42 ANIMAL FOOD EESOUECES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



Schweinfurth states that cannibalism is practised to some 

 degree among the Niam-niam, and to a still greater ex- 

 tent among the Monbouttons between the 3rd and 4th 

 degrees of N. lat- 



Cannibalism has existed almost universally among- 

 races living in a savage state, sometimes as a means 

 of subsistence, as among the Monbouttons and some 

 other African tribes, where shambles for human flesh are 

 openly kept ; sometimes with the idea of appropriating 

 to themselves the qualities of the deceased* 



Wallace states the Cobeus of South America are 

 cannibals. 



In a history of French Guiana, published by M. Mousie, 

 an account is given of acts of cannibalism committed 

 by a band of escaped convicts in January, 1856, who 

 murdered and ate two of their comrades on the River 

 Lacomte. One, who escaped and reached the fortress,, 

 informed upon the criminals, who were pursued. Of the. 

 band of fourteen, two had been eaten and two had dis- 

 appeared. Three of the principal culprits were hanged, 

 and their accomplices were condemned to various punish- 

 ments. When they were recaptured, the band were in 

 the midst of their hideous feast, having broiled the 

 tongue, the liver, the legs, and flesh of one of. the 

 slain. 



It is not necessary here to enumerate the instances of 

 those who, from shipwreck and starvation, have been 

 driven to feed on their fellow creatures. Of this we 

 have a lamentable instance in the details which have 

 leaked out in America of the survivors of the Greeley 

 Expedition. Although attempts have been made to 

 throw doubts on the statements, the facts and evidence 

 of the exhumed bodies of the dead corroborate the sad 

 story. 



It is unfortunately true that shipwrecked mariners 

 and men in long sieges have been driven to an extremity 

 which even the once cannibal Maoris did not reach, and 



* Topinard's "Anthropology.'' 



