Cannibalism in Oceania

"[Ein] Halbblut... verschaffte mir die Einladung zu dem Haupt- und Staatsessen eines benachbarten Häuptlings. In der Speisekarte lockte mich lediglich ein Gericht, dessen Zubereitung immerhin von einigem Interesse für mich war. Einem fremden Stamme war eine junge Frau abgekauft worden (die Mitglieder des eigenen Stammes verwendet man meines Wissens auch in Neu-Mecklenburg nicht zu Speisezwecken...). Natürlich handelte es sich um Subskriptionsessen, und ich hatte meine Karte ziemlich teuer zu bezahlen. Damen waren nicht zugelassen. Für die besseren Herren, darunter mich, waren besondere Stücke vom Festbraten reserviert. Es wurde ein tiefes Loch gegraben und mit glühend heißen Steinen ausgelegt. Gewisse Weichteile des Körpers wickelte man zusammen mit wilder Brotfrucht sorgfältig in Bananenblätter ein, legte das Paket in den Ofen, deckte mehrere heiße Steine darauf und füllte das Loch wieder mit Erde an. Nach ungefähr vierundzwanzig Stunden hieß es: Messieurs sont servis! Wie gesagt, ich heizte zur Beruhigung meines Magens bedeutend mit Kognak ein. Aber als der Leckerbissen auf die Eßmatte kam, in Aussehen und Konsistenz etwa einer Gänseleberpastete ähnlich, überkam mich dennoch die Übelkeit, und ich mußte mich schleunigst entfernen, sehr zum Entsetzen meines einführenden Freundes.... Der Plebs röstete sich die anderen Teile, roh tranchiert, einfach auf offenem Feuer. Doch dieser Anblick, so schrecklich er auch sein mochte, schien mir geradezu erfrischend im Vergleich zu dem raffinierten Aroma jener Delikatesse aus dem Backofen. Die Nerven der Nase sind doch die zartesten.... Eigentlich ist das Unsinn. Denn mit dem Prinzip, nie die eigenen Verwandten aufzuessen, hat man doch alle seine ethischen und ästhetischen Verpflichtungen erfüllt."

"On Thursday, 6th August, 1872, anchored in Makira Bay.... With Mr. Perry, a resident of Makira, and Wapenoco, the chief of the Makira tribe, and four South Sea islanders as a boats crew, I went out to shoot rabbits at an island not far from the harbour. In leaving the bay we met with several large war-canoes, and pulling alongside one of them, found it to contain a dead body, dressed and cooked whole. Perry took it quite coolly, as an every-day occurrence; and at seeing me greatly horrified, and my boats crew with their stomachs turned, said that he had seen as many as twenty bodies lying on the beach, dressed and cooked. Those in the war-canoe had two prisoners with them in it – a boy about 14, and a girl 13 years of age. Intending to save their lives, I offered to buy them, but without avail. The blacks went to Makira, sold half of the body there, and the remainder to another tribe, and sold both the prisoners. In the course of time I came across two houses, in which were kept the skulls of those they had eaten. I saw a considerable number of them."

"Il me montra enfermées dans une maison un groupe de jeunes filles qui avaient été prises dans une autre île et quon avait gardées et engraissées pour la prochaine fête cannibale. Il venait dêtre décidé que cette fête aurait lieu le jour même à loccasion de notre présence à Malaita. Les jeunes filles étaient averties sans doute que leur dernière heure était prochaine.... Elles semblaient accepter la situation avec beaucoup de résignation."

"You wanted to run away, did you? but my meri [war club] overtook you: and after you were cooked, you made food for my mouth. And where is your father? he is cooked:—and where is your brother? he is eaten:—and where is your wife? there she sits, a wife for me:—and where are your children? there they are, with loads on their backs, carrying food, as my slaves."

"After [the dancing] the chief gave orders to his cooks to bring forward the feast: immediately they advanced two and two, each couple bearing on their shoulders a basket, in which was the body of a man barbecued like a hog. The bodies were placed before the chief, who was seated at the head of his company, on a large green. When all these victims were placed on the ground, hogs were brought in like manner; after that, baskets of yams, on each of which was a baked fowl. These being deposited in like manner, the number of dishes was counted, and announced aloud to the chief, when there appeared to be two hundred human bodies, two hundred hogs, two hundred baskets of yams, and a like number of fowls. The provisions were then divided into various portions...; after which they were given to the care of as many principal chiefs, who shared them out to all their dependants, so that every man and woman in the island had a portion of each of these articles, whether they chose to eat them or not.... Such, at least, was the account of Cow Mooala; and Mr. Mariner has too much reason to think it true, because he afterwards heard the same account from several of the natives of Chichia who visited Tonga."

"I was shown a part of a beach on the Chatham Islands on which the bodies of eighty Moriori women were laid side by side, each with an impaling stake driven into the abdomen. It is difficult for one not accustomed to savage warfare to note how shockingly callous and heartless this desecration of the human body made the actors in these terrible scenes."