AFRICAN BARBARITIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 179, 1 September 1876, Page 12

AFRICAN BARBARITIES.

The ' Journal de Paris ' contains a letter from an eye-witness giving the following particulars of the atrocities committed on the occasion of the funeral of Kamrasi, King of Cunyoro, in Central Africa. An immense grave or pit, capable of holding several hundred people, had "been dug, at the bottom of which the wives of the defunct King had been placed in the form of a ring, to be in readiness to receive upon their knees the corpse of their late tyrannical and barbarous master. Several regiments of the royal guard had been sent out on the preceding night to silently surround some of the neighbouring villages. The first human being, be it man, woman, or child, that made its exit from the surrounded huts, was forcibly seized and carried off, and the captives entrapped in this manner conducted toward the pit prepared for the funeral. Here, then, commenced the most horrible scene. The limbs of these poor creatures, arms and legs, were broken by the soldiers. The lamentations and cries of despair of the victims, intermingled with the shouting of the fanatical crowd, and one by one they were thrown into the gaping gulf below. Then commenced beating of drums, the flourish of trumpets, the piercing sound of the whistle and pipe, which, together with the violent vociferations of the ci'owd, drowned the cries of the victims. The soil dug out of the pit the prerious day was then thrown back into the monster grave. The fanatical spectators of the dismal drama, as soon as it was filled up, commenced to dance on the summit of the grave, stamping down the soil with all their might, so as to form a hard compact layer above those buried alive. All the lamenta'ions having ceased, nothing was left to indicate the ceremony of the abominable sepulture ; the noise of the instruments had ceased also, and the assembled crowd retired, satisfied with themselves, and admiring the greatness of the King whose name demanded such sacrifices.