Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/279

 Til c Ni I tives of Nc w d ? le do n ia, 253

out freely to me after a good meal of pork, which affected him like grog. He had no kinsfolk, and was not accus- tomed to a copious diet. After pious and becoming expressions as to the merits of Christianity (and of Euro- pean goods), he remarked, " I say to you that neither bullocks, fowls, pig, or sheep are to be named, for ex- cellence, with man."^

Human flesh was always a rare delicacy.'-^ A great victory was "a victory after which even the women eat their fill." Pieces would be sent as a present from one village to another. One day in a village in the interior, my attention was attracted by a far-off shrill cry which threw the natives into great excitement. It was the bearer of a present of

this kind to a village chief I did not like to taste

it. Though I have heard of inter-tribal cannibalism at Pelew Pelew (dances) (the community defiling and bowing before an axe-bearer, who slew the destined victim), the chief of the large tribe near me informs me that cannibalism is never practised between men of the same tribe. As in the case of eating the totem, if a man eats a tribes-fellow he wall break out into sores, and die. My informant was very intelligent, and speaks English well. But I know for a fact that a criminal executed by the chief's orders may be eaten. The French have put down cannibalism, but from two cases in my own experience I am aware that veteran man-eaters, inter-tribal cannibals, have been slain by their own tribesmen, after a career of horrors.^ I saw the body of one of them on my own station.'*

As to the ordinary cuisine, the natives are abandoning

' Mr. Atkinson here gives precise details as to the cannibal citisitie, which I omit. — A. I..

- The natives being exophagous, and not eating vi'ithin the kin, this delicacy could seldom be acquired except in war. — A. L.

3 It will be remembered that Mr. Atkinson writes of times now separated from us by some twenty-five years. — A. L.

America. — A.L,
 * Moncelon had heard of such wretches, " Weendigoes " in North