Cannibalism

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [Slurps]"

"Manys the poor devil Ive killed, at one time or another – and the time has been that Ive been obliged to feed on some of em."

"Why should I speak of other nations when I myself, a youth on a visit to Gaul, heard that the Atticoti, a British tribe, eat human flesh, and that although they find herds of swine, and droves of large or small cattle in the woods, it is their custom to cut off the buttocks of the shepherds and the breasts of their women, and to regard them as the greatest delicacies?"

"Peter Margarita, a Spaniard whose word cannot be impugned, went out to the Orient with the Admiral, attracted by the prospect of visiting the new lands. He says that with his own eyes he saw here a large number of Indians fixed on spits and roasted over hot coals to tickle the debauched palates of these people, while many bodies lay in heaps, minus head and limbs. The cannibals do not deny this but openly affirm that they eat human flesh."

"Cannibalism was another last resort for surviving famines. In the win­ter of 618–619 the army of a warlord, some 200,000 troops in all, sur­rounded a district south of Luoyang and exhausted all the stores of millet there... Famine broke out, so the natives began to devour each other. The rebel soldiers were also starving, so they took to abducting children, whom they steamed and ate. That led the warlord to conclude, "Of all the delicious things to eat, none surpasses human flesh. As long as there are people in neighboring districts we have nothing to fear from famine." He had a large bronze bell with a capacity of 200 bushels [7 cubic metres] inverted, stewed the flesh of children and women in it, divided the meat, and gave it to his officers."

"The Cannibals, when they capture some Indians, eat them like we eat young goats, and they say that the flesh of a boy is much better than that of a female."

"A merchant friend of mine... had seen five childrens heads in a single cauldron, cooked with the choicest spices."

"Nothing was more common than this kind of thing, and it would be difficult to find in the length and breadth of Egypt... anyone who has not been eye-witness to such atrocities."

"I presented to the king of this place... a quantity of salt which he accepted and he sent to me two most comely slave girls. A few days later I was in his presence and he said to me: "I sent those girls to you, so slaughter and eat them! Their flesh is the best thing we have to eat. For what reason have you not slaughtered them?" I replied: "This is not lawful for us."

"You should know that they eat all manner of foul things and any kind of meat, including human flesh, which they devour with great relish. They will not touch someone who has died of natural causes, but if he has been stabbed to death or otherwise killed they eat him all up and consider it a great delicacy."

"As to the children, either boys or girls, they will live according to their fancy. If they are pleasant of countenance, they may expect a hard domestic service, yet they stay alive, but if they captured many children, a few are killed to be cooked for eating."

"Pharaoh is he who eats men and lives on gods... Their big ones are for his morning meal, their middle-sized ones are for his evening meal, their little ones are for his night meal, their old men and their old women are for his incense-burning."