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Stahl, Raul (d. 1947)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1948 Jan 15 p. 8
Birth date:
Four Members of Mennonite Family in Paraguay Died at Hands of Indians
MAKE SURPRISE ATTACK ON ISOLATED HOME IN THE CHACO
EDITOR'S NOTE: This account of a tragedy in the Paraguayan Chaco is from the newspaper, "The Mennoblatt" published a the Mennonite colony there. it was translated and somewhat condensed by Emma Schlichting, M.C.C. relief worker, and appeared in the Washita County Enterprise, Corn, Okla.
Twenty-two kilometers north of Philadelfia between the villages of Rosenort and Auhagen lies a lone yard on which the family Raul Stahl with seven children had been living for some time.
On the morning of November 28 the two oldest boys, Alfred 11 and Rudolf 10, had been sent to Philadelfia with two wagons and oxen to get bricks for the buildings of the new village Kronsweide which lies about two kilometers away. Six farmers are planning to settle here, but no one lives there yet. The remainder of the family wen [sic] about their work as usual.
For several weeks our Lengua Indians had reported seeing tracks of strange wild Indians, the Chamococs, who had been looking for honey in the bush. The story goes that several Lenguas had driven the intruders quite some distance to the north and then retreated to the colony. they advised Stahl to do likewise, instead of staying out there alone, but he took all these stories to be based on nothing more than the fears of the Lenguas, because for 17 years the settlers had heard similar warnings.
Just a short time previous a cow had come home with a broken arrow in her side, and, although Stahl removed the arrow, and the wound was small, the animal died soon afterward. The Lenguas said it was a Chamococos arrow and feared that it was poisoned. Stahl did not heed the repeated warnings.
