The Prescott daily news., 1908-07-25
DISLIKE WHITE MEN
cANNIBALS WILL EAT ONLY
 THEIR OWN KIND.
Probable Explanation is That savages Fear the Spirit of Antagonistic Race Will Take Posses
 sion of Them.

It was only recently that news came ing of missionary on one of the Solomon islands for cannibal feast, says the New York Sun.
 Private advices from the official charged with the investigation of the murder comment upon the probability that the story had come out to civili- zation 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 warning of which had been given by the deep rever- beration made by the energetic swing ing of the bull roarer.
 But there was no evidence of any sort to offset the statement made by the murderers that they had not eaten the white man. Their statement found confirmation in the condition of such of the bones as were recovered for each had been brought to high polish and stained with turmeric to brilliant yellow.
 The charge of eating white men seems very hard to down. Even now, when every one should know better, it Is by no means unusual 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, it is natural to be sus- picious of practitioners of such gas tronomy. Yet it is highly improbable that white man, who might be killed in the most jovial way by these say ages, would ever be eaten by them.
 Here is a piece of testimony on the subject from sedate German who has lived for 30 years and more among these cannibals of the Pacific, Herr Parkinson of the Bismarck archi- pelago.
 During my long residence in these islands" he writes, T have not yet been able to establish to my satisfac- ton single case in which white men, though butchered, have actually 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 perpetration of the murder, but as to the eating of any of these portions no definite informa- tion can be had
 Tt 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 con- slider the senseless superstition of the Melanesian, which in my opinion has driven him to cannibalism, because through eating the bodies of the slain he expects to come into a full enjoy ment of all the powers of him who Is eaten, thus does it become compre- hensible that he will not eat the body of a white man whom he has killed because of his belief that the spirit of the murdered man will exert an influ- ence 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 fiat. tering 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 I hold to be a subterfuge under which the sly na- tive hides his dread of the snirit of tho slain