KENYA NATIVES IN RITUAL MURDER DANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

KENYA NATIVES IN RITUAL MURDER DANCE

TZ'ENYA’S record of abnormal tragedies was eclipsed by the story of the murder of a young Welshman, Mr Theodore Powys, which was told at a preliminary court hearing at Rumuruti, bordering the Samburu reserve. As a result, five young Samburu warriors were charged with the murder. * % . Mr Powys was manager of a farm owned by Lady Eleanor Cole, and on October 19, 1931, portions of his body were found in the neighbourhood. The head was missing. At first it was thought-he had been killed by a lion, but months later a native stated that he had seen the skull in the possession of a Samburu warrior. The truth of his allegations was sensationally confirmed at the court hearing. A party of Dorobo, a wandering tribe closely allied to the Samburu, stated that they met the accused natives on the day of the crime carrying bloodstained spears with the head and arm of a white man.

Two of the accused, named Lirono and Lesoiba, frankly boasted that they had killed a European. That night there was an extraordinary scene at the witch-doctor’s hut in the village of the accused warriors. Two tribal elders and a Government headman, who were threatened with death if they divulged the secret, were bidden to attend a ceremony in which the witch-doctor carried out the process of “purification.” The witch-doctor sat at the door of his hut while the five accused squatted in a circle before him. In the midst of this circle were the head and other portions of Powys’s body. The witch-doctor walked to and fro among the group, muttering incanta-

Five Warriors Charged With Welshman’s Death

tjons and promising the warriors safety from arrest. Later the accused attended a special ritual dance called “Baringoe,” which is connected with successful “spear-

blooding” raids. The warriors were accompanied by their girl lovers, aged X2. The dance was enlivened with a song relating the killing of Powys. The girls at the court stated that the warriors boasted to them of the murder. Powys’s skull was identified by friends by a gold-crowned tooth, it was found in December, 1933, over two years after the crime was committed. The murder of Mr Powys appears to be 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.