St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-02-25
HUMAN JOINTS NO MORE.
The Maori Bill Of Fare Has Chanued
in the Isles of the An
tip0des.
Feasting With Men Who Twenty Years
Ago Had Been Notorious
Cannibais.
F0ndness of the Old Maori Chief for
the Tender Flesh Of a
Young Girl.

: During trip through the Northern
Island of New Zealand in 1880, says a
writer in the New York Press, met. in
the vicinity of the beautiful Bay of ISL
andS, the old Maori chief, TIE Hemera
AT this time he was approaching eighty
years of age, but his intellect was bright
and his memory apparently unimpaired.
In his younger days he must have been
man OF magnificent physique,
but now he was bent and withered,
and his wonderfully tattooed face re-
Sembled some curiOusly notified piece
of parchment. All his life had been
passed in the North Island, mostly in
the neighbOrhOOd of Paihia. He we'll
remembered the arrival of the first
White settlers and many and wonderful
were the yarns he told about them. On
the subject Of cannibaliSm he spoke as
an expert, having partaken of many a
human joint. From him learned that
the Maoris never INDUCED in cannibal-
ism except in the case of enemies killed
or taken prisoner in battle. Prisoners,
however, were often kept for years as
slaves, and then, on the occasion of
some great feast occurring, taken and
Killed. This would account for the
stories told by the early missionary set
i'll time of peace. Rarely, except after
a big battle, or the wreck of some ship
on their rock-bOund coast, did the MaoriS
indulge In human banquet.
The feast was conducted with consid
cradle ceremony in ''pah" specially
reserved for the purpose and which
went by the name of ''Kai Tangata,"
which means Eat Man." The method
of cooking was as follows: The body
was hung up to a beam by the neck,
scalded with boiling water and care
fully scraped with oyster shells. 1t
was then taken down, the hair all cut
off and the body decapitated. The
brain, being considered a great delicacy,
was reserved for the chief. In the case
OF men killed in battle, the heart was
the property of the slayer. The entrails
were then taken out and the trunk filled
an oven built in the ground, covered
over with stones and allowed to cook
for at least twelve hours. 1t was custom
airy to place the body in the oven about
sunset and the whole night during which
the cooking was going Oh was passed in
feaSting and dancing. AT early dawn
the meat was taken out and cut up for
distribution. Some of the flesh was
given to the women, and each man, on
receiving his share, retired to his ''pah"
and ate it in private. TIE Hemera could
give me no reason for this last custom.
which is very curious one, as at all
other banQuetS the food is eaten in pub
lie. fancy it must have originated
from the fact that their inordinate
greed for human flesh was apt to lead
IN II, 1.
of it.
Should this be the solution of the GUS
tom it may be taken as confirmation
OF the theory that the practice of canni-
balism tends to brutalize those who in
dulge in it. TO show how all-absorbing
the taste becomes, TIE Hemera told me
that on one occasion young girl
was allotted to him as his por-
ton of number of slaughtered
victims, and, putting her into a
canoe, he carried her far from the set
Element into the bush, and there re-
manned until he had finished her. Can
anything more CHASTITY be imagined
than this weird feast in the depths of
New Zealand forest? [ confess that
after hearing this story felt a loathlng
for the old man which never got over,
and was not sorry to leave him and his
81 LII "REMINISCENCES LII UtlltHu, Willie l.
betOOk myself to fresh fields and past
ureS new.
From New Zealand to the Fiji Islands
is no great distance, and during a fort
nights stay in that lovely group met
several notorious cannibalS. Moreover,
[ experienced the novel sensation of
playing rubber of whist with one of
them. At the time of my visit King
Thakambau was alive and much given
to hospitality to any travellers who
visited Devaka. A handsome allow
ance from the British government
enabled him to indulge this within to his
hearts content, and every evening an
entertainment OF some sort was provided
at the palace. Thakambau was then
siXty-three years of age, but looked
older; fine-looking man, standing over
six feet in height, with intelligent but
tive costume and usually appeared
dressed in a black frock coat and
stovepipe hat, which did not add to his
dignity.
Twenty years before Thakambau had
been notorious cannibal. How many
of the human race had found a resting
place in his capaclOuS stomach would be
impossible to estimate. In his earlier
years, when king of Nebau, his chef in
variably asked him whether he would
take ''puaka belava' or ''puaka decua'
for dinner. The former means long pig,
that is, human flesh, and the latter real
pig. Joints of both were in those DAYS
always kept in the royal larder.
In the course of several conversations
with Thakambau on the subject of eat
ing human flesh, | learned that the
methods Of cooking in the Fiji islands
differed considerably from those in
vogue in New Zealand. The meat was
cut up in small pieces previous to cook
ing it. 1t was then wrapped in plantain
leaves, and tied up with fiber. and
placed in all oven in the ground, and al
lowed to cook until the leaves and fiber
were reduced to ashes. The heads were
made into soup. The victims were
always selected from the slave classes,
who never knew from day to day when
they would be called on to furnish
feast for the palace. 1t was also the
custom to kill and eat the old and de-
crepid when they became a burden on
their relatives. Thakambau spoke of
the custom with undiSSuised disgust.
and during the last years of his life did
his utmost to wean his people from it.