Cannibalism

"Il me montra enfermées dans une maison un groupe de jeunes filles qui avaient été prises dans une autre île et qu'on avait gardées et engraissées pour la prochaine fête cannibale. Il venait d'être décidé que cette fête aurait lieu le jour même à l'occasion de notre présence à Malaita. Les jeunes filles étaient averties sans doute que leur dernière heure était prochaine.... Elles semblaient accepter la situation avec beaucoup de résignation."

"[Ein] Halbblut... verschaffte mir die Einladung zu dem Haupt- und Staatsessen eines benachbarten Häuptlings. In der Speisekarte lockte mich lediglich ein Gericht, dessen Zubereitung immerhin von einigem Interesse für mich war. Einem fremden Stamme war eine junge Frau abgekauft worden (die Mitglieder des eigenen Stammes verwendet man meines Wissens auch in Neu-Mecklenburg nicht zu Speisezwecken...). Natürlich handelte es sich um Subskriptionsessen, und ich hatte meine Karte ziemlich teuer zu bezahlen. Damen waren nicht zugelassen. Für die besseren Herren, darunter mich, waren besondere Stücke vom Festbraten reserviert. Es wurde ein tiefes Loch gegraben und mit glühend heißen Steinen ausgelegt. Gewisse Weichteile des Körpers wickelte man zusammen mit wilder Brotfrucht sorgfältig in Bananenblätter ein, legte das Paket in den Ofen, deckte mehrere heiße Steine darauf und füllte das Loch wieder mit Erde an. Nach ungefähr vierundzwanzig Stunden hieß es: Messieurs sont servis! Wie gesagt, ich heizte zur Beruhigung meines Magens bedeutend mit Kognak ein. Aber als der Leckerbissen auf die Eßmatte kam, in Aussehen und Konsistenz etwa einer Gänseleberpastete ähnlich, überkam mich dennoch die Übelkeit, und ich mußte mich schleunigst entfernen, sehr zum Entsetzen meines einführenden Freundes.... Der Plebs röstete sich die anderen Teile, roh tranchiert, einfach auf offenem Feuer. Doch dieser Anblick, so schrecklich er auch sein mochte, schien mir geradezu erfrischend im Vergleich zu dem raffinierten Aroma jener Delikatesse aus dem Backofen. Die Nerven der Nase sind doch die zartesten.... Eigentlich ist das Unsinn. Denn mit dem Prinzip, nie die eigenen Verwandten aufzuessen, hat man doch alle seine ethischen und ästhetischen Verpflichtungen erfüllt."

"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."

"I was shown a part of a beach on the Chatham Islands on which the bodies of eighty Moriori women were laid side by side, each with an impaling stake driven into the abdomen. It is difficult for one not accustomed to savage warfare to note how shockingly callous and heartless this desecration of the human body made the actors in these terrible scenes."

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

"This village (Kuras) is the place where they were cooking a man a few yards distant from the place where I was sitting on my first visit here."

"Mr. Gillan, the missionary at Uripiv, told me that he knew of a vendetta between two villages which had been closed, not as is usual by the payment of pigs, but by the sending of a small boy as sacrifice; and who, he concluded, was afterwards eaten."

"On Thursday, 6th August, 1872, anchored in Makira Bay.... With Mr. Perry, a resident of Makira, and Wapenoco, the chief of the Makira tribe, and four South Sea islanders as a boat's crew, I went out to shoot rabbits at an island not far from the harbour. In leaving the bay we met with several large war-canoes, and pulling alongside one of them, found it to contain a dead body, dressed and cooked whole. Perry took it quite coolly, as an every-day occurrence; and at seeing me greatly horrified, and my boat's crew with their stomachs turned, said that he had seen as many as twenty bodies lying on the beach, dressed and cooked. Those in the war-canoe had two prisoners with them in it – a boy about 14, and a girl 13 years of age. Intending to save their lives, I offered to buy them, but without avail. The blacks went to Makira, sold half of the body there, and the remainder to another tribe, and sold both the prisoners. In the course of time I came across two houses, in which were kept the skulls of those they had eaten. I saw a considerable number of them."

"It will give some idea of the state of these people if I give a story which was told me on April 3 in the most matter-of-fact way, as though it was something of quite ordinary occurrence. It was reported without any feeling of reprobation on the part of my informant. He said that some time ago a poor man drifted to this island in a canoe. The chief saw him outside, and went off and rescued him. He was in a very deplorable state from starvation and exposure; but the chief took him to his home, gave him food, and, some time afterwards, when he was recovered, took him to the place where the dances were usually held, and where one was being carried on at the time. As the people were dancing the poor castaway asked one of them, "Why is this dancing? Is there some pig to be eaten?" "Oh no," they replied, "there is no pig, but we are going to eat you after the dance." And they did so that same day!"

