Note 11 — WILLIAM ENDICOTT’S NARRATIVE

Cannibalism was not practised exclusively on those killed in war. It was tabu or forbidden to the lower classes and they were most frequently the victims. Sometimes if a chief wanted a body for a feast he would send one of his dependents out to waylay a man of the lower classes. He would approach his unsuspecting victim from behind and strike him on the head with a club before he was aware that anything was to happen. Persons dying a natural death were never eaten but those shipwrecked were rescued only that they might be eaten. Neither sex nor age was a deterrent. One chief was so fond of human flesh that he boasted that he never passed a person that he did not wonder how they would taste. The method of cooking bodies was either by baking, in a manner similar to that practised in New Zealand (see note, page 16), or by boiling. The body was rarely baked whole but was dismembered and the trunk cast aside unless the supply was very short.