Wambuba Cannibals 



necessity that certain individuals — beloved or useful — should 

 accompany certain persons of importance to that other world 

 when they died, which brings us down to the execrable buriaJ 

 murders of the Congo and their accompanying cannibal 

 orgies. To this can be added yet another factor, in the craving 

 of the semi-human Congo savage (without such a thing as 

 pity in his composition or language) for a change from his 

 insipid vegetable diet and for excitement to break the mono- 

 tony of his forest-hound life, in other words the longing for a 

 " thrill " which besets even ourselves to this day, good and 

 bad alike, and which is in fact at the root of the general 

 interest taken in cannibals and the wish of my friends to 

 hear about them. 



A great deal of interesting information concerning the 

 customs and history of the Congo cannibals is contained in that 

 comprehensive work of Sir H. H. Johnston, entitled " George 

 Grenfell and the Congo," which should be read by all those 

 interested in the development of this amazing country. 

 Here will be found some of the most gruesome accounts of 

 burial murders, ceremonial cannibalism and other diabolical 

 customs, that can well be imagined, written of a time when 

 the natives resembled the worst Carnivora and fought each 

 other for the flesh on their bones. One of these accounts 

 deals with the extraordinary customs and murders attending 

 the death of a Baluba chief, which is so bizarre as to be almost 

 past belief. In these times, now happily passing away, 

 burial murders and cannibal feasts were the order of the day, 

 and no chief of any consequence died without some of his 

 wives, as well as numerous slaves, being slaughtered or 

 strangled and buried with him (in some cases they were 

 buried alive), the ceremonies being concluded by a feast 



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