' pioneer." She added that Mrs. Roberts, who had been a: missionary too, had died in the field, of fever. ;

Mr. Roberts had 1 been some years in the Amazon forests, but Mr. Dawson, the other Australian, -had only been about four months up the river, and Mr. Wright little longer. They, were members of an organisation that worked only at pioneering in parts of the earth where no other evangelical bodies, and practically no other whites, ever went. They had about 40 missionaries in the Amazon country f including three New Zealanders. Their other spheres of activity were the Belgian Congo and Papua, In all these fields they were among savage and untutored races, who practised cannibalism, witchcraft, head-hunting, or even more barbarous customs. In many places their missionaries had ventured among tribes with reputations iust as sinister as that of the Kayapo Indians, and had not only received a welcome, but made converts. "We had hoped it would be the same in this case," said Miss Yerbury, "but God's plans were, apparently otherwise." •