337. How the mores were changed. Abortion, infanticide, and killing the old are primary folkways which respond to hard facts of life in the most direct and primitive manner. They are not blamed when they become ruling customs which everybody observes. They rise into mores more easily than other primitive usages because the superficial reasons for believing that they are conducive to welfare appear so simple and obvious. When a settled life took the place of a wandering life some immediate reasons for these customs were removed. When peace took the place of war with neighboring tribes other causes were set aside. The cases would then become less frequent, especially the cases of infanticide and killing the old. Then, if cases which seemed to called for reëmployment of old customs arose, they could be satisfied only against some repugnance. Men who were not hard pressed by the burden of life might then refrain from infanticide or killing the old. They yielded to the repugnance rather than to the dislike of hardship. Later, when greater power in the struggle for existence was won the infants and the old were spared, and the old customs were forgotten. Then they came to be regarded with horror, and the mores protected the infants and the old. The stories of the French peasantry which come to us nowadays show that the son is often fully ready in mind and I will to kill his old father if the mores and the law did not restrain him.

CHAPTER VIII

CANNIBALISM

Cannibalism. - - Origin in food supply. Cannibalism not abominable. In-group cannibalism. — Population policy. — Judicial cannibalism. — Judicial cannibalism in ethnography.-Out-group cannibalism. — Cannibalism to cure disease. Reversions to cannibalism. Cannibalism in famine. -Cannibalism and ghost fear.—Cannibalism in sorcery and human sacrifice. - Cult and cannibalism. - Superstitions about cannibalism. — Food taboos in ethnography. — Expiation for taking life. — Philosophy of cannibalism.

338. Cannibalism. Cannibalism is one of the primordial mores. It dates from the earliest known existence of man on earth. It may reasonably be believed to be a custom which all peoples have practiced.1 Only on the pastoral stage has it ceased, where the flesh of beasts was common and abundant. It is indeed noticeable that the pygmies of Africa and the Kubus of Sumatra, two of the lowest outcast races, do not practice cannibalism,3 although their superior neighbors do. Our intense abomination for cannibalism is a food taboo (secs. 353-354), and is perhaps the strongest taboo which we have inherited.

339. Origin in food supply. It is the best opinion that cannibalism originated in the defects of the food supply, more specifically in the lack of meat food. The often repeated objection that New Zealanders and others have practiced cannibalism when they had an abundant supply of meat food is not to the point. The passion for meat food, especially among people who have to live on heavy starch food, is very strong. Hence they eat worms, insects, and offal. It is also asserted that the appetite for human flesh, when eating it has become habitual, becomes a

1 See Andrée, Anthropophagie; Steinmetz, Endokannibalism, Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. in Wien, XXVI; Schaffhausen in Archiv für Anthrop., IV, 245. Steinmetz gives in tabular form known cases of cannibalism with the motives for it, p. 25. 2 Lippert, Kulturgesch., II, 275.

8 Globus, XXVI, 45; Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha, 457; JAI, XXVIII, 39.

passion. When salt is not to be had the passion for meat reaches its highest intensity. "When tribes [of Australians] assembled to eat the fruit of the bunya-bunya they were not permitted to kill any game [in the district where the trees grow], and at length the craving for flesh was so intense that they were impelled to kill one of their number, in order that their appetites might be satisfied." It follows that when this custom has become traditional the present food supply may have little effect on it. There are cases at the present time in which the practice of using human flesh for food is customary on a large and systematic scale. On the island of New Britain human flesh is sold in shops as butcher's meat is sold amongst us.2 In at least some of the Solomon Islands human victims (preferably women) are fattened for a feast, like pigs.3 Lloyd describes the cannibalism of the Bangwa as an everyday affair, although they eat chiefly enemies, and rarely a woman. The women share the feast, sitting by themselves. He says that it is, no doubt, "a depraved appetite." They are not at all ashamed of it. Physically the men are very fine. "The cannibalism of the Monbutto is unsurpassed by any nation in the world." 5 Amongst them human flesh is sold as if it were a staple article of food. They are "a noble race." They have national pride, intellectual power, and good judgment. They are orderly, friendly, and have a stable national life. Ward describes the cannibalism on the great bend of the Congo as due to a relish for the kind of food. "Originating, apparently, from stress of adverse circumstances, it has become an acquired taste, the indulgence of which has created a peculiar form of mental disorder, with lack of feeling, love of fighting, cruelty, and general human degeneracy, as prominent attributes." An organized traffic in human beings for food exists on the upper waters of the Congo. It is thought that the pygmy tribe of the Wambutti are not cannibals because they are too "low," and because they do not file the lower incisors. The

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latter custom goes with cannibalism in the Congo region, and is also characteristic of the more gifted, beautiful, and alert tribes.1 None of the coast tribes of West Africa eat human flesh, but the interior tribes eat any corpse regardless of the cause of death. Families hesitate to eat their own dead, but they sell or exchange them for the dead of other families.2 In the whole Congo region the custom exists, especially amongst the warlike tribes, who eat not only war captives but slaves.3

It is noteworthy that a fork was invented in Polynesia for this kind of food, long before the fork was used for any other.

