The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1923-07-24
Death PENALTY
FOR CANN|bALS
France Issues Orders Intended to
j Extirpate Practice in A.
riCan Possessions.

Paris.-Albert Sarraut, French min
lister of colonies, who was one OF
Frances representatives at the Wash
ngton naval armament limitation and
pacific conference has just signed TWO
DEGREES intended to extlrpate the
prectice of cannibalism in the French
'Autrjcan possessions. The death penal
ty Is imposed on any one killing OF
trztng to kill human beings for cne
purpose of eating their flesh. Impris-
.onment of from one to ten years ano
a fine of from 100 to 1000 francs are
to be the punishment for completely IN
such crimes or for eating human flesh.
OannibaIism survives, M. Sarraut says,
principally under the form Of ritual
rites Or acts of sorcery.
Discussing this subject in LIE Jour
nal. M. Fernand Hauser writes:
doctor Cureau, formerly a colonial
governor assured us some years ago
In q work on the primitive peoples OF
equatorial Africa that cannibal1sm, as
practiced there (and 1t 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 matter of taste he said, a
prediction for certain kind of meat
CannibalIsm Called Instinct.
"Cannibalism is then, according to
Doctor Cureau, an instinct. 1t Is
custom The man who INDUCES In 1t
Is not necessarily ferocious. He may
be a man who is gentle, gay, cheerfu
and friendly in his ordinary relations
at least with those about him.
Doctor Cureau added that he mad
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 &C
cordance with their needs
"Pere Martron, who also made
close-range study of the African ne
grees, 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 J. BrevIe, chief administra-
tor of colonies, director of political
and administrative affairs In the gov
eminent of French West Africa, says
in his Tslamisme contre Naturisme au
Soudan Francais'-a penetrating essay
on native psychology which he has
published-that many blacks still prac-
tice cannibalism, less from any real
need than from an attachment to an
Gent rites, which, divorced from their
primitive significance, appear unlntel
ugible to us, and which they them
selves can no longer explain.
1--WE 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 cannibalism alive, the
French government is now determined
to make an end of 1t.