"When Great Britain was first visited by the Phoenicians, the inhabitants were painted savages, much less civilized than those of Tongataboo, or Ota-heite; and it is not impossible, but that our late voyages may, in process of time, spread the blessings of civilization amongst the numerous islanders of the South Pacific Ocean, and be the means of abolishing their abominable repasts, and almost equally abominable sacrifices."

"Early on Sunday morning the cooked human flesh was carried past the Mission house in a canoe.... Truly the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty."

"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."

"1611. People are selling their daughters and sons, and eating their wives and children. When driven towards dangers, what choices do they have?"

"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."

"1622. When all the chaffs, kernels, grass, wood and wasted leather were eaten up, they ate the flesh of the dead. Later on, people were eaten alive. In the end, relatives ate each other. The troops of Yanfang and Yunqing openly butchered and sold people in a market where one jin of flesh could be exchanged for one liang of silver."

"They have shambles for human flesh as we have of animals, even eating the enemies they have killed in battle, and selling their slaves if they can get a good price for them; if not, they give them to the butcher, who cuts them in pieces, and then sells them to be roasted or boiled. It is a remarkable fact in the history of this people, that any who are tired of life, or wish to prove themselves brave and courageous, esteem it great honor to expose themselves to death by an act which shall show their contempt for life. Thus they offer themselves for slaughter, and as the faithful vassals of princes, wishing to do them service, not only give themselves to be eaten, but their slaves also, when fattened, are killed and eaten. It is true many nations eat human flesh, as in the East Indies, Brazil, and elsewhere, but to devour the flesh of their own enemies, friends, subjects, and even relations, is a thing without example, except amongst the Anzichi tribes."

"A group of these Blacks who eat the sons of Adam came to the Sultan Mansā Sulaimān with their amir. It is their custom to put in their ears big pendants, the opening of each pendant being half a span across. They wrap themselves in silk and in their country is a gold mine. The Sultan treated them with honour and gave them in hospitality a slave woman, whom they killed and ate. They smeared their faces and hands with her blood and came to the Sultan to thank him. I was told that this is their custom whenever they come on an embassy to him. It was reported of them that they used to say that the best parts of the flesh of human females were the palm of the hand and the breast."

"Both he and many of Ibrahim's party had been frequent witnesses to acts of cannibalism, during their residence among the Makkarikas. They described these cannibals as remarkably good people, but possessing a peculiar taste for dogs and human flesh. They accompanied the trading party in their razzias, and invariably ate the bodies of the slain. The traders complained that they were bad associates, as they insisted upon killing and eating the children which the party wished to secure as slaves: their custom was to catch a child by its ankles, and to dash its head against the ground; thus killed, they opened the abdomen, extracted the stomach and intestines, and tying the two ankles to the neck they carried the body by slinging it over the shoulder, and thus returned to camp, where they divided it by quartering, and boiled it in a large pot. Another man in my own service had been a witness to a horrible act of cannibalism at Gondokoro. The traders had arrived with their ivory from the West, together with a great number of slaves; the porters who carried the ivory being Makkarikas. One of the slave girls attempted to escape, and her proprietor immediately fired at her with his musket, and she fell wounded; the ball had struck her in the side. The girl was remarkably fat, and from the wound, a large lump of yellow fat exuded. No sooner had she fallen, than the Makkarikas rushed upon her in a crowd, and seizing the fat, they tore it from the wound in handfuls, the girl being still alive, while the crowd were quarrelling for the disgusting prize. Others killed her with a lance, and at once divided her by cutting off the head, and splitting the body with their lances, used as knives, cutting longitudinally from between the legs along the spine to the neck. Many slave women and their children who witnessed this scene, rushed panic-stricken from the spot and took refuge in the trees. The Makkarikas seeing them in flight, were excited to give chase, and pulling the children from their refuge among the branches, they killed several, and in a short time a great feast was prepared for the whole party. My man, Mahommed, who was an eye-witness, declared that he could not eat his dinner for three days, so great was his disgust at this horrible feast."

"A merchant friend of mine... had seen five children's heads in a single cauldron, cooked with the choicest spices."

"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.""

"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."

"The people called the Bucoli​ [Boukoloi] began a disturbance in Egypt and under the leader­ship of one Isidorus, a priest, caused the rest of the Egyptians to revolt. At first, arrayed in women's garments, they had deceived the Roman centurion, causing him to believe that they were women of the Bucoli and were going to give him gold as ransom for their husbands, and had then struck down when he approached them. They also sacrificed his companion, and after swearing an oath over his entrails, they devoured them."

