One of the most notable beliefs in mediæval times was that in the headless people:—
“The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.”
Of the Anthropophagi we may read in Eden’s “Historie of Travayle,” a book published in the year 1577. The word in its literal sense means man-eaters or cannibals.[20] Eden, in the passage to which we have referred, speaks of these as “the wilde and myschevous people called Canibales or Caribes, whiche were accustomed to eate man’s fleshe, and called of the old writers Anthropophagi, molest them exceedingly, invading their countrey, takyng them captive, kyllying and eatyng them.” Our old author, it will be seen, speaks of still older writers, but these we have been unable to lay hands on.
[20] From the Greek words anthropos, a man; and phago, to eat. [Back]
Halliwell, in his noble edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, comments on the opinion of Pope and other writers, that the lines we have quoted from “Othello” were perhaps originally the interpolation of the players, or at best a mere piece of trash admitted to humour the lower class of the audience. He, as we imagine, very justly combats this idea, holding that the case was probably the very reverse of this, and that the poet rather desired to commend his play to the more curious and refined amongst his auditors by alluding here to some of the most extraordinary passages in Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of his celebrated voyage to Guiana in 1595. Nothing excited more universal attention than the accounts which Raleigh brought from the New World of the cannibals, headless people, and Amazons. A short extract of the more wonderful passages was published in several languages, accompanied by a map of Guiana, by Jodocus Hondius, a Dutch geographer, and adorned with copper-plates representing these Anthropophagi, Amazons, and headless men in different points of view.
Raleigh’s book was published in London in 1596, the year after his return from these wondrous lands. Its title runs as follows:—“The discoverie of the large, rich, and bewtiful Empire of Gviana, with a relation of the great and golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed in the year 1595, by Sir W. Ralegh, Knt.” The book is written throughout in a very fair, honest way, and with an evident desire to gain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Our hero shall, however, speak for himself. “Next vnto Armi there are two riuers Atoica and Coara, and on that braunch which is called Coara are a nation of people whose heades appeare not aboue their shoulders, which, though it may be thought a meere fable, yet for mine owne parte I am resolued it is true, because euery child in the prouinces of Arromaia and Canuri affirme the same: they are called Ewaipanoma; they are reported to haue their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long traine of haire groweth backward betwen their shoulders. The sonne of Topiawari, which I brought with mee into England, told mee that they are the most mightie men of all the lande and vse bowes, arrowes, and clubs thrice as bigge as any of Guiana, or of the Orenoqueponi, and that one of the Iwarawakeri took a prisoner of them the yeare before our arriual there, and brought him into the borders of Arromaia his father’s countrey. And further, when I seemed to doubt of it hee told me that it was no wonder among them, but that they were as great a nation, and as common, as any other in all the prouinces, and had of late yeares slaine manie hundreds of his father’s people and of other nations their neighbors, but it was not my chance to heare of them til I was come away, and if I had but spoken one word of it while I was there, I might haue brought one of them with me to put the matter out of doubt.” It appears to us that “Sir W. Ralegh, Knt.,” comes out of the matter very much better than “the sonne of Topiawari,” who, to say the least of it, and to take the most charitable view, seems to have been under a misapprehension of the facts.
The same year saw the publication of a second book, “A relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana, performed and written in the yeere 1596, by Laurence Keymis, Gent.” This was dedicated to “the approved, right valorous and worthy knight Sir Walter Ralegh,” and he too refers to this mysterious people, though only on the same terms, information at second hand, not actual inspection. He says, “Our interpreter certified mee of the headlesse men, and that their mouthes in their breastes are exceeding wide.” He evidently feels that this is almost as far as he may reasonably expect to gain credence from the folks at home, for he goes on to say, “What I have heard of a sorte of people more monstrous I omit to mention, because it is matter of no difficultie to get one of them, and the report otherwise will appeare fabulous.” He nevertheless does mention it, for in a note on the margin he says of these people, “They have eminent heades like dogs, and live all the day time in the sea: they speake the Charibes language.” Probably these were some kind of seal or sea-lion, though one does not generally associate with such creatures the idea of linguistic acquirements. He does not seem to have found it so easy to get hold of one of these people as he anticipated; his book at least gives no hint that he was so far successful. Guiana, like Africke, was in mediæval times a land of wonders, and even Hartsinck, in his work on Guiana, published in 1770, or not very much more than a century ago, gravely asserts the existence of a race of negroes in Surinam whose hands and feet were forked like the claw of a lobster, the hands consisting merely of a thumb and one broad finger, like the gloves of one’s tender infancy, while the foot was suggestive of the split hoof of the ox or sheep.
Hackluyt in his “Voyages” dwells on the land Gaora, a tract inhabited by a people without heads, having their eyes in their shoulders and their mouths in their breasts. His book is dated 1598. A similar race of men, called Blemmyes, were said to be found in Africa; and Sir John Maundeville, in his “Voiage and Travaile, which treateth of the way to Hierusalem and of Marvels of Inde, with other Ilands and Countries,” gives an account of these men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. The book is altogether a most curious and interesting one, and the quaint illustrations add greatly to its value. The famous “Nuremburg Chronicle” of the year 1493 has a very curious figure of one of these headless men, almost a hundred years before they are mentioned by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in 1534 we find another representation in one of the books of Erasmus.[21] Raleigh’s book, it will be remembered, was published in 1596.
An extraordinary realisation of these famous and fabulous beings was afforded to the people of Stuttgard at the great Festival held in that city by the Grand-Duke of Wurtemburg on the occasion of his marriage with the Margravine of Brandenburg in the year 1609. The doings of the Festival were illustrated by Balthazar Kuchlein in a volume of 236 plates. A grand procession was a marked feature in the rejoicings, and in this procession we see three of these headless men riding on gaily caparisoned and prancing steeds, besides “Tempus” with his winged hourglass; “Labor,” dressed as a rustic, and bearing in one hand a beehive, and in the other a spade; and “Fama,” a winged lady-fair on horseback, and bearing scroll and trumpet. In this grand but heterogeneous cavalcade we also find, amongst many others, the counterfeit presentments of Julius Cæsar, Alexander of Macedon, Hector of Troy, Diana, Jupiter, Sol, Prudentia, Justicia, Fortitudo, and Abundancia—a strange medley, but doubtless a pageant well pleasing to the burghers of Stuttgard, and to the countless throngs drawn within their city walls.