The practice of cannibalism may be traced to many different sources. It often springs from scarcity or lack of animal food. In the South Sea Islands, according to Ellis, "the cravings of nature, and the pangs of famine, often led to this unnatural crime."2 The Nukahivans, who were in the habit of eating their enemies slain in battle, also killed and ate their wives and children in times of scarcity, but not unless forced to it by the utmost necessity. Hunger has been represented as the motive for cannnibalism in some North and West Australian tribes, parents sometimes consuming even their own children when food is scarce. The Indians north of Lake Superior often resorted to the eating of human flesh when hard pressed by their enemies or during a famine. Among the Hudson Bay Eskimo "instances are reported where, in times of great scarcity, families have been driven to cannibalism after eating their dogs and the clothing and other articles made of skins.'

But whilst among some peoples starvation is the only inducement to cannibalism, there are others who can plead no such motive for their anthropophagous habits. The Fijians, until lately some of the greatest man-eaters on earth, inhabit a country where food of every kind abounds." The Brazilian cannibals generally have a great

7

With

Western Pacific, p. 260 (Fijians). Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 548. reference to the natives of Australia Mr. Curr says (The Australian Race, i. 77) that "human flesh seems to have been entirely forbidden to females"; but this certainly does not hold true of all the Australian tribes.

1 Bergemann, op. cit. p. 48. de Nadaillac, in Bull. Soc. d Anthr. 1888, p. 27 sqq. Idem, in Revue des Deux Mondes, lxvi. 428 sq. Steinmetz, Endokannibalismus, p. 25 sqq. Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, ii. 281 sqq. Henkenius, loc. cit. p. 348 sq. Letourneau, L'évolution de la Morale, p. 97. Matiegka, loc. cit. p. 136. Hübbe-Schleiden, Ethiopien, p. 216 sq. Rochas, La Nouvelle Calédonie,

p. 304 sq.

2 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 359.

3

von Langsdorf, op. cit. i. 144. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 134. Nisbet, A Colonial Tramp, ii. 143. Oldfield, 'Aborigines of Australia,' in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 285. In hard summers the new-born babies were all eaten by the Kaura tribe in the neighbourhood of Adelaide (Howitt, op. cit. p. 749).

5 Warren, in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States, ii. 146.

6 Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 187.

7 Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 182. Erskine, op. cit. p. 262.

plenty of game or fish.1 In Africa cannibalism prevails in many countries which are well supplied with food." Thus the Bangala of the Upper Congo have been known to make frequent warlike expeditions against adjoining tribes seemingly for the sole object of obtaining human flesh to eat, although their land is well provided with a variety of vegetable food and domestic animals, to say nothing of the incredible abundance of fish in its lakes and rivers. Of the cave-cannibals in the TransGariep Country, in South Africa, a traveller remarks with some surprise :-"They were inhabiting a fine agricultural tract of country, which also abounded in game. Notwithstanding this, they were not contented with hunting and feeding upon their enemies, but preyed much upon each other also, for many of their captures were made from amongst the people of their own tribe." Far from being an article of food resorted to in emergency only, human flesh is not seldom sought for as a delicacy. The highest praise which the Fijians could bestow on a dainty was to say that it was "tender as a dead man. In various other islands of the South Seas human flesh is spoken of as a delicious food, far superior to pork.

4

The

Joyce, Ba-Mbala,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 404. Iidem, 'Ba-Huana,' ibid. xxxvi. 279.

6 Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedi tion, iii. 101. Cf. Williams and Calvert, op. cit. pp. 175, 178, 195.

7 Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 59 (New Irelanders). Idem, From my Verandah in New Guinea, p. 65. Brenchley, Cruise of H.M.S. Curaçoa, p. 209; Turner, Samoa, p. 313 (natives of Tana, in the New Hebrides). Cf. ibid. p. 344 (New Caledonians); Hale, U. S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, p. 39 (Polynesians). The Bataks of Sumatra likewise consider human flesh even better than pork (Junghuhn, Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 160 sq.). For the high appreciation of its taste see also Marco Polo, Book concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, ii. 179 (hill people in Fokien), 209

Australian Kurnai said that it tasted better than beef.1 In some tribes in Australia a plump child is considered “ a sweet mouthful, and, in the absence of the mother, clubs in the hands of a few wilful men will soon lay it low." 2 Of certain natives of Northern Queensland we are told that the greatest incentive to taking life is their appetite for human flesh, as they know no greater luxury than the flesh of a black man."

