violence

"I told her, "Mother, we had to eat our dead friends", ... and she said, "That's okay, that's okay, sweetie"."

"Hunger turned some people into cannibals. This was a much more common phenomenon than historians have previously assumed. In the Bashkir region and on the steppelands around Pugachev and Buzuluk, where the famine crisis was at its worst, thousands of cases were reported. It is also clear that most of the cannibalism went unreported. One man, convicted of eating several children, confessed for example: "In our village everyone eats human flesh but they hide it. There are several cafeterias in the village – and all of them serve up young children." ... People ate their own relatives – often their young children, who were usually the first to die and whose flesh was particularly sweet... Hunting and killing people for their flesh was also a common phenomenon. In the town of Pugachev it was dangerous for children to go out after dark since there were known to be bands of cannibals and traders who killed them to eat or sell their tender flesh."

"My passion is so great. I want to eat her. If I do she will be mine forever. There is no escape from this desire."

"Mr. Harris has already intimated to you in a letter of his that while he was down at Jikau, ... a horrible case of murder and cannibalism on the part of rubber sentries occurred in this district. It was of a shocking nature, and has greatly distressed us. On Sunday morning, May 15, just after eight o'clock, I had gone across to Mr. Harris's house, ... when two boys rushed breathlessly in, and said that some sentries had killed a number of people, and that two men had gone by to tell the rubber white men, and that they also had some hands to show him, in case he did not believe them... Shortly afterwards the two men came along the path, and we heard the boys calling to them to come and show us; but they seemed afraid, and so we went out quickly and overtook them, and asked them where the hands were. Thereupon one of them opened a parcel of leaves, and showed us the hand and foot of a small child, who could not have been more than five years old. They were fresh and clean cut. It was an awful sight, and even now, as I write, I can feel the shudder and feeling of horror that came over me as we looked at them, and saw the agonised look of the poor fellow, who seemed dazed with grief, and said they were the hand and foot of his little girl. I can never forget the sight of that horror-stricken father. We asked them to come into the house and tell us about the affair, which they did, and the following is the story they told us—"The father of the little girl said his name was Nsala, and he was a native of Wala, which is a section of the Nsongo District... On the previous day, although it was three days before they were due to take in the rubber, fifteen sentries came from Lifinda, all except two being armed with Albini rifles, and they were accompanied by followers. They began making prisoners and shooting, and killed Bongingangoa, his wife; Boali, his little daughter of about five years of age; and Esanga, a boy of about ten years. These they at once cut up, and afterwards cooked in pots, putting in salt which they had brought with them, and then ate them.""

"Qiaoxian town officials treated me to lunch. On that day, the main course was sautéed pig's liver. I tried very hard not to vomit as I swallowed two pieces. I then quickly turned away from the table.... During the previous few days, I had encountered nothing but stories about the cutting out of human livers, boiling human livers, consuming human livers, and barbecuing human livers. My tolerance had reached its limit."

"When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure."

"When people do not respect our [traditions], they become enemies, and we don't consider our enemies to be human any more. They become animals in our eyes. And the Dayaks eat animals."

"It was considered a great triumph among the Marquesans to eat the body of a dead man. They treated their captives with great cruelty. They broke their legs to prevent them from attempting to escape before being eaten, but kept them alive so that they could brood over their impending fate. Their arms were broken so that they could not retaliate in any way against their maltreatment. The Marquesans threw them on the ground and leaped on their chests so that their ribs were broken and pierced their lungs, so that they could not even voice their protests against the cruelty to which they were submitted. Rough poles were thrust up through the natural orifices of their bodies and slowly turned in their intestines. Finally, when the hour had come for them to be prepared for the feast, they were spitted on long poles that entered between their legs and emerged from their mouths, and dragged thus at the stern of the war canoes to the place where the feast was to be held. With this tribe, as with many others, the bodies of women were in great demand."

"Man came into being through cannibalism – intelligence can be eaten."

"... Now, in my opinion, you can't find a nicer piece of meat, marbled but firm, than a buck [boy] tempered [castrated] not older than six, then hung at twice that age." "No one asked your opinion", Memtok answered. "Their Charity's opinion is the only one that counts. They think that sluts [young women] are more tender."

