Rev. Henry Lyman was one of the first missionaries sent to the East Indian Archipelago, by the American Board of Foreign Missions, in 1834. As he was departing for his field of labor, a friend humorously ventured to express the hope that he would not “disagree with those savages.” Whether he did or not, can never be told, as this martyr was eaten by the natives soon after his arrival at Sumatra.
Another authority fully as reliable, Mr. Anderson, relates that these Battaks not only eat their dead victims, but begin their consumption before they have been deprived of life; and the causes that provoke this disposition are midnight robbery, treacherous attacks, and intermarriage.
Junghuhn declares that warlike ferocity prompted these people to eat their enemies; he also describes them as regarding human flesh a great delicacy. In fact, they devoured not only war-captives, but even criminals, slaves, and their aged relations. They speak a peculiar language, have an original alphabet or character, and write on pieces of bamboo. They commence at the bottom of the page, write from right to left, and make books of the inner bark of a species of palm.
Herodotus in the course of his history describes some of the funeral feasts in Central Asia. It would appear that at the time of which he was speaking the people there ate the bodies of the deceased, and the skulls were set in gold and carefully preserved. This act was interpreted as a sacred rite, and religious ceremonies were connected with it in honor of the dead.
The Thibetans, who belong ethnographically, to the Mongolian race, had the like custom of regaling themselves upon their defunct ancestors; and Rubruquis adds that they used also skulls as cups from which they drank. With these people tradition reaches back to the first century before Christ, at which time the country was divided into numerous small kingdoms. In the first century after Christ, fifty-three of these kingdoms became tributary to the dragon throne of China; a prince of India united the others on the Yarlung River into one state, and Thibet became a Chinese province.
The Paramahausans of Hindostan, says Bucke, ate the putrid bodies which they found floating down the Ganges, and that they esteemed the brain the most exquisite of all food; many of them have been seen near Benares, repellant as is the language, feasting upon dead bodies.
Solinus relates that the Derbices so far forgot their filial relation that, having slain their fathers ate them, and regarded the act in the light of a solemn duty. When a certain monarch of India enquired of the Greeks what reward would induce them to follow such an unnatural example, replied, “No recompense under heaven.” The bare suggestion was not only an impiety, but it fairly sickened them to think of consuming those to whom they were indebted for life. Later, when the Indian king was advised by the more humane Greek to cinerate their dead, he in turn rebelled against such an unholy suggestion.
The religious doctrine that the soul outlives the body, continuing in ghostly shape to visit the living, and retaining a certain connection with the mortal remains it once inhabited, has evidently led many to propitiate an honored and dreaded spirit by respectful disposal of the corpse. Taking this combination of causes into consideration, it is readily understood why aversion to cannibalism as a rule must have been established at a very early period, and it is well to consider what causes have from time to time led to its adoption. The principal of these have been the pressure of famine, the fury of hatred, and sometimes even a morbid kindness, with certain motives of magic and religion; to which must be added the strong tendency to cannibalism, when once started in any of these ways, to develop a confirmed appetite which subsequently is indulged for its own sake.
Pass we now to Europe and other countries where the same customs have existed as were practiced by the peoples named.
The records of shipwrecks and sieges prove that famine will sometimes overcome the horrors of cannibalism among men of the higher nations. During the great famine which smote the city of Moscow with such severity, it was estimated that no less than half a million of human beings died from hunger. Along the most public of the streets as well as in the narrow lanes-where lived the poor, multitudes fell down dying with no friendly person near them, and others too much exhausted to take the few crumbs proffered. Children sold their aged parents for such food as they could purchase, and as in many prolonged sieges parents were compelled to partake of their own children after famine had wrought in them its dreadful work.