, 1885-12-08
rAgy 90 NOR LIkE Qua Foop.


Think Ara Not Fit to Eat.
New YORK Sun.
Not a few articles of food that ara
popular among civilized peoples, some
of them being even regarded as great
dainties. are re ected by many savage
tribes as utterly unit TO be eaten. Some
preparations Of food, too, that we en-
Joy are not relished by uncivilized peo-
Pile, because in their experience they
have met with nothing like them. The
natives of New Guinea, for instance,
COOK a few oere lis in their own fashion,
but they made very wry faces when
they attempted to eat some fresh
baked biscuits that the mission
aries gave them. They finally
wrapped their biscuits up in paper. in
tending to keep them as curiosities. On
some of the islands of the Malay archi-
pelago there are hundreds of natives
whose only industry is to collect the ed
ible birds nests that are esteemed a great
dainty by the Chinese. They wouldn t
dream of elting them themselves, and
they think the Chinese must be very
peculiar people to use that sort of food.
The Esquimanx near Littleton island
once discovered a supply of Tread and
salt pork that DR.. Kane had cached, and
they proceeded to en- .oy a feast at the
white man expense. They liked the
salt pork, and did not leave a morsel
Of it. This was probably the first chance
they had ever had to vary the monot-
ony of their meat diet. They nibbled
the bread a little, promptly pronounced
it a failure, aud told DIR. Kane after
ward that they would as soon swallow
so much sand. The Esquimaux gen
orally dislike all the preparations Of
vegetables that the explorers bring
among them. They think it is a per-
yerted appetite that ave anything
but meat.
a tribe living not far from Port
Moresky, New Guinea, that think
boiled snake are to be preferred to
roast pig, draw the line at sugar.
When they saw DR.. Chalmers, their
drst white visitor, s%weeteuing his tea
'ne morning they asked him for some
If his salt. DR.. Chalmers told them it
was not salt, but they were incredulous,
and so he gave some sugar to one of
The natives. He began eating it,"
sa Us DR.. Chalmers, "and the look of
disgust IN his face was worth seeing;
he rose up, went out, spat out what he
had in his mouth, and threw the re-
mainder away" Then he told the
crowd what horrible stuff it was and
they were satisfied to take his word for
it without trying it themselves.
Many savage tribes think z g are
wholly unfit for food. They keep fowls
that are very much like our own, and
sometimes chickens are almost their sole
animal food, but they never dreamed
that anybody could get hungry enough
to eat eggs until they saw the mission
aries eat them. The spectacle of their
white friends making eggs a part Of
their breakfast still troubles a number
of tribes in Africa Mr.. Wallace says
that among some of the Pacific Island
ers hens eggs are saved TO sell to ships,
but are never eaten by the natives.
There are q number of tribes in Africa
whose chief riches are their herds of
cattle, but who never drank a drop of
COW milk in their lives. They think the
milk Of their herds is for calves and not
for human beings, and they are dis
gusted at the idea that anybody
should consider it a proper ar
ticle Of food. A few tribes
near the great lakes think it is a spec
tacle worth seeing to look at the mis-
sionaries milking cows and drinking the
milk. Among many tribes, however,
milk is an important article of food.
They estimate n mans wealth by the
number of cattle he owns, and think he
Is S wandering his capital if he kills one
of them for iood. They use their cat
tie to buy wives and other commodities,
and eat them only when they die in
natural curse.
Strawberries and ~raspberries are
found in some tropical regions, but they
are never eaten, and, in fact, are
hardly worth picking, as they are poor,
almost tasteless things. The wild fruits
of tropical regions are generally far in
ferior in quality and abundance to
those of the temperate one