"I despised him long before I found out about his having young girls butchered and served for his dinner.... Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of [14-year-old] Kitten." "But— But— Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have— I must have—" "Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you." "Honey... you better stop the car. I'm going to be sick."

"The ocean's dying. Plankton's dying. It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing, they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!"

"He then cut up the body into pieces, amputated the prominent parts from the shoulder, and the fleshy portions from the arms, from the ligamentous attachments, which connected them with the body, with unshaken nerves! He strips off the flesh from the various limbs, and chops up the different bones,—he keeps back the heads, however, and those very hands, which had once signalized their confidence in him!"

"They went further, and reached the stage of eating little children. It was not unusual to find people [selling] little children, roasted or boiled."

"Pharaoh is he who eats men and lives on gods... Their big ones are for his morning meal, their middle-sized ones are for his evening meal, their little ones are for his night meal, their old men and their old women are for his incense-burning."

"The expression "long pig" is not a joke, not a phrase invented by Europeans, but one frequently used by the Fijians, who looked upon a corpse as ordinary butcher's meat, and call a human body puaku balava, "long pig", in contradistinction to puaka dina, or "real pig". The flesh was never eaten raw, but was either baked whole in the ovens, or cut up and stewed in the large earthen pots that they use for cooking.... If a man was to be cooked whole, they would paint and decorate his face as though he were alive, and ... the corpse ... was placed in a sitting position, and ... handed over to the cooks, who prepared it and placed it in the oven, filling the inside of the body with hot stones, so that he would be well cooked all through."

"Why should I speak of other nations when I myself, a youth on a visit to Gaul, heard that the Atticoti, a British tribe, eat human flesh, and that although they find herds of swine, and droves of large or small cattle in the woods, it is their custom to cut off the buttocks of the shepherds and the breasts of their women, and to regard them as the greatest delicacies?"

"Cannibalism was another last resort for surviving famines. In the win­ter of 618–619 the army of a warlord, some 200,000 troops in all, sur­rounded a district south of Luoyang and exhausted all the stores of millet there... Famine broke out, so the natives began to devour each other. The rebel soldiers were also starving, so they took to abducting children, whom they steamed and ate. That led the warlord to conclude, "Of all the delicious things to eat, none surpasses human flesh. As long as there are people in neighboring districts we have nothing to fear from famine." He had a large bronze bell with a capacity of 200 bushels [7 cubic metres] inverted, stewed the flesh of children and women in it, divided the meat, and gave it to his officers."

"The Cannibals, when they capture some Indians, eat them like we eat young goats, and they say that the flesh of a boy is much better than that of a female."

"Peter Margarita, a Spaniard whose word cannot be impugned, went out to the Orient with the Admiral, attracted by the prospect of visiting the new lands. He says that with his own eyes he saw here a large number of Indians fixed on spits and roasted over hot coals to tickle the debauched palates of these people, while many bodies lay in heaps, minus head and limbs. The cannibals do not deny this but openly affirm that they eat human flesh."

"When the poor first began to eat human flesh, the horror and astonishment that such extraordinary meals aroused were such that these crimes formed the topic of every conversation... But eventually people grew accustomed, and some conceived such a taste for these detestable meats that they made them their ordinary provender, eating them for enjoyment and... [thinking] up a variety of preparation methods... The horror people had felt at first vanished entirely; one spoke of it, and heard it spoken of, as a matter of everyday indifference."

"Nothing was more common than this kind of thing, and it would be difficult to find in the length and breadth of Egypt... anyone who has not been eye-witness to such atrocities."

"I presented to the king of this place... a quantity of salt which he accepted and he sent to me two most comely slave girls. A few days later I was in his presence and he said to me: "I sent those girls to you, so slaughter and eat them! Their flesh is the best thing we have to eat. For what reason have you not slaughtered them?" I replied: "This is not lawful for us.""

