Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-09-16
WHITE MEN DON'T TASTE GOOD.
Cannibais, 1t is Said, Will Eat Only
Their Own Kind.
(New York SUM-

1t was only recently that news
came out of the western Pacific OF
the killing of missionary on one of
the Solomon Islands for cannibal
feast
Private advices from the official
charged with the investigation of the
murder comment upon the probabil-
fty that the story had come out to
civilization as tale Of cannibalism.
The missionary had been killed, the
writer said, for trespassing upon the
sacred precincts of one of the native
secret societies while their solemn
mummery was in progress, due warn
Ing Of which had been given by the
deep reverberation made by the ener-
getic swinging of the bull roarer.
But there was no evidence of any
sort to offset the statement made by
tho murderers that they had not
eaten the white man. Their state
ment found confirmation in the con-
dition of such Of the bones as were
recovered, for each had been brought
to high polish and stained with tu-
meric to brilliant yellow.
The charge of eating white men
seems very hard TO down. Even now,
wher every one should know better,
It Is by no means unusua, to find
the statement that the Hawaiians at
Kealakekua ate Capt. Cook, yet they
were not cannibals at all.
In the western Pacific, where can
nibalism is constantly practiced ex-
cept under the immediate eye of
white men, 1T is natural to be suspi-
cious of practitioners of such gas
tronomy. Yet it is highly improba-
BILE that white man who might be
killed in the most jovial way by
these savages, would ever be eaten
by them.
Here is piece Of testimony on the
subject from a sedate German who
has lived for thirty years and more
among these cannibals of the Pacific,
Herr Parkinson, of the Bismarck ar
chipelago:
During my long residence in these
islands," he writes, Il have not yet
been able to establish to my satisfac-
tion single case in which white
men, though butchered, have actu-
ally been eaten by the Melanesians.
The bodies of the murdered have
often enough been dismembered and
single pieces sent to remote districts
as trophies of the nernetration Of
the murder, but as to the eating of
any of these portions no definite in
formation can be had.
"It seems quite difficult to compre-
hend why the cannibal who eats his
own kind should reject the white
man as an article of food. Yet If we
consider the senseless superstition of
the Melanesian, which in my opinion
has driven him to cannibalism, be-
cause through eating the bodies of
the slain he expects to come into a
full enjoyment Of all the powers of
him who is eaten, thus does 1t be-
come comprehensive that he will
not eat the body of the white man
whom he has killed because Of his
belief that the spirit of the murder
ed man will exert an influence over
him which he does not at all regard
as desirable.
"The late King Goroi, of the Short
land Islands, once told me in answer
to my question the not particularly
fiattering reason spirit belong all
white man no good!' In general one
receives the reply that the white
man as meat does not taste good.
This L hold to be subterfuge under
which the sly native hides his dread
of the spirit of the slain"