[62] Couto de Magalhães, Trabalho preparatorio para aproveitamento do selvagem e do solo por elle occupado no Brazil—O selvagem, p. 132. Cf. de Castelnau, Expédition dans les parties centrales de l’Amérique du Sud, iv. 382 (Camacas).
The belief in the principle of transference has also led to cannibalism in connection with human sacrifice and to the eating of man-gods. At Florida, in the Solomon Islands, human flesh was eaten in sacrifice only.[63] In Hawaii, “après le sacrifice, le peuple, qui d’ailleurs ne fut jamais anthropophage, pratiquait une sorte de communion en mangeant certaines parties de la victime.”[64] In West Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Winwood Reade, there are two kinds of cannibalism—the one is simply an act of gourmandise, the other is sacrificial and is performed by the priests, whose office it is to eat a portion of the victims, whether men, goats, or fowls.[65] And this sacrificial cannibalism is not restricted to the priests. In British Nigeria “no great human sacrifice offered for the purpose of appeasing the gods and averting sickness or misfortune is considered to be complete unless either the priests or the people eat the bodies of the victims”;[66] and among the Aro people in Southern Nigeria the human victims offered to the god were eaten by all the people, the flesh being distributed throughout their country.[67] The inhabitants of the province of Caranque, in ancient Peru, likewise consumed the flesh of those whom they sacrificed to their gods.[68] The Aztecs ate parts of the human bodies whose blood had been poured out on the altar of sacrifice,[69] and so did the Mayas.[70] In Nicaragua the high-priests received the heart, the king the feet and hands, he who captured the victim took the thighs, the entrails were given to the trumpeters, and the rest was divided among the people.[71] In ancient India it was a prevalent opinion that he who offered a human victim in sacrifice should partake of its flesh; though, in opposition to this view, it was also said that a man cannot be allowed, much less required, to eat human flesh.[72] The sacrificial form of cannibalism obviously springs from the idea that a victim offered to a supernatural being participates in his sanctity[73] and from the wish of the worshipper to transfer to himself something of its benign virtue. So also the divine qualities of a man-god are supposed to be assimilated by the person who eats his flesh or drinks his blood.[74] This was the idea of the early Christians concerning the Eucharist. In the holy food they assumed a real bestowal of heavenly gifts, a bodily self-communication of Christ, a miraculous implanting of divine life. The partaking of the consecrated elements had no special relation to the forgiveness of sins; but it strengthened faith and knowledge, and, especially, it was the guarantee of eternal life, because the body of Christ was eternal. The holy food was described as the “medicine of immortality.”[75]
[63] Codrington, op. cit. p. 343. See also Geiseler, Die Oster-Insel, p. 30 sq. (Easter Islanders).
[64] Remy, Ka Mooolelo Hawaii, p. xl.
[65] Reade, op. cit. p. 158. See also Schneider, Die Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker, p. 209 sq.
[66] Mockler-Ferryman, British Nigeria, p. 261.
[67] Partridge, Cross River Natives, p. 59.
[68] Ranking, Researches on the Conquest of Peru, p. 89.
[69] Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, p. 41. Réville, Hibbert Lectures on the Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 89. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 176; iii. 443 sq.
[70] Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 725.