72 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
of the dog. Why have we never met anthropophagy among the 
shepherd peoples, among the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, Arabs, 
Mongols, and Tartars? Because milk and the flesh of herds, 
which the dog has given to these people, always preserve them 
from the criminal temptations of hunger. 
It is evident that anthropophagy has sprung from excessive 
hunger combined with the habit of flesh eating. Some day when 
game was scarce and hunger growled in their stomachs, it has 
happened that two hordes of hunters met in the pursuit of the 
same animal, and quarreled. They fought, some were killed, and 
the bodies of the slain naturally replaced, at the hearth of the 
conquerors, the carcasses of the missing game. Then the fury of 
blood-thirsty vengeance mingled with the feast the intoxication of 
victory also ; the fact, consecrated by tradition, became a moral 
custom, and we know how much it costs to root out bad habits. 
The savages of North America never entirely renounced the custom 
of roasting their enemies, until since they have become possess- 
ed of the dog and the horse. And still the famous answer of the 
Indian chief, questioned by M. Humboldt, proves the lively regret 
which the remembrance of their former banquets has left in the 
stomachs of the unfortunate cannibals.^ 
Another proof that it is the absence of the dog, that has betrayed 
the populations of Central America to the demon of anthropophagy 
or cannibalism, is that the horrible custom has never invaded the 
hut of the Esquimaux, who inhabits the northernmost country of the 
ne^' continent — that in which the grip of hunger is roughest, and 
must furnish the madness of the stomach most occasions of mani- 
festing itself. The Esquimaux has enjoyed the assistance of the 
dog from time immemorial ; the Carib never had the good fortune 
to know him. Let us now remark that the same causes have pro- 
duced the same results in both continents — that anthropophagy has 
ceased on the frozen soil of the Laplander, of the Ostiack, of the 
Samoiede, rich with the dog, while it consumed with sanguinary 
* The illustrious traveler asked this Indian chief, one of the chief lieu- 
tenants of the fierce Tecumseh, if he had known in the war of 1816, an 
American officer, whom he named to him. “ Well,” replied the Indian, 
“ I eat some of him.” 