"In time, the Chinese developed a taste for human meat.... T'ao Tsung-yi, a writer during the Yüan dynasty [1271–1368], remarked on the taste of human meat (hsiang jou) in his Cho Keng Lu (Records of Stopping Cultivation), in which he said that children's meat was the best food of all in taste, and next to this were women and men. Chuang Ch'ao, a Sung [960–1279] writer, was more specific about the taste of human meat in his Chi Lieh Pien (Chicken Rib Section) in which he referred to children's meat as well-boiled bone (...), which means that because of their superior tastiness children could be eaten whole, including their bones, when they were well-boiled. He also characterized women's meat as more delicious than mutton (...). Men's meat was less so, and was referred to as "jao pa huo" — the least tasty of all human meat. Generally, he referred to men and women as two-legged sheep (liang-chao yang), but he believed that both young children and beautiful women were particularly good for mutton soup (...)."

"The inhabitants of Hispaniola, who are a mild people, complained that they were exposed to frequent attacks from the cannibals who landed amongst them and pursued them through the forests like hunters chasing wild beasts. The cannibals captured children, whom they castrated, just as we do chickens and pigs we wish to fatten for the table, and when they were grown and become fat they ate them. Older persons, who fell into their power, were killed and cut into pieces for food; they also ate the intestines and the extremities, which they salted, just as we do hams. They did not eat women, as this would be considered a crime and an infamy. If they captured any women, they kept them and cared for them, in order that they might produce children; just as we do with hens, sheep, mares, and other animals. Old women, when captured, were made slaves."

"Birds were boiling in their pots, also geese mixed with bits of human flesh, while other parts of human bodies were fixed on spits, ready for roasting. Upon searching another house the Spaniards found arm and leg bones, which the cannibals carefully preserve for pointing their arrows; for they have no iron. All other bones, after the flesh is eaten, they throw aside."

"Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him, and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbes; and one amongst the rest did kill his wife, and powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved: now, whether she was better roasted, boyled, or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of."

"Since he never fed the ten or twenty thousand impressed natives in his army, he gave them leave to eat the prisoners they took, thus setting the royal seal of approval on the establishment, in his camp, of a human abattoir where he himself would preside over the slaughter and grilling of children and where grown men were butchered for the sake of their hands and feet which were generally held to be the best cuts."

"I think there is more barbarism in eating men alive, then to feed upon them being dead; to mangle by tortures and torments a body full of lively sense, to roast him in pieces, and to make dogs and swine to gnaw and tear him... (as we have not only read, but seen very lately..., not amongst ancient enemies, but our neighbours and fellow-citizens; and which is worse, under pretence of piety and religion) then to roast and tear him after he is dead."

"The Cannibals and savage people do not so much offend me with roasting and eating of dead bodies, as those which torment and persecute the living."

"If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, It will come: Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep."

"A collective insanity seemed to have seized the nation and turned them into something worse than beasts. The princess de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's intimate friend, was literally torn to pieces; her head, breasts, and pudenda were paraded on pikes before the windows of the Temple, where the royal family was imprisoned, while a man boasted drunkenly at a cafe that he had eaten the princess' heart, which he probably had."

"A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter."

"As to our city of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs."

"I was surprised one morning early, with seeing no less than five canoes all on shore together, on my side the island.... I observed, by the help of my perspective glass, that they were no less than thirty in number; that they had a fire kindled, and that they had had meat dressed; how they cooked it, that I knew not, or what it was; but they were all dancing in I know not how many barbarous gestures and figures, their own way, round the fire. When I was thus looking on them, I perceived by my perspective two miserable wretches dragged from the boats, where, it seems, they were laid by, and were now brought out for the slaughter: I perceived one of them immediately fall, being knocked down, I suppose, with a club or wooden sword, for that was their way; and two or three others were at work immediately, cutting him open for their cookery, while the other victim was left standing by himself, till they should be ready for him."

"Je ne me nourris que de chair humaine; j'espère que vous serez contens du régal que je compte vous en faire, et l'on a tué pour notre souper un jeune garçon de quinze ans, que je foutis hier, et qui doit être délicieux."

"Many's the poor devil I've killed, at one time or another – and the time has been that I've been obliged to feed on some of 'em."

"I sent my boy for six handkerchiefs, thinking it was all a joke ..., but presently a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old at the hand, and I then witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life. He plunged a knife quickly into her breast twice, and she fell on her face, turning over on her side. Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down to the river to wash it. The most extraordinary thing was that the girl never uttered a sound, nor struggled, until she fell. Until the last moment, I could not believe that they were in earnest ... that it was anything save a ruse to get money out of me... When I went home I tried to make some small sketches of the scene while still fresh in my memory, not that it is ever likely to fade from it. No one here seemed to be in the least astonished at it."