340. Cannibalism not abominable. Spix and Martius asked a chief of the Miranhas why his people practiced cannibalism. The chief showed that it was entirely a new fact to him that some people thought it an abominable custom. "You whites," said he, "will not eat crocodiles or apes, although they taste well. If you did not have so many pigs and crabs you would eat crocodiles and apes, for hunger hurts. It is all a matter of habit. When I have killed an enemy it is better to eat him than to let him go to waste. Big game is rare because it does not lay eggs like turtles. The bad thing is not being eaten, but death, if I am slain, whether our tribal enemy eats me or not. I know of no game which tastes better than men. You whites are really too dainty."

341. In-group cannibalism. Cannibalism was so primordial in the mores that it has two forms, one for the in-group, the other for the out-group. It had a theory of affection in the former case and of enmity in the latter. In the in-group it was so far from being an act of hostility, or veiled impropriety, that it was applied to the closest kin. Mothers ate their babies, if the latter died, in order to get back the strength which they had lost in bearing them. Herodotus says that the Massagetæ sacrificed the old of their tribe, boiling the flesh of the men with that of cattle and eating the whole. Those who died of disease before attaining old age were buried, but that they thought a less happy fate. He says that the Padeans, men in the far east of India, put a sick man of their tribe to death and ate him, lest his flesh should be wasted by disease. The women did the same by a sick woman. If any reach old age without falling victims to this custom, they too are then killed 1 Globus, LXXXV, 229. 2 Nassau, Fetishism in West Africa, 11. + Specimen in the Dresden Museum.

3 Globus, LXXII, 120; LXXXVII, 237.

5 Brasilien, 1249.

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and eaten. He mentions also the Issidones, in southeastern Russia, who cut up their dead fathers, mingle the flesh with that of sacrificed animals, and make a feast of the whole. The skull is cleaned, gilded, and kept as an emblem, to which they make annual sacrifices. They are accounted a righteous people. Amongst them women are esteemed equal with men.1 Strabo2 says that the Irish thought it praiseworthy to eat their deceased parents. The Birhors of Hazaribag, Hindostan, formerly ate their parents, but "they repudiate the suggestion that they ate any but their own relations "[i.e. each one ate his own relatives and no others ?]. Reclus says that in that tribe "the parents beg that their corpses may find a refuge in the stomachs of their children rather than be left on the road or in the forest." The Tibetans, in ancient times, ate their parents, “out of piety, in order to give them no other sepulcher than their own bowels." This custom ceased before 1250 A.D., but the cups made of the skulls of relatives were used as memorials. Tartars and some "bad Christians" killed their fathers when old, burned the corpses, and mingled the ashes with their daily food. In the gulf country of Australia only near relatives partake of the dead, unless the corpse is that of an enemy. A very small bit only is eaten by each. In the case of an enemy the purpose is to win his strength. In the case of a relative the motive is that the survivors may not, by lamentations, become a nuisance in the camp. The Dieyerie have the father family. The father may not eat his own child, but the mother and female relatives must do so, in order to have the dead in their liver, the seat of feeling. The Tuaré of Brazil (2 S. 67 W.) burn their dead. They preserve the ashes in reeds and mix them with their daily meals. The Jumanas, on the head waters of the Amazon, regard the bones as the seat of the soul. They burn the bones of their dead, grind them to powder, mix the powder with intoxicating liquor, and drink it, "that the dead may live again in them."9 All branches of the Tupis are cannibals. They brought the custom from the interior.10 The Kobena drink in their cachiri the powdered bones of their dead relatives." The Chavantes, on the Uruguay, eat their dead children to get back the souls. Especially young mothers do this, as they are thought to have given a part of their own souls to their children too soon.12 In West Victoria "the bodies of relatives who have lost their lives by violence are alone partaken of." Each eats only a bit, and it is eaten "with no desire to gratify or appease the appetite, but only as a symbol of respect and regret for the dead." 18 In Australian cannibalism

the eating of relatives has behind it the idea of

1 Herod., I, 216; III, 99; IV, 26.

2 IV, 5, 298.

8 JASB, II, 571.

4 Prim. Folk, 249.

5 Rubruck, Eastern Parts, 81, 151.

6 JAI, XXIV, 171.

saving the strength which

7 JAI, XVII, 186.

8 Globus, LXXXIII, 137. 9 Martius, Ethnog. Bras., 485. 10 Southey, Brazil, I, 233. 11 Ztsft. f. Ethnol., XXXVI, 293. 12 Andrée, Anthropophagie, 50.

18 Dawson, West Victoria, 67.