CANNIBALISM IN THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 81, 25 September 1878, Page 3

CANNIBALISM IN THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO.

Of the habits and cannibalistic propensities of the Battak country, the 'Sumatra Courant' gives the folio mug account :—The Battacks are a peculiar people. They have a literature and poetry of their own. They have laws dating from hoary antiquity, and from respect for them they are cannibals. By virtue of ancestral institutions there are 'eaten alive —lst, all who do not keep marriage sacred, and who break their marriage vows ; 2nd, everyone who commits theft by night ; 3rd, prisoners of war; 4th, everyone who takes a wife from the same tribe, which is strictly forbidden ; "and sth, everyone who treacherously at- '■ tacks a village, a house, or anyone. Whoever is charged with any of these five 'crimes is brought before a court of justice, and condemned to death if found guilty by the latter. When sentence has been passed the judges drink, to show that Revocation can no longer take place. After a few days the people assemble, the convict is brought out, and is bound with outstretched arms to a kind of gallows. The injured person fcthen steps forward, •and makes a choice for the first mouthful, usually the ears. Thereupon others follow according to their rank, and cut off themselves from the living body the pieces consider as the most tasty. After everyone has taken his share, the president of the assembly steps forward to the victim, cuts off his head, takes it home, and hangs it up before his house. This president, or other wise the injured person, has a claim to the brains, to which miraculous powers are ascribed by the Battacks, and which "they carefully preserve in a bottle. The entrails are never eaten, but the heart, the inner portion of the hands and the sole* of the feet pass for choice delicacies. The flesh of the convicts they consume either raw or roasted, but always at the place of execution, for which reason •those present always have with them limes and pepper to.make the flesh more tasty. Sometimes rice serves as accompaniment. These meals are feasts, at which, however, palm wine or any other spirituous wine is never drunk. The blood is caught in bamboo tubes to be drunk afterwards. At the execution only men may be present, the women being whollv denied the privilege of eating human flesh. They nevertheless succeed sometimes in secreily obtaining that choice article of food. Formerly the Battaks ate also their parents. When the old people became weak and weary of life they calmly went to a tree and hung up by their hands from a branch, while ? their children and neighbours danced sound them singing " When the fruit is ripe it will fall-" As soon as the tired old person felt he had no longer strength to hold on to the branch he let it go and fell to the ground. Immediately all those present fell upon him, cut him to pieces, and consumed his flesh with intense pleasure. The taste for human flesh has not departed from the Battaks, for lately fourteen Achinese and two persons from Singkei were heartily eaten alive by them in the manner described above—a fact which the Government j.. snust be aware of.