The Opelousas courier., 1890-04-26
CANNIBALISM In AFRICA,
MILLIONS OF sAvAGEs INDULGE
IN THE HORRIBLE PRACTICE.
r,;b.s That Hunt Human Beings as
Game-They Are the DoAiiAn"h'
Races-Canuibal Wit

tain about 20, 900, 900 souls, are cahni-
balls. For 1900 miles up the great river,
from Bolobo, above Stanley POOL TO a
considerable distance above NyangWe,
nearly all the tribes are cannibals. Some
of the largest Congo tributaries, like the
Mobangi and the Aruwimi on the nortn'
and the Tchuapa and Lulongo on the
south, are thickly peopled with them.
They are the dominating tribes in more
than one-half of the Congo State, and
some very curious discoveries nave been
made about them. As a rule, they do
not eat women. Though some tribes,
like the Manyema, say the flesh of man
is much more savory than that OF a wo-
man. it is believed the chief reason the
fair sex usually escape the cooking pot
is because their commercial value is
greater, and comparatively few OF them
are killed in war. Cannibal tribes are
often superior in physique, intelligence,
and in their arts to the natives who abb
hor their practices. The largest build
ing vet found in equatorial Africa, the
assembly hall of the Monbuttu cannl-
balls, is over fifty feet high and. $50 feet
long, and it's immense roof is supported
by five rows of posts made of trunks OF
trees. The Monbuttu are the most famous
cannibals Of the Congo Basin. When
schweinfurth visited them they fol-
lowed the tribes around them simply as
game, killed as many of the enemy as
they could, smoked the flesh and bore it
away as provisions. The best native
servants of the Congo State are the Ban"
gala cannibals, who thiekly populate the
banks of the Congo above the Mobangi.
Five thousand of these cannibals, many
| of whom manned the canoes which gave
fearful battle to Stanley, and chased him
down tha river, crying, ''Meat! meat!'
are now enrolled among the State militia,
/ and are trained to service as soldiers,
boatmen and station laborers.
Tribes that do not indulge in this
atrocious practice have the greatest hor-
ror of cannibals. Coquilhat's men at Ban
| gala ooN not repress their disgust when
they saw scores of natives walking about
nibbling pieces of human flesh, which
they held in banana leaves. Won Fran
| co.'s describes the terror of his fat servant
when they reached the cannibsl tribes of
the Tchuapa River. Nothing could in
duce him to leave the boat and he was
! wisely precautions, for tht| natives re-
garded him with greedy eyes, and more
than once begged the whites to make
, them a present of the man as a token of
friendship. Knowing the whites abhor
the practice, the natives often deny at
first that they eat human flesh, but when
they can no longer conceal the fact of
| their indulgence they boldly justify it.
The Manyema told one explorer that
their neighbors were thieves and ought
to be eaten. "They come here" they
said, land steal our bananas, and SO we
chase and kill and eat them" A small
tribe near, the Kassai told Kund and
Tappenbeck that they were not friends
of theirs, for when their friends came to
see themathey always brought them a
few men to eat. The Bangala were
rather bright in some of the answers they
made to Coquilhat's words of protest.
"This is horrible" he said to a chief,
whom he caught at dinner.
"On the contrary, it is delicious with
salt" was the reply.
'sThis is a bad use to put a ufanato,"
Coquilhat remarked to another.
can your talk about man being such
a great being" the chief answered,
.sshows that human flesh is the best sort
of food. It is a noble aliment, while the
flesh of mere animals is q vile sort of
nourishment."
The mora intelligent "eannibals admit
s45at when thy eat men they destroy a
1lvs e of wealth, but they say they cannot
renon~sa great pleasure to secure a
doubtfIE5Siu.
pa distinction lAust be made between
those canriL~gs. who only Geasionally
taste fesn and those with whom it
is an habitual food resource. The
Bangala, for instance, believe that the
bravery and other qualities of a victim
are impaired to those who partake of his
flesh.
A white man who long lived among
them says he saw only three cannibal
feasts in five months. There are many
tribes, however, like those along the
, Aruwimi, with whom human flesh is an
article of daily diet il they can get it.
It was among these people at the mouth
of the Aruwimi that a Haussa soldier in
the service of the State had a thrilling
experience. He and two others were left
at the site of a station the State intendedto
establish. The natiyeA took his two
comrades out in cane a pretence of
fishing, and from a. les where he
had concealed himsea@Sgaw their dead
bodies brought back, and all the prepa-
Yations of the cannibal feast He was
captured and destined to the same fate,
but before the preparations were made he
managed to escape. For weeks he lived
in the woods, subsisting upon roots and
q little raw msnico he stole at night from
the gardens. He was finally caught
again, but being too emaciated for ser.
vice, he lived on the fat of the land
while requiring the requisite plumpness
He was finally rescued by Arabs, just
as he was about to be sacrificed.
Captain Van Gels has told of thu
densely peopled portion of the Lower
Mobangi, where tribes make wal for The
single purpose of procuring meat. Ell
saw q war expedition Of the Baati which
numbered fifty ant The Congo State
fully intends to exert its influence as fal
as possible to prevent cannibalism.-
Haaper's Weekly. !.
Chimneys.
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