The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-06-05
Long Pig.

1
the Challenger expedition, says in hi
"Notes OF Naturalist" Just published
concerning the FIJI islanders:
When visitors of distinction paid 3
great chief a visit, he was expected tc
provide human flesh for their entertain,
ment. If there were no prisoners, s
man whose special Office it was to obtain
such food for the chief went in search OF
and often killed some girl or woman he
met with alone, belonging to q village
not far Of.
Young woman was considered to be
the best eating; Europeans were not
| thought so good to est as natives, no
doubt because of their very mixed diet
and much grester consumption of ani-
nal food. The bodies we're prepared
with care for cooking, and were usually
baked in the well known oven in the
ground. A special vegetable, a species
OF solanum, was eaten with the baked
flesh, just as was the case in New Yea,
lsnd, The vegetable was eaten with
human flesh as g suitable condiment, not
as an autidOte. There is no reason to
suppose that i'll effects followed the eat>
ing of human flesh any more than from
the consumption of any other kind Of
flesh. The sturdy health Of the gray
haired Thackombau is sufficient eyi
dence against each a supp0sition.
The flesh was eaten cold as well as hot,
and the cold-cooked flesh was often sent
as present to distance by one chief to
another. A fOur-pronged fork of wood
was used in eating human flesh, and
was held more or less sacred, but it was
also USED for eating other food occasions
ally.
The New Zealanders were, however.
prOably the most profusely cannibaI
race that has existed. As many as one
thousand New Zealand prisoners have
been slaughtered at one time after a sue
cessiul battle, that their bodies might be
put into the ovens.
In 1888 the captain Of an English
merchant ship, named Stewart, made an
sgreemeut with tribe of Maoris under
3 renowned chief, TIE Rauparaha, to
convey war-party to q distant village
on the coast, for the remuneration of
cargo of New Zealand fax. The yarri,
0rs were landed at night, exterminated
the village and brought of the bodies of
the slain to the ship, where they cooked
them in the ships coppers; the captain
nevertheless duly received his cargo.
In 1882 or 1888 a large party of
MaOris was landed by another English
merchant vessel on the Chatham islands,
small outliers of New Zealand. The
islands were inhabited by a weaker race,
% MaoriOri," fifteen hundred in number. |
The Maoris simply ate their way through
the islands, killing the Maorioris as
they required them for food and making
the victims dig the ovens in which they
were . b, cooked in, and collect wood
for the purpose. Their object in going
70 the island was to feed upon the in
habltants, Maori who had visited the
islands, when engaged as a sesman on
European vessel, having reported the
islanders ss plump and well fed,
Whilst the New Zealanders considered
the palms of the hands aud the breast as
tie best eating, the tijisns especially
preferred the flesh of the arm below the
elbow, and that of the thigh. Not
more than five and twenty years ago,
white residents are said to have Joined
the natives in their cannibal feasts at
Ovalau, Fiji.