Foreign News: Murderous Messiahs

In a big tent pitched on a rocky shore, the King’s justice last week came to the remote Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay. At a table covered with the Union Jack sat Justice C. P. Plaxton from Toronto. Before him was a. scratch jury of miners, newspapermen, the crew of the schooner which had sailed 13 days to bring the court to the islands. From the half-tanned sealskins of the Eskimo defendants, witnesses and attentive spectators rose a sour, oily stink.

Unfolded at the trial was the complete story of the crazy religious killings reported from the islands last spring (TIME, April 21). Witnesses told how Peter Sala had in the long winter months decided that he was Christ returned again to earth. One Charlie Ouyerack said that another Eskimo had told him that he (Charlie) also was Christ and he believed it. Sala and Ouyerack together, with their disciples murdered three Eskimos who doubted that they were Messiahs. Two women and four children died two months later when a woman called Mina drove a whole village out on the ice of the Bay in a blizzard to wait for a visit from “Jesus.”

To the Belcher Islanders the trial was a sort of game. The defendants greeted the judicial party when the schooner anchored, shook hands all around and helped set up the tent. And because the Eskimos love the comfort of the white men’s jails, the verdicts were satisfactory. The two Messiahs, Sala and Ouyerack, were convicted of manslaughter, sentenced to two years apiece. One disciple was sentenced to a year’s hard labor, three others were released. With the prisoners when the schooner sailed back to Moose Factory was Mina. The jury had decided that she was insane.