However, bodily appetites, whether hunger or gourmandise, are by no means the sole motives for cannibalism. Very frequently it is described as an act of revenge.* The Typees of the Marquesas Islands, according to Melville, are cannibals only when they seek to gratify the passion of revenge upon their foes. The cannibalism of the Solomon Islanders seems mainly to have been an expression of the deepest humiliation to which they could make a person subject. The Samoans affirmed that, when in some of their wars a body was occasionally cooked, "it was always some one of the enemy who had been notorious for provocation or cruelty, and that eating a part of his body was considered the climax of hatred and revenge, and was not occasioned by the mere relish for human flesh." To speak of roasting

(Islanders in the Seas of China); Schaafhausen, loc. cit. p. 247 sq.; Matiegka, loc. cit. p. 136, n. 3.

1 Howitt, op. cit. p. 752.

2 Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, pp. 3, 57.

3 Lumholtz, op. cit. pp. 101, 271.

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 310 (Tahitians). von Langsdorf, op. cit. i. 149 (Nukahivans). Forster, Voyage round the World, ii. 315 (natives of Tana and generally). Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 248 (natives of New Britain and New Ireland). Howitt, Natives of SouthEast Australia, pp. 247, 751. Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 391; Buning, in Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 74 sq.; Junghuhn, op. cit. ii. 156, 160 (Bataks). de Groot, op. cit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 369 sqq. (ancient Chinese). Schneider, Die Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, p.

208 sq.

(Negroes). Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 216 (natives of Bonny and New Calabar). Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 145 sq. Carver, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, p. 303 sq. (Naudowessies). Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, i. 104 (Potawatomis). Koch, loc. cit. pp. 87, 89 sqq. (South American tribes). von Humboldt, Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, v. 421 (Indians of Guyana). Wied-Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien, ii. 50 (Botocudos and some other Brazilian tribes). Lomonaco, Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,' in Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia, xix. 58 (Tupis). Andree, op. cit. p. 102 sq. and passim.

6 Melville, Typee, p. 181.

6 Parkinson, Zur Ethnographie der nordwestlichen Salomo Inseln, p. 14.

earing

The practice of ear mais, vach is quite 1 common form of cannisalim, seems to be largely Que bo *a janga or indignation. In Leners' Island, in the New Hebrides, the victims of it were not generally enemies ang nad seen killed in figating, but it was a murderer

par cad detested enemy who was eaten, in anger 2016 at Among the Bataks of Sumatr offenders condemned for certain capital crimes, such as ando a murder, treason, and adultery, were usually exten by the injured persons and their friends with all the ages of angry passion. But this form of cannibalism may also have another foundation. If for any reason there is a desire to eat human flesh, an unsympathetic bing like a criminal is apt to be chosen as a victim.

It is said that some of the Line Islanders in the South Seas began their cannibalism by eating thieves and slaves. In Melanesia, where human sacrifices were combined with the eating of bits of the victim, "advantage was taken of a crime, or imputed crime, to take a life and offer the man to some tindalo."

2

It has been questioned whether cannibalism can be a direct expression of hatred; but for no good reason. To eat a person is, according to primitive ideas, to annihilate him as an individual, and we can readily imagine the triumphant feelings of a savage who has his enemy between his jaws. The Fijian eats in revenge even the vermin which bite him, and when a thorn pricks him he picks it out of his flesh and eats it. The Cochin-Chinese express their deepest hatred of a person by saying, “I wish I could eat his liver or his flesh." Other people want to "drink the blood" of their enemies.

5

The idea that a person is annihilated or loses his individuality by being eaten has led to cannibalism not only in revenge but as an act of protection, as a method of making a dangerous individual harmless after death." Among the Botocudos warriors devoured the bodies of their fallen enemies in the belief that they would thus be safe from the revengeful hatred of the dead." In Ashantee "several of the hearts of the enemy are cut out by the fetish men who follow the army, and the blood and small pieces being mixed (with much ceremony and incantation) with various consecrated herbs, all those who have never killed an enemy before eat a portion, for it is believed that if they did not, their vigour and courage would be secretly wasted by the haunting spirit of the

1 Tutuila, 'Line Islanders,' in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 270.

Codrington, op. cit. p. 135. 3 Steinmetz, op. cit. p. 33.

4 Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 118 (Maoris). Johnston, in Fortnightly Review, N. S. xlv. 27 (Negroes of the Niger Delta). Koch, loc. cit. pp. 87, 109. Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 69. Idem, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit,

ii. 282 sq.

5 Pritchard, op. cit. p. 371.

6

von Langsdorf, op. cit. i. 148. 7 Cf. Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, ii. 282; Koch, loc. cit. pp. 87, 109.

8 Featherman, Social History of Mankind, Chiapo- and Guarano-Maranonians,' p. 355.