The Union County journal. [volume] (Marysville, Ohio) 1875-1951, 1949-10-03

CDulu near lne mourning ana
wailing at distance. All the vii
layers and friends were gathered
around his body, which was sus-
pended between two trees by a
spear thrust through the corpse.
Each mourner had chopped off a
finger joint withSa sharp stone
and was demonstrating the
bleeding finger to the dead body
to show that their mourning was
really sincere. They had rubbed
their bodies with white clay. The
whole scene was ghostlike. In
their chants they asked the spirit
to keep them from sickness, to
make them rich in pigs and TO
keep the evil spirit from them.
The following day the chief was
to be buried and then all the
friends and relatives would kill
pigs for the feast which would
please his departed spirit.
While we were having evening
devotions at about 10 o'clock a
native came to me asking me to
come to see his wife who was very
i'll. It was moonlit night and we
began on our trek; up and down
mountains, across small rivers on
logs and finally at one o'clock we
arrived at our destination. We
found the woman in small room
crowded with friends and rela-
tives trying all forms of sorcery
to drive out the evil spirit. All
the symptoms pointed to the fact
that she had had. pneumonia but
on examination / could find no
signs of it. There was no fever, no
raleS in the chest or ShortnesS of
breath. Everyones was watching
me intently as l examined her.
l gave her a sedative and then
one of my medical orderlies stay
ed with them. An. hour later he
called me and said that the wom-
an had gone crazy. l found her
hysterical, falling into the ashes,
smearing her body with them and
then crawling around the room
and screaming. How prayed
God that He would give me the
right words to silence this woman
possessed of the evil spirit! l
told her then that body had re-
covered from its illness but that
Satan was influencing her. She
needed only let Christ enter into
her life and she would be well.
She became quiet, laid down and
went to sleep. All the people were
watching and marvelled how
quiet she had become after being
tortured for hours by the evil
spirits. This gave me an opportun-
ity to testify to them about the
love of our Savior. l told them
about creation, how God made
man, and how Satan tempted
man; how then God sent His Son,
Jesus to\redeem us. / stayed in
this area for several days doing
medical work, talking about
sickness, and telling Bible stories.
The people were interested and
listened intently. To show their
gratitude they gave us a liberal
supply of pork.
Then we proceeded to Buna-
buns village and stayed there
for three days doing medical
work. These natives were defin-
itely influenced by Christianity.
We left this area climbing up
5000 feet and over the top, then
what semed to be nearly straight
down to an altitude of 1000 feet.
For twelve hours we walked over
precarious mountain paths. By
evening we came to clearing
where the heather who had in
vited us wanted us to stay. They
had put up some temporary shell
ters where we were to sleep.
Early that night we heard loud
noises of quarrelling. On investi-
CATION I found it was the boss
boy' of the group who had invit-
ed us having a row with one OF
their sorcerers who had met us
on the way 2 days previously and
accompanied us to this site. The
boss boy accused him of wanting
to kill all the people; but the
sorcerer denied it and said that
he wanted to hear the Gospel
story too. I went to separate
them and told them that those
who listened to the Gospel story
would be friends and live in
peace. There / stayed for week.
The people brought their sick,
especially those with ulcers and
yaWS.
Now we had approached the
Jimi Valley. The group with
whom we had been staying were
always fighting with the groups
whom we were to visit. They
never met them except with
spears. However. they wanted to
go with us, without spears to
show that they wished to be
friends. When we had walked all
day we came to their village site
but found no houses or food.
There had been fighting recently,