CANNIBALISM IN AMERICA. 413 
them, and the companions of Cortez saw large piles of the skulls 
of those who had been sacrificed. On such occasions, after the 
heart had been cut with an obsidian knife from the living victim, 
it was offered to the sun and then to the god; the body was 
thrown down the teocalli and afterwards divided and eaten. The 
native allies of the Spaniards, in the siege of Mexico, ate the 
bodies of their dead enemy.* In the city of Mexico itself, as the 
siege was prolonged and food became scarce, the number of vic- 
tims first sacrificed to propitiate the god of war in hope of relief, 
then served out as food to the starving people, was very large. 
These sacrifices were often made in the sight of the Spaniards, 
who sometimes recognized the lighter skin of their countrymen as 
they wound their way up to the sacrificial stone to be in turn dis- 
tributed as food among the besieged. t 
Of all the American cannibals the Caribs undoubtedly had a 
stronger love for human flesh than any others, and not only ate 
their enemies taken in battle as a matter of revenge as well as 
gratification, but, like the Fijians, even fattened their prisoners for 
` the cook-house that they might make better and more palatable 
food. It was also practised among the Iroquois, Algonquins, 
Mamis and Kickapoos ;§ it existed in Louisiana, || Illinois, and on 
the northwest coast. The most precise narratives we have of this 
Practice are, however, to be found among the ‘relations’ of the 
Jesuits who were often eye-witnesses of the feasts of human flesh 
held by the Iroquois and Algonquin tribes. 
One shudders with horror at the prolonged tortures which pre- 
ceded death and the feast among these savage people. Every 
device cruelty could suggest was practised. Long before death, 
Sometimes days, torture began. Burning brands were applied to 
the naked skin, nails were bitten from the fingers, and flesh from 
the limbs, gashes were cut in the arms and legs and hot brands 
thrust into them; the scalp was stripped from the head and live 
Coals and hot ashes poured upon the bleeding surface. Women 
and children joined in these fiendish atrocities, and when at length 
the victim yielded up his life, his heart, if he were brave, was 
* Ibid., bane » p- 132. 
t Ibid., 
ecade i, ea folio 2, A. 
ss to Ontwa the son of the Forest, a poem by Henry 
822, p 
Father Hennepin, Bac tedlak de la Louisiane, Paris, 1868. pp. 65, 68, 69. 
