TRIBAL MAGIC

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1932, Page 7

TRIBAL MAGIC

WITCH DOCTORS HOLD SWAY

SYDNEY, December 14,

“There is a tendency among the natives to return to their old customs,''’ stud Pastor C. Painter, who arrived here in the Zealandia, after having spent six years at Fiji and Tonga in the mountains. “Tile spirits of the dead are worshipped,” he said. “Recently there was an extraordinary example of tribal magic. Several men who were plotting the death of a young chief secured the service of a witch doctor. He obtained some of the victim’s food, 1 put it through processes and buried it where the chief’s shadow would fall on it. The young chief died, although doctors pronounced him to be in perfect health.

“Several men were tried for having caused the death, and one was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. The natives have great faith in their witch doctors, and the aTmity of some of them in the use of herbs cannot be denied.

“In Tonga, although the Queen arranges the marriages between her subjects, the young people are beginning to object, and run-away marriages are becoming common. Still the Queen has great power, and those who marry the mate she chooses regard marriage as a duty.”

The severe earthquake which shook Wyoming, Nevada, and California on Tuesday night was recorded by the seismograph at the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory. The first shock was recorded a little before 6.30 on Wednesday evening, and for two and a half hours more or less continuous ■shocks were felt. The length of time during which the shocks lasted and the widespread area, nearly one thousand miles, over which they were felt indicate that it was an earthquake of considerable sice. It is considered in Christchurch, having regard to t-ie seismograph . records and the cabled reports, that the earthquake was i centred in the State of Nevada.