"A young Basongo chief came to our Commandant while at dinner in his tent and asked for the loan of his knife, which, without thinking, the Commandant gave him. He immediately disappeared behind the tent and cut the throat of a little slave-girl belonging to him, and was in the act of cooking her when one of our soldiers saw him.... This cannibal was put in irons, but [shortly after his liberation] he was brought in by some of our Hausa soldiers, who said that he was eating the children in and about our cantonments. He had a bag slung round his neck, which on examining we found contained an arm and a leg of a young child."

"The Shanxi poet Wang Xilun... describ[ed] in an essay how children whose starving parents had abandoned them in ditches were slaughtered and eaten by other famine victims as though they were sheep or pigs."

"A Maori relating an account of an expedition said, incidentally. "On the way I was speaking to a red-haired girl who had just been caught out in the open.... As we came back, I saw the head of the red-haired girl lying in the ferns by the side of the track. Further on, we overtook one of the Waihou men carrying a back-load of the flesh, which he was taking to our camp to cook for food. The arms of the girl were round his neck, whilst the body was on his back." If one can mentally picture the scene, with the man striding along, carrying the headless, disembowelled trunk of the naked girl, enough of this kind of horror will have been evoked."

"Fiji, cannibal Fiji! Pity, O pity, cannibal Fiji!"

"This morning we witnessed a shocking spectacle. 20 dead bodies of men, women, & children were brought to Rewa as a present to Tui Dreketi from Tanoa. They were distributed among the people to be cooked and eaten.... The children amused themselves by ... mutilating the body of a little girl.... Human entrails were floating down the river in front of the mission premises, mutilated limbs, heads and trunks of the bodies of human beings have been floating about, & scenes of disgust and horror have been presented to our view in every direction."

"You foreigners have salt beef to eat when you sail about; we have no beef, and therefore make use of human flesh."

"In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1 to $3 a pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak – chops – or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid [sic] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh."

"He showed me, locked up in a house, a group of young girls who had been caught on another island and who were kept and fattened for the next cannibal feast. It had just been decided that this feast would take place the same day on the occasion of our presence in Malaita. The girls were no doubt aware that their last hour was soon to come.... They seemed to accept the situation with great resignation."

"Sometimes even the victim was not killed, but was placed bound and alive in the oven; and their fiendish revenge, not being satisfied by the mere death of its object, tortures too horrible to describe were often inflicted – frequently a living man having to eat part of his own body before death was allowed to end his sufferings.... Women were not allowed to partake of the awful banquet, yet women were considered better for cooking than men, and the thighs and arms the best portions. So delicious was human flesh considered, that the highest praise that they could give to other food was to say, "It is as good as bakolo.""

"They made no secret of their relish for human flesh. At one place of call where we were landing ..., the savages brought down quite a quantity of the flesh of a young woman whom they had just cooked. In offering parts for sale, they said that if we white men did not like to eat it possibly some of our native boatmen would enjoy it."

"He made no resistance whatever, and was stabbed in the back by Peters, when he fell instantly dead. I must not dwell upon the fearful repast which immediately ensued. Such things may be imagined, but words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality. Let it suffice to say that, having in some measure appeased the raging thirst which consumed us by the blood of the victim, and having by common consent taken off the hands, feet, and head, throwing them together with the entrails, into the sea, we devoured the rest of the body, piecemeal, during the four ever memorable days of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of the month."

"He lies down in the hammock and tries to sleep. A commercial plays again and again in his mind. A woman who's beautiful but dressed conservatively is putting dinner on the table for her three children and husband. She looks at the camera and says: "I serve my family special food, it's the same meat as always, but tastier." The whole family smiles and eats their dinner. The government, his government, decided to resignify the product. They gave human meat the name "special meat". Instead of just "meat", now there's "special tenderloin", "special cutlets", "special kidneys". He doesn't call it special meat. He uses technical words to refer to what is a human but will never be a person, to what is always a product. To the number of heads to be processed, to the lot waiting in the unloading yard, to the slaughter line that must run in a constant and orderly manner, to the excrement that needs to be sold for manure, to the offal sector. No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food."