Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-09-06

est of cannibals when Coquilhat found
ed his station among them about q
years ago; but the last vestige Of the
practice disappeared about 15 years
ago. Thousands Of the Bangala are
now in the service of the whites, and
they have introduced a new word ir
their language. 1t means something
akin to our word savage. 1t Is word
of repraoch, a disgraceful appellation
and it Is applied to those Africans who
still practice the habit which the Ban
gala have abandoned.
When a cannibal Is cornered and
called upon to defend his custom he
will invariably assert that human flesh
is good eating. The Papuans told the
missionary that the flesh Is very sweet
and they eat 1t as they would roast
pig. Identically the same reply has
been made by many an African savage
Cannibals who live not far inland from
Liberia and who were not known till
year or two ago, added an embellish-
ment to their defense of the custom by
asserting that because the men they
knew were in the habit Of taking bath
twice a day their meat was much clean
er than that of a beef creature, which
never takes a bath. This reference to
their ablutions need create no surprise
Many Of the African tribes are very
cleanly in their personal habits. The
bath in the neighboring spring is the
first duty of the morning. The use OF
the toothbrush was prominent feat
ure of elementary education in the early
days at Tuskegee; but many an Afri-
can savage carefully cleanses his mouth
after each meal.
The fact seems to be, as shown by ex-
perience, both in New Guinea and In
Africa, the two greatest centres of can
nibalism, that in the interminible wars
between savage tribes, the practice OF
eating the victims slain In fighting
grew out of the necessities of the war
riors, who hadn't their women along
to gather and cook vegetables which,
after all, are usually their main food
and so ate the flesh that was most
convenient to them. Many cannibal
tribes do not like human flesh any bet
ter than some other kinds of meat, and
do not eat it unless it is the flesh OF
enemies killed in battle.
The fact that white men are some
times the victims is likely to stimulate
the efforts that are now being made
everywhere to put an end to this evil
About 20 whites, fighting with the ma
tives of the Belgian and French Congo
have, thus far, gone into the cooking
pots of their cannibal enemies.
In 1901, four white men were added to
the roll of victims to cannibalism In
New Guinea. Two Of them were gold
diggers on their way inland to the Yod-
da gold fields. Another was James
Chalmers, whose terrible fate was
mourned by thousands Of people In
every civilized land. For q years he
had risked all the dangers Of pioneer
missionary service among the savage
Papuans, and he was making last ef-
fort to win a wild district to civiliza-
ton, when he was killed by cannibals,
with one white companion and 12 native
helpers. Scarcely another man has told
us as much as Chalmers about New
Guinea and it's people. With the ad-
vance of the white. races into tropical
countries the areas in which cannibal-
ism is practiced is becoming smaller
and the day Is not far distant when the
practice will undoubtedly be rooted out
Of all it's strongholds.