CANNIBALISM AT SEA.
A sad and recent experience under equally distressing circumstances, is here told of four sailors, who were adrift for eight days in a dory; one of whom was partly eaten by a shipmate:
“Louisburg, Cape Breton, April 8, 1886—James McDonald of Eastpoint, P. E. I.; S. McDonald of Broadcove, C. B.; Colon Chisholm of Harbor Bouch, N. S., and Angus McEchern of Long Point Cape, of the American fishing schooner Elsie M. Low; March 30 left their vessel in two dories to look after trawls on the western banks, but a fog set in, and when they were pulling back for their vessel they got astray. Subsequently calls for help from one brought the two together again. There being no prospect of the fog lifting or reply to their oft repeated shouts, they decided to all get in one dory and make their way toward land. They had neither food nor water, as they had not expected to be gone long. The second day the sun came out bright and clear, but no sail was in sight, save the smoke of one or two steamers on the horizon, the sufferings of the castaways from thirst were now becoming intense. The succeeding night was extremely cold and rough and the dory iced up badly, taking all the exertions of the now weakened men to keep her head to the sea. Some of them held pieces of ice to their mouths and so endeavored to relieve their parched throats to a slight extent. Of the succeeding six days’ history it is almost impossible to obtain a correct account, for all were dazed. The light house keeper at Guyon Island, off Cape Breton, near Louisburg, observed the dory being feebly pulled toward the light and assisted the men ashore. His eyes met a ghastly sight. In the bow of the dory was a lifeless, naked body, that of James McDonald, much lacerated. One of his arms was hacked off at the elbow, his throat much torn and pieces cut out of each thigh, while scattered remains of his arm and flesh and bones, telling the horrible tale of cannibalism, were in other parts of the boat. The body of the other McDonald was under the thwarts in the bottom of the boat. The latter was the chief cannibal. He clamored for his dead comrade’s blood, tore his throat and sucked it, while the others, worn out, slept, and when they awoke offered them some of the flesh, which they refused. He then cried for more blood, saying it tasted like cream, but was unable to extract it from the lifeless carcass. The next day he became insane, and was with difficulty restrained from violence by the two remaining comrades until he himself died on the seventh day. He is a brother of a prominent lawyer of Halifax. The men rowed in their dory about 90 miles with only the sun and stars to guide them. One of the two survivors Chisholm is very sick and may not recover, while McEchern is extremely weak and very reticent. The light house keeper took the bodies to Louisburg, where a tremendous sensation was caused among the people of the old French fishing village. A jury was empaneled and the inquest brought out the above story.”
The earliest references to this subject among the English, are certain accusations brought against the Saxon conquerors of that country in the chronicles called the Welsh Triads. In these historical documents it is alleged that Ethelfrith, King of England, encouraged cannibalism at his court; and that Gwri, a truant Welshman, became so enamored of human flesh that he would eat no other food. It was his custom to have a male and female “Kymry” killed for his own eating every day, except Saturday, when he slaughtered two of each, in order to be spared the sin of breaking the Sabbath.
St. Jerome has the following passage in one of his works: “Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Attacottos gentem Britannicam, humanis vesci carnibus; et cum per sylvas porcorum greges, et armentorum pecudumque reperiant, pastorum nates et feminarum papillas solere abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari.” The quotation appears in “Gibbons’ Decline and Fall,” and may be rendered: He learned that the Attacotti, the people of the country now called Scotland, when hunting in the woods, preferred the shepherd to his flocks, and chose only the most fleshy and delicate parts for eating.
Gibbon, in comparing the people of Scotland with the natives of the gorilla country, makes what may be considered rather an equivocal compliment. “If,” says he, “in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals has already existed, we may contemplate in the period of Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized life.” There is reason to fear that cannibalism was not quite extinct in Scotland, even in an age which must be called civilized.
Andrew Wyntoun has a grisly passage in his Rhyming Chronicle, regarding a man who lived so brief a time before his own day, that he might easily have heard of him from surviving contemporaries. It was about the year 1339, when a large part of Scotland, even the best and most fertile, had been desolated by the armies of Edward III.
“About Perth, there was a countrie
Sae waste, that wonder wes to see;
For intill well-great space thereby,
Wes nother house left, nor herb’ry.
Of deer there was then sic foison[[1]]
That they wold near come to the town.
Sae great default was near that stead.
That many were in hunger dead.
A carle they said was near ther by,
That wold set settis[[2]] commonly,
Children and women for to slay,
And swains that he might over-ta:
And ate them all that he get might:
Chrysten Cleek till name be hight.
That sa’ry life continued he,
While waste but folk was the countrie.”
[1]. Abundance.
[2]. Traps.
Lindsay of Pitscottie tells a dismal story of a man who lived during the reign of James II., (about 1460), at a time also within the recollection of people alive during the epoch of the historian. He says: “About this time there was are brigand ta’en, with his haill family, who haunted a place in Angus. This mischievous man had ane execrable fashion, to tak all young men and children he could steal away quietly, or tak away without knowledge, and eat them; and the younger they were, esteemed them the maer tender and delicious. For the whilk cause and dreadful abuse, he with his wife and bairns were all burned, except ane young wench of a year old, wha was saved and brought to Dundee, where she was brought up and fostered; and when she came to woman’s years, she was condemned and burnt quick for that crime. It is said that when she was coming to the place of execution, there gathered are huge multitude of people, and especially women, cursing her that she was so unhappy to commit so infamous deeds; to whom she turned about with an ireful countenance, saying, ‘Wherefore chide ye me, as if I had committed ane unworthy act? Give me credence, and trow me, if ye had experience of eating men and women’s flesh, ye would think it so delicious that ye would never forbear it again.’ So, without any sign of repentance, this unhappy creature died in the sight of the people.”
In the sunny land of Italy, in the year 1519, at the beautiful city of Milan, a record appears in its annals that a Milanese woman named Elizabeth had an invincible inclination to human flesh. She enticed children to her house, where she killed, salted and ate them. Being discovered, she was broken on the wheel and burnt.
During one of the earlier revolutions in Southern Italy the Neapolitan lazaroni (whether from hunger or to manifest intense hatred towards their rulers, as well as to exhibit the wretchedness to which they had been reduced,) roasted their fellow men in the public streets, and gave to all who were willing to partake.
At the time when Belisarius was engaged in the Gothic war, a horrible famine afflicted Italy, and it is the testimony of Procopius that on this occasion multitudes in the agony of their want sustained life by eating human flesh.
When Rome was captured by the Goths in the year 410 and the ports blockaded, there was such a distress among the Romans that human flesh was publicly sold in the markets; and many mothers were forced to consume their own children.
It is recorded also that the Jews (having destroyed upwards of two hundred thousand Romans in the time of Trajan) glutted their rage by feeding on the bodies of some of the slain.
Glaber chronicles that during the famine of 1033 in France, guests were sacrificed by Frenchmen who had welcomed them to their hospitality; children were enticed into secret places and slain, and frequently human flesh was exposed for sale in the markets. At the same period, a woman who lived by letting lodgings murdered and ate seventeen strangers who had made their home beneath her roof. The fact of these enormities accidentally came to the knowledge of the eighteenth lodger; having entered her house and anticipating her purpose, to save his own life he took that of his hostess.