As a Ritualistic Practice.— Cannibalism as a religious institution is one of the most widespread and persistent forms of the practice and it ranges all the way from almost a pass able refinement to the most revolting orgies. The religious purpose is not always the same. In some instances it is due to a desire, as among some Australian tribes, who make a practice of eating their totems, to become identified with the totem or god. In other cases the desire is simply to establish a close bond of friendship between the flesh-eating god and themselves. The peoples who offer human sacrifices to the vd eat of these sacrifices, believing that by so doing they directly and surely become possessed of the divine virtues supposed to proceed from such sacrifices. With the Khonds it was the custom for a girl representing the goddess Tari to be sacrificed and torn limb from limb by the worshippers eager to obtain a piece of the deified victim. Cannibalism as a purely re ligious exercise among people possessing a high degree of culture is best and most notoriously illustrated by the Mexican custom of offering human sacrifices to the god Huitzilopochtli. "The victims were enemies or slaves and were offered before the images of the gods. The priest cut open the breast with an obsidian knife, tore out the heart and offered it to the gods; then he sprinkled his assistant and the offerers with the blood. After this a cannibal feast on the body took place, priest and offerers partaking.) Early writers say these cannibalis tic sacrifices reached yearly into the thousands. To obtain rain from the rain-god Quiateot, children and adults were sacrificed to him and his images were sprinkled with their blood.
As Magic and of the most varied forms of cannibalism is that orig. inating in the belief that by eating human flesh or certain parts of the human body very im portant advantages would be gained. Dead rel atives in some instances are eaten in the belief that the soul of the deceased will thus pass into the eater, and he thereby become possessed of all the desirable qualities of the dead man. In other instances the body of an enemy was eaten because that was the way to destroy the soul and thus put an end to further menace. Landor reports that in Tibet the dead is eaten partly by the Lamas and in part by the relatives, it being believed that the spirit whose flesh has been eaten will always remain friendly. The Boto cudos ate an enemy to render themselves invul nerable against the arrows of the hostile tribe. Among some peoples at the founding of a new town a human victim was slain and the heart and liver eaten by all present so that they might not die within the year. In I Kings xvi, 34, is reflected a survival of a similar custom. The idea that the eating of human flesh endows the eater with distinctly magical or supernatural powers is frequently met with in the savage world. In East Central Africa it is quite gen erally believed that the uncanny powers sup posed to be possessed by witches and wizards are obtained by the feeding of the latter upon human corpses. From this comes, naturally enough, the belief that whoever feeds on human flesh will have the power of witches and wizards.
Not infrequently cannibalism has arisen from an almost uncontrollable passion for re venge, and a savage belief that eating an enemy is the surest way of bringing about his lasting disgrace. The ferocious natives of New Cale
donia do not consider that revenge is complete until they have devoured the slain. The can nibal practices in Samoa seem to have had hatred and revenge as the motive. aI will roast was the greatest insult that could be offered a Samoan. For a long time after the practice was abandoned, captives, in token of submission, would offer burning wood and say •Kill and cook us when it seems good to The Tupis of South America ate their dead enemies, and the children were brought home captive and cared for till the age of 14 when they were slain and eaten. Instances have been met with where the criminal enemies within the tribe are slain and eaten. Where this is the custom it is usually the chief alone who has the privilege of eating the offending tribesmen. In some cases it is not easy to distinguish between this custom and that of mere glut tonous cannibalism. The chief goes so far as to cause a tumult to be raised. As a punishment the offender is slain and the chief invites guests to share in the meal of human flesh. So power ful an incitement to cannibalism is this passion for revenge that quite civilized peoples have been guilty of it.
Other are several other motives leading to cannibalism more or less dis tinct from those mentioned. Among some peo ples the flesh of a fallen enemy was eaten after the fight by both contending parties as a token of entering into a binding' covenant of peace. At the coronation of a king in the Sandwich Islands it was the custom for the new king to swallow the left eye of a human victim that he might thus receive an accession of strength. Among the Indian tribes of the Northwest of America cannibalism took the form of initia tion into certain secret societies—a sort of ritualism. At the beginning of the initiation into the cannibal society the person is supposed to become possessed of the cannibal spirit, and so of a violent desire to eat human flesh. In olden times, when the cannibal was in a state of ecstasy, slaves were killed for him and he devoured them raw. Cannibal practices are of almost infinite variety, and perhaps all, except where human flesh is eaten simply as food, have their root in a superstitious view of life and the world. Naturally the practice has been disap pearing before the progressive enlightenment of the world, and even the tribes who are still guilty of eating human flesh as food are in creasingly ashamed of it, very often carrying on the practice in closely guarded secrecy.
The bibliography of the subject covers a multitude of publications. Articles on an thropology and ethnology in journals devoted to such subjects will yield much information; also the narratives of travel and adventure by well-known explorers of early and later times. A few might be mentioned simply as sugges tions: Weeks, 'Among Congo Cannibals' ; Frazer, J. K., (Totemism and Exogamy); Stan ley, H. M., In Darkest Africa) ; Landor, W. S., 'In the Forbidden Land); Rannie, 'My Ad ventures South Sea ; Dennys, 'Folklore of China.>