Vashon Island news-record. [volume] (Vashon, Wash.) 1919-1954, 1923-08-10
DEATH PENALTY
FOR CANNIBALS
France Issues Orders Intended to
Extirpate Practice in A.
rlCan Possessions.

Parls-Albert Sarraut, French min.
lister of colonies, who was one of
Frances representatives at the Wash
lngton naval armament Limitation and
pacific conference, has Just signed two
DEGREES Intended to extirpate the
practice of cannlballsm in the French
African possessions. The death penal
ty is imposed on any one killing or
trying to Kill human beings for rhe
purpose OF eating their flesh, lmpris-
onment Of from one to ten years and
q fine of from 100 to 1000 francs are
to be the punishment for completely In
such crimes or for eating human flesh.
Cannihalism survives NJ, Sarraut says,
principally under the form Of ritual
rites or acts of sorcery.
Discussing this subject in lie Jour
nal, NJ. Fernand Hauser writes:
Doctor Cureau, formerly colonial
governor, assured us some years ago
in n work on the primitive peoples of
equatorial Africa that cannibalism, as
practiced there (and It is practiced,
even In regions rich in food resources
of all sorts, vegetable and animaD, Is
not due to privation or famine. 1T Is
simply n matter of taste, he said, q
prediction for a certain kind of meat
cannlbaIlsm Called Instinct,
"Cannibalism Is then, according to
Doctor Cureau, an instinct 1t is n
custom. The man who INDUCES in II
Is not necessarily ferocious, He may
be a man who is gentle, gay, cheerful
and friendly in his ordinary relations
at least with those about him,
Doctor Cureau added that he had
several times seen evidences that Ger
tain tribes make prisoners Of war or
buy slaves to hold them in reserve,
and then kill them and eat them in ac-
cordance with their needs.
"pere Martron, who also made a
close-range study of the African ne
groes, declared, on the contrary, that
the cannibals did not hunt men to sat
isfy hunger. They eat, he said, only
the bodies of enemies killed In war
and, more rarely, the bodies Of those
on whom they wish to wreak terrible
vengeance
However that may be, Pere Mar.
tron and Doctor Cureau both stated
that cannibalism is dying out. Coming
into Intercourse with more civilized
tribes, the cannibals feel sense of
shame and soon refuse to admit that
human flesh is eaten by them.
Reports for Many Years,
These are reports dating back some
years. NJ. ], Brevie, chief administra-
tor of colonies, director Of political
and administrative affairs In the gov
eminent of French West Africa, says,
in his Islamisme contre Naturlsme au
Soudan Francais'-a penetrating essay
on native psychology which he has
published-that many blacks still prac-
tice caunibalism, less from any real
need than from an attachment to an
Client rites, which, divorced from their
primitive significance, appear unintel-
ligible to us, and which they them
selves can no longer explain.
eve are dealing here he declares,
with human sacrifices intended to dis
arm hostile spirits, or to produce a
sort of physical and moral transsub-
SANITATION from the person sacrificed
to the person who eats, the latter
thus assimilating the formers strength
and qualities
But whatever may be the reasons
which have kept canniballsm alive, the
French government Is now determined
to make an end of 1t.