The chief impulse of primitive man was his desire for food. He fed not only on fruits and vegetables, but on flesh. His taste for animal food was not limited by any sufficient esthetic horror of human corpses. Nor was he kept back from eating them by fear of exposing himself to the revenge of the disembodied soul of his victim, nor by any fantastic sympathy for the dead body. Consequently, he was an habitual cannibal.' If I cannot accept Dr. Steinmetz's conclusion it is certainly not because I find fault with his method, but because I consider his chief premise exceedingly doubtful. It is quite likely that early man preferred cannibalism to death from starvation, and that he occasionally practised it from the same motive as has induced many shipwrecked men even among civilised peoples to have recourse to the bodies of their comrades in order to save their lives. But we are here concerned with habitual cannibalism only. Although I consider it highly probable that man was originally in the main frugivorous, there can be no doubt that he has from very early times fed largely on animal food. We may further take for granted that he has habitually eaten the flesh of whatever animals he could get for which he had a taste and from the eating of which no superstitious or sentimental motive held him back. But that he at first had no aversion to human flesh seems to me a very precarious assumption. A large number of savage tribes have never been known to be addicted to cannibalism, but are, on the contrary, said to feel the greatest dislike of it. In times of scarcity the Eskimo will eat their clothing sooner than touch human flesh. The Fuegians have been reported to devour their old women in cases of extreme distress; 2 but Mr. Bridges, who has spent most part of his life among them, emphatically affirms that cannibalism is unknown amongst the natives of Cape Horn and that 1 Steinmetz, Endokannibalismus, p. 34 sqq. 2 Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 214. King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the "Adventure" and " Beagle, 11. 183, 189. they abhor it.1 Concerning the natives of South Andaman Mr. Man observes:-" Not a trace could be discovered of the existence of such a practice in their midst, even in far-off times. . . They express the greatest horror of the custom, and indignantly deny that it ever held a place among their institutions."2 We meet with similar statements with reference to many African tribes. The editor of Livingstone's 'Last Journals' says that it was common on the River Shiré to hear Manganja and Ajawa people speak of tribes far away to the north who eat human bodies, and that on every occasion the fact was related with the utmost abhorrence and disgust. Amongst the Dinka the accounts of the cannibalism of the Niam-Niam excites as as much horror as amongst ourselves. The Bakongo "shudder with repugnance at the mere mention of eating human flesh." Among the Bayaka, in the Congo Free State, "cannibalism is never found, and is regarded as something quite abhorrent. No intermarriage takes place between the Fans and their non-cannibal neighbours, as "their peculiar practices are held in too great abhorrence." According to Burton, cannibalism "is execrated by the Efiks of Old Calabar, who punish any attempts of the kind with extreme severity."8 Even amongst the South Sea Islanders there are tribes which have been known to view cannibalism with great repugnance." 996 It is true that the information which a traveller visiting a savage tribe receives as regards its attitude towards xxxvi. 42. 7 Du Chaillu, Explorations in Equatorial Africa, p. 97. 8 Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 216 sq. 9 Nisbet, op. cit. ii. 136. Turner, Samoa, p. 305 (Savage Islanders). Angas, Polynesia, p. 385 (natives of Bornabi, in the Caroline Islands). Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 247 (some of the tribes in New Guinea). Calder, Native Tribes of Tasmania,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 23; Ling Roth, Aborigines of Tasmania, p. 111. "2 cannibalism is often apt to be misleading. There is nothing as to which many savages are so reticent or the practice of which they will deny so readily as cannibalism, though at the same time they are much inclined to accuse other peoples of it.' The reason why they are so anxious to conceal its prevalence among themselves is of course their knowledge of the detestation in which it is held by the visiting stranger; but not infrequently they really seem to feel that it is something to be ashamed of. It has been said of some Australian natives that, "unlike many other offences with which they are justly charged, . . . this one in general they knew to be wrong," their behaviour when they were questioned on the subject showing that "they erred knowingly and wilfully." At all events the reproaches of the whites have been taken to heart with remarkable readiness. Even among peoples who have been extremely addicted to it, cannibalism has disappeared with a rapidity to which, I think, there is hardly any parallel in the history of morals. Erskine wrote in the middle of the last century:-"Our experience in New Zealand has proved that this unnatural propensity can be