CANNIBAILISM ON THE CONGO.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5183, 16 November 1895, Page 3

CANNIBAILISM ON THE CONGO.

lteeont occurrences, and especially the summary execution of the English trader Stokes, have drawn attention to tho Congo territory in Central Africa. During tho sitting ! of the British Association a few weeks ago, an interesting paper was road in tho Anthropological section by Captain S. L. Hindu. We learn that Captain Hindo was an officer in Baron Dhania's force on the Congo, and his paper gave a description of the habits and customsof the natives of that watershed. Almost all the races in tho Congo basin, he said, practise cannibalism, and in many districts slaves are fed and kept and sold as an article of food. On the Lomani River no gray hairs are to he seen, because the adults wero euten when thoy began to show signs of decrepitude. In enlarging upon his personal , experiences, Captain Hinde gave some gruesome details. Oneofthem was the story of a native soldier on , sentry who shot his own father, and not being able to take part in the eating of him, handed the hodj T over to : some friends for a cannibalistic feast. In the course of the discusi aion that followed the reading of the paper, Mr M. L. Rouse bore testi- ; mony to the humanising results of missionary enterprise. In one . region of Africa, it was customary i to sacrifice children with the dead, i When tho Natives were instructed i that these children would ho raised up in judgment against thorn, tho , sacrifices ceased. Mr Davis, an exj official in British Guiana, said that j tho French, with their accustomed vanity, when speaking of the Carte, alleged that those savages had dis- | discovered that of all Europeans, Frenchman had the best flavour. That is a decidedly queer ground for vanity. More coinmendablo from tho British point of view is the spirit ( of contrariness shown in the reported remark of a missionary, tliathe hoped he would disagree with the cannibal [ who ato him l—Lijllclton Times.