[26] Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 194. Cf. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 125 sq.
[27] Thomson, Story of New Zealand, i. 141 sqq. Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 129. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 128. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 353. Best, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. xi. 71 sq.
[28] Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 101. Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 178.
[29] Seemann, Viti, p. 181.
The practice of eating criminals, which is quite a common form of cannibalism, seems to be largely due to revenge or indignation.[30] In Lepers’ Island, in the New Hebrides, the victims of it were not generally enemies who had been killed in fighting, but “it was a murderer or particularly detested enemy who was eaten, in anger and to treat him ill.”[31] Among the Bataks of Sumatra offenders condemned for certain capital crimes, such as atrocious murder, treason, and adultery, were usually eaten by the injured persons and their friends with all the signs of angry passion.[32] But this form of cannibalism may also have another foundation.[33] If for any reason there is a desire to eat human flesh, an unsympathetic being 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.[34] 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.”[35]
[30] Cf. Matiegka, loc. cit. p. 137.
[31] Codrington, Melanesians, p. 344.
[32] Marsden, op. cit. p. 391. Junghuhn, op. cit. ii. 156 sq.
[33] See Steinmetz, op. cit. p. 55 sq.
[34] Tutuila, ‘Line Islanders,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 270.