516
noyembei. children as a very delicious food; and the geflures of the
New Zeelanders indicated exatRly the fame thing. An old
woman in the province of Matogroffo-, in Brafd, declared to
the Portuguefe governor *, that {he had eaten human fleffi
feveral times, liked it very much, and (hould be very glad
to feafl "upon it again, efpecially i f it was part of a little
boy. But it would be abfurd to fuppofe from fuch circum-
ftances, that killing men for the fake of feafting upon them-,
has ever been the fpirit of a whole nation ? becaufe it is
utterly incompatible with the exiftence of fociety. Slight
caufes have ever produced the mo ft remarkable events
among mankind, and the mod trifling quarrels have fired
their minds with incredible inveteracy againfl each other.
Revenge has always been a ftrong paffion among barbarians,
who are lefs fubjeft to the fway of reafon than civilized people,
and has ftimulated them to a degree of madnefs which
is capable of all kinds o f exceffes. The people who firft
confumed the body of their enemies, feem to have been
bent upon exterminating their very inanimate remains, from
an excefs of, paffion; but, by degrees, finding the meat
wholefome and palatable, it is not to be wondered that
they fhould make a practice of eating their enemies as often
as they killed any, fince the action of eating human fleffi,
whatever our education may teach us to the contrary, is
* M. de Pinto, now ambafTador from Portugal at the Britilh court; a nobleman
equally eminent for his extenfive knowledge and his excellent heart..
certainly
certainly neither unnatural nor criminal in itfelf. It can
only become dangerous as far as it .Heels the mind againft
that compaffionate fellow-feeling which is the great bafis of
civil fopiety ; and for this reafon we find it naturally ba-
niffied from every people as foon as civilization has made
any progrefs among them. But though we are too much
polilhed to be canibals, we do not find it unnaturally and
favagely cruel to take the field, and to cut one another’s
throats by tlioufands, without a Angle motive,, befides the
ambition of a prince, or the caprice of his miftrefs! Is it
not from prejudice that we are difgufted with the idea of
eating a dead man, when we feel no remorfe in depriving
him of life > If the praftice of eating human fleffi makes
men unfeeling and brutal, we have inftances that civilized
people, who would perhaps, like fome of our failors, have
turned lick at the thought of eating human fleffi, have
committed barbarities without example amongft canibals.
A New Zeelander, who kills and eats his enemy, is a very
different being from an European, who, for his amufe-
ment, tears an infant from the mother’s breaft, in cool
blood, and throws it on the earth to feed his hounds *
Neque hie lupis mos nee fuit leonibus..
Nunquam nifi in cfifpar feris. Hok.
The New Zeelanders never eat their adverfaries, unlefs
they are killed in battle; they never kill their relations for
* Biihop Las Cafas fays, he bas feeh this atrocious, crime committed in.
America by Spanifh foldiers.
The