Additional Facts Concerning the Death of Elder O. E. Davis

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 19, 1911

Additional Facts Concerning the Death of Elder O. E. Davis

THE following report appeared in the Christian Herald of October 4. It seems to be taken largely from Professor Crampton’s report, which was omitted by mistake in the letter we received from Elder Boger. It gives some items he omitted in the letter he wrote, probably thinking we would get them in Professor Crampton’s account. We insert the report in full:—

“News has been received in New York City of the murder of Elder O. E. Davis, a missionary to the Arecuna tribe of South American Indians at the head waters of the Amazon. He denounced polygamy, and as these Indians are polygamists, they are supposed to have killed him on account of his teachings. Prof. Henry E. Crampton, of Columbia University, who has been exploring the region about the head waters of the Amazon for the American Museum of Natural History, brought the intelligence of this missionary tragedy. It was Professor Crampton who discovered the murder, and who notified the authorities at Georgetown, British Guiana.

“Dr. Crampton was on his way to Mount Roraima with an escort of British Guiana Indians, and stopped at a village, a mere collection of Indian huts, called Kamaira-Wong, in Brazil. A chief and ‘medicine-man’ named Jeremiah, who seemed to be a power among the Arecuna Indians, came to meet the explorer, and warned the Indians in Dr. Crampton’s party not to say anything to the white man about the death of the missionary. The explorer talked with Jeremiah regarding the region, but the chief never referred to the missionary.

“The explorer was not allowed to enter Jeremiah’s hut. He learned, however, that Jeremiah had the boots and clothes of a white man in the hut. They had heard that the clothing had belonged to a missionary who had come into the village and had taught the people that plural marriages were wrong and must stop, and that all the Indians who had more than one wife must discard all but the first.

“This doctrine angered the natives greatly. The women were very angry. Some one shot the missionary with a poisoned arrow, and then cut his throat. Other Indians came along and found the white man lying on the ground. They carried him to the village into Jeremiah’s hut, where he died. Then they buried him under the earthen floor of the chief’s hut, and the chief kept his clothing. Before he died, the natives said, the missionary wrote on two pieces of paper. One of these pieces was still in the chief’s hut. The other, it was said, had just found its way to Elder Boger, of Mr. Davis’s denomination (Seventh-day Adventist), at Georgetown. It simply said that he had been poisoned and was dying. The other letter written by the dying man is thought to have been intended for his wife, who was in Georgetown waiting for his return from the jungle. It is believed that this letter is still in Jeremiah’s possession. The Indians who reported the murder were not sure whether a woman or a man had done the killing.

“Elder Davis was a Westerner, about forty-five years old. Before going to South America he had been a missionary in Alaska and British Columbia. A British expedition will start from Georgetown in an effort to recover the body, and if possible to apprehend and punish the guilty natives.”