In 1990, 23 Polynesians from a small atoll community of Faaite (population 180) in a South Pacific atoll were sentenced to prison sentences ranging from 3 to 14 years for torture and murder of six people they accused of witchcraft or suspected to be possessed by demons in 1987. The bizarre events in the atoll begun after three Tahitian women visited the island and claimed to be part of Roman-Catholic Christian Revival movement, thought the group later denied association with the women. Women's fiery sermons warning locals of looming divine punishment and demons in their midst ignited paranoia and mass hysteria, which culminated into a 25 year old farmer named Francois Mauti gathering a band of zealots that launched a brutal hunt for demons on the atoll.
The Christian Revival movement was already known and in good standing in the island, so the islanders welcomed the women cordially. The charismatic trio quickly took over the spiritual leadership of the island - it had no priest of it's own, only a lay preacher, who the islanders ousted and accepted the women as their "priestesses" instead.The trio’s leader, Alexandra Silvia, conducted services in a trance and told frightened islanders of her visions that God would abandon Faaite, the defendants said.Miss Silvia suggested demons were in their midst, defendants said, and the population began viewing with suspicion fellow islanders who failed to attend her daily services.″My words were misinterpreted,″ testified Silvia, a 55-year-old dental secretary who was not charged. ″I only gave prayers that cured those who were sick.″But the defendants said the mood of the once-placid atoll swung between ecstasy and dread inspired by Silvia and her assistants. The trio left Faaite in late August and anointed seven disciples to continue their work.
A few days later, a 14-year-old boy reported a vision that the devil had possessed his aunt. The islanders gathered in nightlong prayer and finally pronounced the demon exorcised.They repeated the ritual with two other people. But Ioane Harris, the assistant mayor, publicly denounced the women on Sept. 2. Maddened villagers twisted a cord around his neck, beat and drowned him, and threw his body on a bonfire built before the church.″It was necessary to purify him,″ one defendant said. ″It was necessary to purify the village'.Five more people were killed over the next two days.Most islanders took no part in the carnage, but it was Sept. 4 before anyone established contact with Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, and reported trouble on the atoll.The mayor, who had been on vacation, and a Roman Catholic priest arrived the next day with police. Psychiatric experts testified the emotional charismatic Christianity, mixed with ancient Polynesian beliefs in the supernatural, produced a dangerous mass hysteria on an isolated island lacking institutional authority. The three visitors were not put on trial because they left Faaite before the murders.
Just people living in the moment being surrounded by God's love.
The defendants talked of being "swept away by evil spirits" and getting lost in religious enthusiasm, and tried to rationalize their deeds. ″I had a spirit under the spell of the devil,″ Mauti told Judge Marcel Bihl. ″I lost my head, but I believed I was on the holy path, shunning the evil fighting within me.″The Catholic Archbishop Michel Coppenrath who was present at the trial considered the sentences "heavy", and had wished for lenience because he found defendants sincerely repentant.
Why though
>>18103317Why the hell not? Those people were island fauna whose only impact on the world was what they ate. It was worth a try just to do something different.
>>18103317As a joke.
>>18103317browns are superstitious retards example #44123121
>>18104147Polynesians are aryan.
>>18104147euros had witch hunts too only a few centuries earlierit's Christianity + the social changes they were going through that are to blame
>>18103317What else were they supposed to do? Just let demons and witches run around???
>>18101975Witches are like Baptists and need to burn. James I was based and once again right about everything.
Fucking Polys taking the side of he witches and the demons
