46 ANIMAL FOOD EESOUECES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



women have thus been carried off. The chief of the 

 fishermen whose duty it is to procure the supply, is, 

 when a remonstrance is made, subjected to a public re- 

 proof, until he apparently conciliates, after a feigned dis- 

 grace, by an apology and present of whales' teeth, the 

 favour of the reigning chief, whose object of entertaining 

 his visitors properly is thus gained without the sacri- 

 fice of his popularity with his neighbours. It has been 

 even asserted, that the Feejeeans do not object to banquet 

 on the flesh of their dearest friends, and also that, in 

 times of scarcity, families will make an exchange of 

 children for this horrid purpose. This assertion I have 

 heard contradicted, but it admits of no denial that 

 children have been offered by the people of their own 

 tribe to propitiate a powerful chief, and more than one 

 white man has seen the canoe of Tanoa, after a con- 

 descending visit to Ovula, returning to Bau with the 

 bodies of infants, offerings from the people of Levuka, 

 ostentatiously hanging at the yard-arms." 



Dr. Harvey, in a letter to Mr. N. B. Ward, says that 

 " a large number of the inhabitants of the Feejee Islands 

 are savages of the worst character. They are cannibals to 

 a fearful extent ; habitually feeding on human flesh, not 

 from revenge or from necessity, but because they prefer it 

 to other food. They eat their enemies or prisoners when 

 they can ; but if unsuccessful in catching these, their law- 

 ful prey, they will cook their own wives or children. 



" Not long ago, a case occurred at Feejee, when a wretch 

 ordered his wife to heat the oven, and wheri she had 

 heated it, she asked him, ' Where is the food ? ' ' You 

 are the food!' was the savage reply, as he instantly 

 clubbed her, and then cooked her for himself and party ! 



" The captain of our vessel tells me that when he was 

 in Feejee, in 1847, he saw a hundred human bodies laid 

 out at one time ready for cooking at a great feast. 

 Sometimes they cook a man whole (which they call a 

 " long pig "), then put him in a sitting posture, with a 

 fan in his hand, and ornamented as if alive, and thus they 

 carry him in state, as a grand head-dish for a feast. 



