MIGRATIONS BY LAND. 



295 



to a share in the feast, rushes on him with hatchets and knives, and 

 many with no other instruments than their teeth and nails. He is 

 thus in a few minutes entirely cut or torn to pieces, and I have seen 

 the guests so keen at a repast of this description, as severely to wound 

 each other's hands and fingers. A mixture of lime-juice, salt and 

 chillies, prepared in the shell of a cocoa-nut, is always at hand on 

 these occasions, in which many dip the flesh previous to eating it." 



Q. " Then the prisoner is not previously put to death, but devoured 

 alive and piecemeal?" 



A. " The first wounds he receives, are from the hatchets, knives, 

 and teeth of his assailants, but these are so numerous and simulta- 

 neous, as to cause almost immediate death." 



"The above are the questions and answers, which I put to and re- 

 ceived from the native chief; on which occasion it was remarkable 

 that more than once, when he was proceeding to give the latter, the 

 others altogether and at the same moment joined assent; which leaves 

 little room to doubt, that to most of them at least, such scenes were 

 familiar." 



2. The second instance selected, that of the Wild People of 

 Ceram, is of a widely different character. Society, here appears 

 hardly to exist; but each family, lives in a state of perpetual hostility 

 with all around : 



"Among* these Alforese, (inhabiting the interior of Ceram,) there 

 is another kind of savage people, who do not dwell in any houses 

 or huts, but upon higlKWarinje and other trees, that spread their 

 branches wide around. They lead and intertwine the branches so 

 closely together, that they form an easy resting-place ; and each tree 

 is the habitation of a whole family. They adopt this mode, because 

 they dare not trust even those of their own nation; as they surprise 

 each other during the night, and kill whoever they take hold of" 



3. But I cannot persuade myself, that the first natural impulse of 

 man, is to kill; and in this respect, the third example, that of a 

 Forest Tribe of the Malay Peninsula, especially deserves atten- 

 tion. The following accountf of this so-called ' Original People,' is 

 stated to have been derived, j)artly from the Malays, and partly from 

 people of neighbouring tribes : 



* Rumjihius, MS. ; copied in Stavorinus's Voyages, 

 f From a printed .slicel, obtained at iSingajxjre. 



English edition, 1798. 