"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."

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

"Over the years, the shop transformed, gradually but persistently. First it was the packaged hands that Spanel placed off to the side where they were hidden among the milanesas à la provençale, the cuts of tri-tip and the kidneys. The label read "Special Meat", but on another part of the package, Spanel clarified that it was "Upper Extremity", strategically avoiding the word hand. Then she added packaged feet, which were displayed on a bed of lettuce with the label "Lower Extremity", and later on, a platter with tongues, penises, noses, testicles and a sign that said "Spanel's Delicacies". Before long, people began to ask for front or hind trotters, using the cuts of pork to refer to upper and lower extremities. The industry took this as permission and started to label products with these euphemisms that nullified all horror."

"The smell of barbecue is in the air. They go to the rest area, where the farmhands are roasting a rack of meat on a cross. El Gringo explains to Egmont that they've been preparing it since eight in the morning, "So it melts in your mouth", and that the guys are actually about to eat a kid. "It's the most tender kind of meat, there's only just a little, because a kid doesn't weigh as much as a calf. We're celebrating because one of them became a father", he explains. "Want a sandwich?""

"The Ghoul: (while starting to dismember a man he has just killed) Well, Lucy MacLean, it ain't all canned peaches and marmalade left up here, sweetheart. Sometimes a fella's got to eat a fella. Lucy: You know, my vault has endured hardship, too. In the Great Plague of '77, everyone had to quarantine, they couldn't work the farms together. People starved. My mother included. My dad dropped to 128 pounds, and he still refused to do anything like this. (The Ghoul laughs) What? What's so funny? The Ghoul: Well, there's what people say they did and what they really did. I'll bet your daddy was first in line at the cookout. I bet he had a bib with a drawing of his neighbor's ass on there. Lucy: How do you live like this?! Why keep going?! The Ghoul: Well, one good question deserves another. Why the fuck am I doing all the work? Now come on, vaultie. Ass jerky don't make itself."

"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."

"A slave boy had been [hired] to work on the station of the agent, at Bangala, of the Belgian Trading Company. After a time, he absented himself during working hours, without the permission of the agent, who complained to the boy's master, a small chief in the neighboring village, informating him at the same time that the boy was a lazy fellow and not worth much. A day or two later the chief told the trader, with evident satisfaction, that the boy would not trouble him again, for that he had killed him with a thrust of his spear; and the white man's horror was increased when, on the following day, the chief's son, a youngster of sixteen or seventeen years of age, came swaggering into the station with spear and shield, and nonchalantly remarked that – "That slave boy was very good eating – he was nice and fat.""

"But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten."

"Once she came home troubled: "Bold, they say that northerners here go to restaurants that serve human flesh. 'Two-legged mutton', have you heard that? Different names for old men, women, young girls, children? Are they really such monsters up there?" "I don't think so," Bold said. "I never met any." She was not entirely reassured. She often saw hungry ghosts in her sleep, and they had to come from somewhere. And they sometimes complained to her of having had their bodies eaten. It made sense to her that they might cluster around restaurants in search of some kind of retribution. Bold nodded; it made sense to him too, though it was hard to believe the teeming city harbored practicing cannibals when there was so much other food to be had."

"The boy lay with his head in the man's lap. After a while he said: They're going to kill those people, arent they? Yes. Why do they have to do that? I dont know. Are they going to eat them? I dont know. They're going to eat them, arent they? Yes. And we couldnt help them because then they'd eat us too. Yes. And that's why we couldnt help them. Yes. Okay."

"Nastya was brought to the table toward seven o'clock.... Golden-brown, she was presented on an oval serving dish, clutching at her legs with now blackened fingernails. White rose buds were scattered around her, slices of lemon covered her chest, knees, and shoulders. White river lilies bloomed innocently on her breasts, pubis, and forehead. "That's my daughter!" Sablin stood up, glass in hand. "Tonight's special, ladies and gentlemen!" Everyone applauded."

""Don't dare overcook my daughter!" "I know what I'm doing .... She'll be done in three hours," Savely wiped the sweat from his brow."

"[Nastya's mother] Sablina stood up, walked over to the serving dish, stuck the two-pronged fork into Nastya's left breast, and began to cut into her flesh. Everyone listened carefully. Under a brown, crispy crust flashed white meat and a yellow strip of fat. Her juice flowed freely. Sablina put a slice of breast onto a plate and handed it to her husband. "Please, everyone! Don't be shy!""

