One other cannibal custom noted by Wallace and recently confirmed by Koch-Grünberg, is unknown to me, that of exhuming the bones of the dead, which are then burnt and the calcined remains made into broth.[155] No such custom ever came under my notice, nor did any of the tribes refer to such practices in any way in my hearing. The dried human heads prepared by the Jivaro[156] are also unknown in the regions here dealt with. No heads are mummified in this district. But among some of the tribes south of the main Amazon river this repulsive art is carried on, and specimens of these heads, not more than one-fifth their natural size, have been obtained and brought to Europe.[157] Their exportation is now forbidden by the South American governments, as the supply not unnaturally was apt to coincide with the demand.
Though these reduced heads are unknown to the Issa-Japura tribes, the head is not ignored as a trophy. The fleshy parts, the hair and the teeth are removed, and the skull is hung in the plantation patch to be cleaned by ants and other insect scavengers. These will pick one bare in half an hour. Cleaned, and dried in the sun, this memorial of victory is eventually suspended outside, or on the rafters in the house, over the string that carries the top part of the drums. Bates records how the Mandurucu soaked the heads “in bitter vegetable oil,” and then smoked or sun-dried them,[158] but the Issa-Japura tribes subject their dreadful trophies to no other process than the action of the insects, air, and sun in the plantations. These ghastly evidences of Indian vengeance I have often seen in the houses, and in the plantations, the bare skulls gleaming white like so many gourds on a string. Robuchon also mentions that he found skulls hanging from the ceiling of malokas, which the natives were quite ready to barter for a large handful of beads, but this does not tally with my experience.
When a feast is to take place the prisoners are knocked down and despatched, their heads removed to be danced with and eventually dried as trophies. The body is then divided and shared among the feasters. Only the legs and arms, and the fleshy parts of the head, are eaten ceremonially, anything like the intestines, brains, and so forth, is regarded as filthy and never touched, nor is the trunk eaten. The male genital organs, however, are given to the wife of the chief, the only woman who has any share in the feast. The hands and feet are regarded as delicacies, for the same reason that civilised man has a preference for calves’ feet, on account of their gelatinous character.
Each portion of flesh is tied to a stick, and every man, according to Robuchon’s account, drops his share in the pot, and places the stick to which it is tied on the ground beside it whilst he watches till the meat is cooked. I was told that the culinary processes were attended to by the old women of the tribe. The flesh, with the required seasoning of peppers, is boiled over a slow fire, while drums are beaten, and the assembled tribe—adorned with full panoply of paint, necklaces, and feathers, and with the gory heads fixed upon their dancing staves—dance round singing a wild song of victory.
The savage orgy will continue for hours, with outbursts of drum-beating, gratulatory orations, and much drinking. I was told that the festival of drink and dance will go on without intermission for eight days.[159]
Only men eat ceremonially, the women, with the exception of the chief’s wife, having no share in the revolting feast, except on occasions, when perhaps the necessity for animal food—the secondary reason—is the cause of the indulgence. What portions of the bodies are not eaten are thrown into the river. I do not know if this is ceremonial, but it is curious to note that the Indian paradise is up river, not down, where, of course, the refuse is carried by the stream. With some tribes the trunk is buried, or it may be merely thrown into the bush to be devoured by the wild dogs. This latter is not infrequent. These methods of disposal are ceremonial in so much as that they are carried out amid organised tribal jeers and insults.
Flutes are made out of the arm-bones of eaten prisoners, the humerus. The radius and the ulna, fleshless and dry, with the fingers of the hand contracted, are fastened to wooden handles and used to stir the kawana. I have seen these, but they are jealously guarded by their owners, and probably no white man has succeeded in obtaining a specimen.
Among the tribes of the Japura and the Issa the teeth are always carefully retained by the slayer, to be made into a necklace, a visible and abiding token of his completed revenge. This removal of the teeth may be held synonymous with the curse of many savage tribes in reference to their enemies—“Let their teeth be broken.” David himself called upon God to “break the teeth” of his foes. Possibly the reason is a reversion in thought to the time when the teeth were man’s only weapon.
It is certainly worth noting in connection with the anthropophagous practices of these tribes that they have almost no salt. In its natural state it is non-existent throughout the Issa-Japura regions, and can only be obtained with difficulty. It is possible that the salt in human blood may be one of the unrealised attractions that lead these peoples to anthropophagous practices. A craving that can be so dominant as to influence race migration, as the salt-craving may do,[160] can hardly be ignored when dealing with the inhabitants of a country where local conditions offer little or nothing to satisfy it.
Another vice which may very possibly have origin in the same lack of a necessary condiment, and to which these Indians are very prone, is the eating of clay.[161] It is not impossible that the clay may have saline properties; in any case among all these tribes geophagy is very common, especially with the non-cocainists, the women and children. As a rule it occurs among the very poorest—the slave clan,—those who are least able to obtain such a luxury as salt, and it is found among the female children most of all. The latter fact is perhaps because the male child, the potential warrior, is the more carefully guarded, and would be the more severely beaten if discovered eating dirt. I never came across any man who eat clay, though I know of a boy who suffered from this neurotic appetite. The clay, if it cannot be otherwise obtained, will be scraped from under the fireplace, and it is always eaten secretly.