Cannibalism, or to use the scientific term, anthropophagy, has its origin in different causes, and assumes different forms. Among some of the savage peoples it is, as among the Maories, simply the expression of a sanguinary instinct, of an atrocious sentiment of revenge. Among others it originates in a chronic condition of misery and famine. Yet, again, it is sometimes connected with the custom of human sacrifices, as among the Aztecs, and those who practise it come to esteem it a sacred duty, pleasing to their deities, or even to the manes of their hapless victims.
Unknown among the simple Eskimos, and, indeed, among all the hyperborean races, anthropophagy prevails with more or less intensity among peoples which have attained a rudimentary civilization.
Let us take, for example, the Khonds of Orissa, who keep up a system of human sacrifice, absolutely elaborate in its details. Its primary condition is that the victim, or Meriah, should be bought. Even if taken in war, he must be sold and purchased before the priest will accept him. No distinction is made as to age or sex; but the efficiency of the victim seems to depend on the sum he costs, and therefore the healthy are preferred to the feeble, and adults to children. The number consumed in a twelvemonth must be very considerable; as the Khonds do not believe in the success of any undertaking, or in the promise of their fields, unless a Meriah is first offered.
The victims are kindly treated during the period of their captivity, which is sometimes of considerable duration. In truth, a Meriah or dedicated maiden is sometimes allowed to marry a Khond, and to live until she has become twice or thrice a mother. Her children as well as herself are destined to the sacrificial altar; but must never be slain in the village in which they are born. To overcome this difficulty, one village exchanges its Meriah children with another.
There are various modes of accomplishing the sacrifice. In Goomten the offering is made to the Earth-god, Tado Pumor, who is represented by the emblem of a peacock. For a month previous to the day of doom, the people maintain an almost continuous revel, feasting and dancing round the Meriah, who seems to enter into the festivity with as much zest as they do. On the last day but one he is bound to a stout pole, the top of which carries the peacock emblem of the Tado Pumor; and around him wheel and wheel the revellers, protesting in their wild rude songs that they do not murder a victim, but sacrifice one who has been fairly purchased, and that, therefore, his blood will not be upon their heads. The Meriah, being stupefied with drink, makes no answer; and his silence is interpreted as a willing assent to his immolation. Next day he is anointed with oil, and carried round the village; after which he is brought back to the post, at the bottom of which a small pit has been dug. A hog is killed, and the blood poured into the pit, and mixed with the soil until a thick mud is formed. Into this mud the face of the Meriah is pressed until he dies from suffocation. It should be added that he is always unconscious from intoxication when brought to the post.
The zani, or officiating priest, cuts off a fragment of the victim’s flesh, and buries it near the pit; as an offering to the earth; after which the spectators precipitate themselves upon the body, hack it to pieces, and carry away the fragments to bury in their fields as a propitiation to the rural deities.
In Sumatra exists a tribe, that of the Battas, which has not only a religion and a ceremonial worship, but a literature, a kind of constitution, and a penal code. This code condemns certain classes of criminals to be eaten alive. After the sentence has been pronounced by the proper tribunal, two or three days are suffered to elapse, to give the people time to assemble. On the day appointed, the criminal is led to the place of execution, and bound to a stake. The prosecutor advances, and selects the choicest morsel; after which the bystanders in due order choose such pieces as strike their fancy, and, terrible to relate! hack and hew them from the living body. At length the chief releases the poor wretch from his long agony by striking off his head. The flesh is eaten on the spot, raw or cooked, according to each man’s taste.
We have seen that in some of the “sunny Eden-isles” of the Pacific, the natives consider that they render a service to their aged and infirm parents by putting them to death, and that, by eating them, they provide the most honourable mode of sepulture. In others, as in New Zealand, the belief prevails that a man, by devouring his enemy, gains possession of all the virtues with which the latter may have been gifted. This conviction is cherished by certain tribes on the river Amazon.