NATIVE RITUAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 31 (Supplement)

NATIVE RITUAL.

BLOOD-SPEARING RITES. WHITE MAN MURDERED. POLICE FIND IN KENYA. Tt is reported from Nairobi that a young Englishman named Theodore Powys, who disappeared in October, 1931. is now' believed to have been murdered. Police investigating murders in the Laikipia district have been informed that primitive Saniburu warriors killed Mr. Powys in blood-spearing rites. Mr. Powys was employed at a farm owned by Lady Eleanor Cole, second daughter of the second Earl of Balfour. When he disappeared it was at first assumed that he had been killed by a lion. Mr. Powys is a son of Mr. T. F. Powys. the novelist, author of “Mr. Tasker’s Gods” and other well-known stories of rural life. His grandfather, the Rev. Charles Francis Powys, was formerly headmaster of Sherborne School. Dorset. Two Natives Arrested. Two natives of the Saniburu tribe have been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mr. Pow\ys. Six months ago a series of murders by the Saniburu w-ere investigated. The police then learnt that it was common knowledge among the natives that Mr. Powys had not been killed by a lion (as was supposed by the authorities), but had been murdered. A native employed in the district gave the police the definite information that Powys had been killed in the course of blood-spearing rites by which the warriors test their manhood. A curious feature of the tragedy is that Mr. Powys’ skull, which was not found originally, has now been discovered some distance from the scene of the murder. It is suggested that the Samburu warriors removed this evidence and returned it as soon as the police became active. Father Surprised at News. “This is the first suggestion I have heard that my son was murdered,” Mr. T. F. Powys said. “My son,” he said, “went out to Nairobi seven years ago as an under-manager on the estate of Lady Eleanor Cole. He was a very friendly fellow with the natives. He spoke their language, and was very just in his management of them. Two years ago I received news that when out on the plains in the course of hie work he had been killed by a lion. The accident occurred during the daytime. This seemed a little curious to me at the time, for lions do not prowl much during the daytime. But whatever views I may have held, there was the fact that my son’s pony galloped home in a state of terror. Immediately the animal reached the encampment he collapsed. There were marks on the pony suggesting that he had been torn by the claws of a lion.”