mournful cry through the deserted coasts. I rambled over the scenes of many
savage deeds.”
Cannibalism, or to use the scientific term, anthropophagy, has its origin in
different causes, and assumes different forms. Among some of the savage
peoples it is, as among the Maories, simply the expression of a sanguinary
instinct, of an atrocious sentiment of revenge. Among others it originates in a
chronic condition of misery and famine. Yet, again, it is sometimes connected
with the custom of human sacrifices, as among the Aztecs, and those who
practise it come to esteem it a sacred duty, pleasing to their deities, or even to the
manes of their hapless victims.
Unknown among the simple Eskimos, and, indeed, among all the hyperborean
races, anthropophagy prevails with more or less intensity among peoples which
have attained a rudimentary civilization.
Let us take, for example, the Khonds of Orissa, who keep up a system of human
sacrifice, absolutely elaborate in its details. Its primary condition is that the
victim, or Meriah, should be bought. Even if taken in war, he must be sold and
purchased before the priest will accept him. No distinction is made as to age or
sex; but the efficiency of the victim seems to depend on the sum he costs, and
therefore the healthy are preferred to the feeble, and adults to children. The
number consumed in a twelvemonth must be very considerable; as the Khonds
do not believe in the success of any undertaking, or in the promise of their fields,
unless a Meriah is first offered.
The victims are kindly treated during the period of their captivity, which is
sometimes of considerable duration. In truth, a Meriah or dedicated maiden is
sometimes allowed to marry a Khond, and to live until she has become twice or
thrice a mother. Her children as well as herself are destined to the sacrificial
altar; but must never be slain in the village in which they are born. To overcome
this difficulty, one village exchanges its Meriah children with another.
There are various modes of accomplishing the sacrifice. In Goomten the offering
is made to the Earth-god, Tado Pumor, who is represented by the emblem of a
peacock. For a month previous to the day of doom, the people maintain an
almost continuous revel, feasting and dancing round the Meriah, who seems to