Murder and Destruction

Fr. Cassian had been appointed the first bishop of the Benedictines' mission area in 1902. In August 1905 he was travelling from the port of Kilwa to Peramiho, where he intended to meet Abbot Norbert Weber of St.Ottilien who was performing the canonical visitation there. Before setting out from Kilwa he received a warning, but later information was reassuring. In the wilderness near Liwale, at a place called Mikukuyumbu, the founder of Peramiho, two brothers, two sisters and a young Anglican African were murdered on August 14th, 1905. The other Africans accompanying them were able to escape or had already fled on the day before. Through them the message of the missionaries' fate came to Peramiho on 26th.

On September 3rd Nkosi Mputa Gama had his war drums sounded, the missionaries decided to flee to the neighbouring mission at Kigonsera. But the parish priest, Fr. Franziskus Leuthner, refused to leave his flock. On September 9th the Wangoni destroyed Peramiho, Fr.Franziskus was killed. So Mputa had had his revenge, because two years earlier Fr.Franzikus hat forced him in front of his followers to destroy a hut where offerings for the spirits had been made. That had been a bad humiliation for the lord paramount.