AMERICAN CANNIBALS. British Columbia Indians Who indulge in Human Flesh.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 207, 18 June 1887, Page 3

AMERICAN CANNIBALS. British Columbia Indians Who indulge in Human Flesh.

Proki^sor J. Jacoi?si:x, who has been in Biitish Columbia for .some .some years collecting Indian curios for the Hamburg museum, and writing up the habiU, customs, and traditions of the aborigines, arrived down on the Boscowitz irom Bella Coola. The Professor spent all la^t winter at Tucale, the head of the .southernmost of the Bentinck arms, which is distant from Bella Coola about SO miles. Heie lie found the Indian in his piimitive slate, a wild, untutored savage, with but a scant knowledge of the arts or customs of civilisation. The inlet running far inland and being in every way out of the course of traders or prospectois, is never visited, and the Indians say no white men ever went up to the head of it before. They live there as they do in most places around the coast, by hunting and fishing, deer and fur-bear-ing animals abounding in large numbers. They are without missionaries and cannibalism is rampant. The professor tells of some sickening sights which he witnessed there during the past winter, which at this day, one could scarcely belic\ c capable of being witnessed so near home, did the information not come from a reliable person. The custom is still carried out theie of men ambitious for the honours of chieftain betaking themselves to the woods, and after remaining there for some time, coming back possessed of a spirit and biting pieces of flesh from the bodies of those whom they first meet. One who wished to graduate laafc winter went out and remained from sight for several weeks, though he came near the camp occasionally and made night hideous with his yells. When he returned to the tribe he came naked, notwithstanding that it Avas the middle of winter and two or three feet of snow on the ground. The tlrst man he met he seized, knocked down and bit a piece out of his arm, which he chewed ravenously. This was repeated many times over, his "face becoming besmeared with blood and presenting a fiendish appearance. The victims of the would-be chieftains' bites received in return for their pains a small pecuniary compensation and it is an honour to carry the scar. The more scars of this kind decorate an Indian's body the more numerous are his honours, and when he oames to have a great many he becomes a chieftan himself in a tittle way. The biter on one occasion made a break for the professor, who soon gave him to understand that he was going to experience something pretty tough if he tackled him. He was nob further molested.