peans.[1] This is a singular circumstance amongst a nation of canibals, for such they undoubtedly are. On this subject I have made repeated inquiries, and the result has been to establish the fact incontrovertibly.
I have conversed with several persons who have been eye-witnesses of their disgusting feasts, and by one of them[2] a woman was pointed out, whom, he said, he had seen a few days before eating part of a black child, which had been killed. Indeed I have never heard the fact questioned by any one in the country. The parts which they are said to like best are the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet,[3] and the fat of the kidneys; the latter is, I believe, used for superstitious purposes. When Mr. Moreton was murdered by the natives near Portland Bay, in the year 1841, his body was found stretched out with stakes, and the muscular parts cut off from his arms, and
- ↑ I observe the same appearance of the canine teeth in the skull of a New Zealand native which I lately examined, and I recollect seeing the same remark made with respect to the natives of Patagonia in South America.
- ↑ This person was Mr. Sievewright assistant protector at Mt. Rouse. The child had been killed under singular circumstances. A native, named Roger, had been apprehended for the murder of a Mr. Godd, and sent to Melbourne. Roger's brother killed this child next day, as a kind of sacrifice—it being a rule with them, when a person comes to a violent end, to take the life of somebody else to soothe the manes of the deceased.
- ↑ From one of Sir Stamford Raffles' letters it appears that the Battas, a race of cannibals in the Spice Islands, give a similar preference to the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.
