[17] Bergemann, op. cit. p. 49 sq. von Langsdorf, op. cit. i. 141. Hübbe-Schleiden, Ethiopien, p. 218. Johnston, in Fortnightly Review, N.S. xlv. 20 sqq. (various African peoples). Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 330 (Fans). Reade, op. cit. p. 158 (West Equatorial Africans). Coquilhat, op. cit. p. 271 (Bangala). Torday and Joyce, ‘Ba-Mbala,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 404. Iidem, ‘Ba-Huana,’ ibid. xxxvi. 279.
[18] Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 101. Cf. Williams and Calvert, op. cit. pp. 175, 178, 195.
[19] 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 (Islanders in the Seas of China); Schaafhausen, loc. cit. p. 247 sq.; Matiegka, loc. cit. p. 136, n. 3.
[20] Howitt, op. cit. p. 752.
[21] Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, pp. 3, 57.
[22] Lumholtz, op. cit. pp. 101, 271.
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.[23] The Typees of the Marquesas Islands, according to Melville, are cannibals only when they seek to gratify the passion of revenge upon their foes.[24] 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.[25] 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 him is the very worst language that can be addressed to a Samoan, and if applied to a chief of importance, he may raise war to avenge the insult.[26] Among the Maoris human flesh was frequently eaten from motives of revenge and hatred, to cast disgrace on the person eaten, and to strike terror. “It was such a disgrace for a New Zealander to have his body eaten, that if crews of Englishmen and New Zealanders, all friends, were dying of starvation in separate ships, the English might resort to cannibalism, but the New Zealanders never would.”[27] Even in Fiji, where cannibalism was largely indulged in for the mere pleasure of eating human flesh as food, revenge is said to have been the chief motive for it.[28] Thus, “in any transaction where the national honour had to be avenged, it was incumbent upon the king and principal chiefs—in fact, a duty they owed to their exalted station—to avenge the insult offered to the country by eating the perpetrators of it.”[29]
[23] 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 South-East 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.
[24] Melville, Typee, p. 181.
[25] Parkinson, Zur Ethnographie der nordwestlichen Salomo Inseln, p. 14.