

Human Heads among the New Zcalanders. 219 



had sacrificed.' ' I do not,' he further observes, regard 

 this fact as affording any very strong evidence, although 

 I have not the least doubt that the inhabitants of several of 

 the South-Sea Islands have eaten human flesh. From the 

 many favourable traits in their character, we have been un- 

 willing to believe they had ever been cannibals ; the conviction 

 of our mistake has, however, been impressed by evidence so 

 various and multiplied as to preclude uncertainty. Their 

 mythology led them to suppose that the spirits of the dead are 

 eaten by the gods or demons, and that the spiritual part of 

 their sacrifices is eaten by the spirit of the idol before whom 

 it is presented. Birds resorting to the temple were said to feed 

 upon the bodies of the human sacrifices, and it was imagined 

 the god approached the temple in the bird, and thus devoured 

 the victims placed upon the altar. In some of the islands, 

 " man-eater " was an epithet of the principal deities ; and it 

 was probable, in connexion with this, that the king, who often 

 personated the god, appeared to eat the human eye.' Notwith- 

 standing these judicious remarks, the coincidence is very ex- 

 traordinary with the custom of New Zealand, where the eye is 

 actually devoured, and where the natives are well known to be 

 cannibals ; and what further corroborates the supposition that 

 the Tahitans were anciently anthropophagi is, that, as the 

 author before quoted observes, (Polynesian Researches, vol. 

 i., p. 310,) ' the Tahitans were not altogether free from 

 cannibalism ; and occasionally a warrior, out of bravado 

 or revenge, has been known to eat two or three mouthfuls 

 of a vanquished foe, generally the fat from the inner side of 

 the ribs.' From this it would appear, that the exciting 

 cause of- cannibalism is, both with this people and the New 

 Zealanders, revenge : for cannibalism, the New Zealanders 

 informed me, arises from this feeling, not from hunger; and 

 from believing that, by eating of the bodies of the valiant, as 

 all those are considered who die fighting on the field of battle, 

 they become inheritors of their courage and valour. The hor- 

 rible practice of cannibalism having been found existing in the 

 most fertile countries, we must seek for some other motives 

 for the custom than mere hunger ; and the above causes, as 

 asserted by the natives, seem to be the most probable. To 



