13 



]y manner, broken into many .f, ajments, and often some important portions were 

 missing, as the head, at one of the mounds near Blue Spring, the hones of 

 an arm and leg at another, and in other mounds a still larger number of hones. 

 The fractures, as well as the disorder in which the hones were found, evidently 

 existed at the time they were covered up, as is shown by the condition of the 

 broken ends, which had the same discoloration as the natural surfaces. 



2. — The bones were broken, as in the case of those of edible animals, as the 

 deer, alligator, etc. Tbis would be necessary to reduce the parts to a size 

 corresponding with the vessels in which they were cocked, or suitable for roast- 

 ing, or even for eating raw. 



3. — The breaking up of the bones had a certain amount of method ; the heads 

 of the humerus and femur were detached, as if to avoid the trouble, or from 

 ignorance as to the way of disarticulating the joints. The shafts of these hones, 

 as also tbose of the fore arm and leg, were regularhy broken through the mid- 

 dle. The olecranon process of (he ulna was in some cases detached in the same 

 manner as the corresnonding part of the deer.'' 



Had this description referred especially to (lie Omori Mounds, there could not 

 have been a more perfect accordance with the facts as they stand. 



The evidence of cannibalism in the New England and Florida heaps was to 

 have been expected, as history shows us that many tribes of North American 

 Indians were eaters of human flesh, aud tribes exist to-day, both in North and 

 South America, who retain the habit. The evidence of cannibalism in Japan, 

 however, has a different significance, because the minute and painstaking 

 chronicles of her historians, running back with considerable accuracy for fifteen 

 hundred years or more, give no trace of so monstrous a practice. Not only 

 were the Japanese not cannibals, but there is no account of the tribes they 

 encountered being addicted to tastes of this character, and so remarkable a trait 

 would have found some acknowledgment in their records. The early historians 

 speak of the Ainos as being of so mild and gentle a disposition that the art of 

 murder was unknown among them. The failure of an adequate supply of fowl 

 invariably drives even the highest of civilized races to this extremity, but n«j 

 such necessity forced the people of the Omori period to so shocking an alter- 

 native. In this connection it would be interesting to know whether there are 

 any records of the Japanese having been compelled Ity great exigency to subsist 

 upon human flesh. There are many accounts of drifting Japanese junks given 

 by Mr. Charles Walcott Brooks in the proceedings of tin California Academy 

 of Sciences. In these instances the survivors had prepared for burial those of 

 their number who had perished from exposure and starvation. 



The following is a list of the human bones thus far met with in the Omori 

 Mounds : — 

 Itight humerus ; leuth of fragme it, 195 mm.; proximal end gone. 



