592 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF GUIANA INDIANS [ETH. ANN. 38 
near 200 of them whom we have seen, they are an honest, affable, pleas- 
ant people, and are very attentive and ready to receive what is said to 
them. It is true they not long since exterminated a small nation and 
ate several of them, but I attribute this barbarity to the ill custom of 
the country rather than to the disposition of the people (GB, 26). 
Whether the human flesh was that of Redskin, Negro, or European 
seems to have made no difference to the palate of the Carib, who, cer- 
tainly during the revolt of the slaves in Berbice, ate the bodies of 
those Negroes whom they killed (BA, 259; St, m, 193). In Cayenne 
there is an old account of their having killed and eaten three English- 
men (GB, 19). The Surinam Carib similarly showed no quarter for 
those of their enemies that fell into their hands. They only reserved 
the women and children, whom they sold as slaves to the Europeans. 
They buccaned and ate like wild beasts the bodies of their enemies 
(FE, 54). “On the upper Pomeroon the Carib chief told me,” says 
Schomburgk, “that their ancestors usually brought home after a 
victorious combat an arm or leg of the slaughtered enemy as a trophy, 
which would then be cooked, so that the flesh could the more easily be 
removed from the bones, which were then made into flutes to be used 
as instruments on the next military expedition. Such flutes, made of 
men’s bones, are still very common in the Carib settlements. At the 
big feasts which were celebrated immediately upon their return after 
a victory, these trophies played the chief role, and it was open to 
anyone to taste the cooked flesh; but in order to strengthen their 
courage and contempt for death—a characteristic which was ascribed 
to this expedient—they cut out the heart of the person slain, dried it 
over the fire, powdered it, and mixed the powder in their drink (SR, 
u, 480). In British Guiana, the Arekuna, of Carib stock, were 
said in Brett’s time to be no longer cannibals (Br, 278), but their 
anthropophagous propensities had been noted by Monteiro and Ri- 
beiro (SR, u, 208). The Kirishana and Maracana were also said to 
be cannibals (Cou, 1, 395). 
771. “ When the islanders [| Arawak] of Borinquen (—Puerto Rico) 
are attacked,” says Chanca, “if by chance they succeed in taking 
prisoners some of the invaders [Carib], they eat them up in like 
manner as the Caribbees themselves do” (DAC, 445). Again, the 
Indian [Arawak] of Haiti (Santo Domingo) would think himself 
wanting in regard to the memory of a relation if he did not throw 
into his drink a small portion of the body of the deceased, after 
having dried it like one of the mummies of the Guanches and reduced 
it to powder (AVH, 1, 354). So, on the mainland the Caberre of 
the Orinoco, also of Arawak stock, were undoubtedly cannibals. 
Gumilla describes these folk as rich in villages and population, and 
brave, so much so that the Carib fleets have always come out worse. 