eradicated from the habits of a whole savage nation, in the course of a single generation. I have heard it asserted that there did not exist in 1845 many New Zealand males of twenty years of age who had not, in their childhood, tasted of human flesh; yet it is perfectly well known that at the present time the occurrence of a single case of cannibalism, in any part of those islands, would attract as much notice as in any country of Europe; and that, when a native can be induced to talk on the subject, his information is given reluctantly, and with an unmistakable consciousness of degradation, and a feeling of shame that he and his 1 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 77; Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. p. xxxvii. sq.; Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 56. Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 59 sqq. Idem, From my Verandah in New Guinea, p. 68. Powell, op. cit. pp. 52, 59 (natives of the Duke of York Group). Erskine, op. cit. p. 190 sq. (Fijians). Melville, op. cit. p. 341 (Polynesians). Reade, op. cit. p. 159; Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 330 (Fans). At the same time there are many cannibals who make no attempts to conceal the practice. 2 Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. p. xxxviii. countrymen should ever have been liable to such a reproach." 1 Of the Bataks it was said some time ago that the rising generation began to refrain from cannibalism, and that those of them who had submitted to European rule thought with horror of the wild times when they or their ancestors were addicted to it.2 Cieza de Leon remarks with some astonishment that, as soon as the Peruvian Incas began to put a stop to this practice among all the peoples with whom they came in contact, it was in a short time forgotten throughout their empire even by those who had previously held it in high estimation. Moreover, the extinction of cannibalism has not always been due to the intervention of superior races.* Even among peoples very notorious for cannibalism there are individuals who abhor the practice. Dr. Schweinfurth asserts that some of the Niam-Niam "turn with such aversion from any consumption of human flesh that they would peremptorily refuse to eat out of the same dish with any one who was a cannibal."5 With reference to Fijian cannibalism Dr. Seemann observes :-"It would be a mistake to suppose that all Fijians, not converted to Christianity, are cannibals. There were whole towns, as for instance Nakelo, on the Rewa river, which made a bold stand against this practice, declaring that it was tabu, forbidden to them by their gods, to indulge in it. The common people throughout the group, as well as women of all classes, were by custom debarred from it. Cannibalism was thus restricted to the chiefs and gentry, and again amongst them there is a number . . . who never eat human flesh, nor go near the biers when any dead bodies have been brought in, and who abominate the practice as much as any white man does." " 6 Psychology of the Emotions, p. 295 sq. 5 Schweinfurth, op. cit. ii. 18 sq. 1 It should also be remembered that many cannibals eat human flesh not as ordinary food, but only in special circumstances, and that their cannibalism is often restricted to the devouring of some small part of the victim's body. The dislike of cannibalism may be a complex feeling. In many instances sympathy for the dead is undoubtedly one of its ingredients. It is true that endo-anthropophagy is frequently described as a mark of affection, but on the other hand there are many cannibals who never eat their dead friends though they eat strangers or foes. Some cannibals. exchange their own dead for those of another tribe so as to avoid feeding on their kinsmen ;1 the natives of Tana, in the New Hebrides, are said to do so "when they happen to have a particular regard for the deceased."? But neither affection nor regard can be the reason why savages abstain from eating their enemies. I think that aversion to cannibalism is most likely, in the first instance, an instinctive feeling akin to those feelings which regulate the diet of the various animal species. Although our knowledge of their habits in this respect is defective, there can be little doubt that carnivorous animals as a rule refuse to eat members of their own species; and this reluctance is easy to understand considering its racepreserving tendency. Moreover, the eating of human flesh is regarded with some degree of superstitious dread. This is not seldom the case even among peoples who are themselves cannibals. In Lepers' Island, in the New Hebrides, where cannibalism still prevails, the natives say that “to eat human flesh is a dreadful thing," and that a man-eater is a person who is afraid of nothing; hence "men will buy flesh when some one has been killed, that they may get the name of valiant men by eating it."3 In those parts of Fiji where cannibalism was a national institution, only the select few, the taboo-class, the priests, chiefs, and higher orders, were deemed fit to indulge in it; and 1 Arbousset and Daumas, Exploratory Tour to the Cape of Good Hope, p. 123. Steinmetz, Endokannibalismus, pp. 22, 47. 2 Brenchley, op. cit. p. 209. |