"They'd taken everything with them except whatever black thing was skewered over the coals. He was standing there checking the perimeter when the boy turned and buried his face against him. He looked quickly to see what had happened. What is it? he said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I'm sorry, he whispered. I'm sorry."

"My mother-in-law said, The meat boy's blood will be completely drained in about an hour and a half. The second step is to remove the innards while keeping them intact. The third step is to loosen the hair with water heated to 70 degrees... I really don't feel like describing my mother-in-law’s actual cooking lesson, which was boring and nauseating at the same time."

"Five minutes later, two young women in snowy white hospital gowns and square caps carried a naked meat boy into the lecture hall in a specially designed gurney. The women ... set the gurney on the chopping block, then stepped aside, their arms hanging down stiffly. My mother-in-law bent over to inspect the pink meat boy, poked him in the chest with a soft, dainty index finger, and nodded with satisfaction."

"Nastya was left standing naked in the middle of the courtyard. Savely crossed himself, spat into his palms, took hold of the shovel's iron handle, grunted, picked it up, staggered over to the oven, and, almost at a run, pushed Nastya into the oven with a single movement. Her body erupted into orange light. Here we are! It's begun! Nastya managed to think, looking at the slightly sooty ceiling of the new oven. Then she felt the heat. It overwhelmed her like a frightening, red bear and called forth a wild, inhuman scream from her lungs."

""Let Comrade Ding eat something before he takes a rest." "There's still one more important dish!" "Oh", Diamond Jin said thoughtfully. "Then bring it in." A red serving girl removed the cactus plant in the middle of the table. Then two red serving girls entered carrying a large round gilded platter in which sat a golden, incredibly fragrant little boy."

"Mother and father of appetites, I am Sagawa, who'll kiss you, for starters."

"We're gonna be french fries! Human french fries!"

"The harvest had yielded no grain. Gradually, even tree bark and plant stalks had grown scarce. Soon, markets selling human flesh had begun to appear... The two men were tearing off the little girl's clothes... The girl looked like she was somewhere around ten years of age... It soon became evident that most of the customers were interested in the little girl, because many complained that the older woman's flesh was no longer quite so fresh as the girl's... [Stabbed in the chest with a knife, t]he little girl gasped. Her screams gave way to a lingering sigh... He... rapidly sliced apart her body with the help of the cashier before handing the pieces one by one to the people waiting outside the shed... The little girl had already been completely dismembered, and the proprietor was leading the woman from the corner of the shack over to the stump. Not daring to watch any more, Willow turned and made his way down an alley. But he was pursued by the dull sound of the proprietor's ax cutting into the woman's flesh, by the woman's lacerating shriek. He shook uncontrollably, and it was only when he had rushed out of the alley and into another part of town that the sounds began to recede behind him. But, try as he might, he was unable to expel the scene he had just witnessed from his mind."

"The boy sat cross-legged in the middle of the gilded platter, golden brown and oozing sweet-smelling oil, a giddy smile frozen on his face. Lovely, naive. Around him was spread a garland of green vegetable leaves and bright red radish blossoms. The stupefied investigator swallowed back the juices that rumbled up from his stomach as he gawked at the boy. A pair of limpid eyes gazed back at him, steam puffed out of the boy's nostrils, and the lips quivered as if he were about to speak.... The investigator thought he must be dreaming. He opened his eyes to survey the scene; the boy was still sitting cross-legged on the platter. "After you, Comrade Ding, old fellow", Diamond Jin said. "This is a famous dish in these parts", the Party Secretary and Mine Director said. "... It's a dish they won't forget for as long as they live, one that has drawn nothing but praise. We've earned a lot of convertible currency for the nation by serving it to our most honored guests. Such as yourself, sir." ... The boy exuded a powerful, irresistible fragrance."

"The skin on Nastya's neck and shoulders tightened and soon blisters began to flow over her body like drops of water. Nastya wriggled around and, though the chains had less and less of her to hold onto, they still held fast. Her head jerked very slightly, and her face turned into one gigantic, red mouth. A scream tore itself loose from her in an invisible, crimson stream. "You need to poke the coals, Sergei Arkadeyevich ... so that her rind catches ..." Savely licked the sweat from his upper lip."

"A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone."

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. [Slurps]"

"She first stressed that a chef's heart is made of steel and that a chef should never waste emotions. Rather than being human, the babies we are about to slaughter and cook are small animals in human form that are, based upon strict, mutual agreement, produced to meet the special needs of Liquorland's developing economy and prosperity. In essence, they are no different than the platypuses swimming in the tank waiting to be slaughtered."

"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."