A Fair Deal for a Cannibal

      Cannibalism! It occurred as an occasional practice is some societies, such as Iroquois of North America and some of the tribes of north Australia, though in neither case was it a regular event. Among the Aztecs of Mexico it was a wholesale practice associated with human sacrifice. However, the areas where it was widespread, often involving raiding or hunting parties descending on neighbouring communities, was the steamy jungle belt of the tropics: the fringes of the Carribean Sea, Melanesia, and the tropical forests of central and west Africa. The following strange custom relates to what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but was then called the Congo Free State - not because there was anything free about it, but because it was not controlled by any European country, but was under the personal rule of King Leopold of Belgium.

     Not everyone who worked for King Leopold was Belgium. Captain Guy Burrows was a senior British administrator in the middle to lower reaches of the Congo River from 1895 to 1901. How much he knew of, or was involved in, the atrocities which marred the history of the Free State we are not told. However, he did get involved with tribes who were cannibals.

      Occasionally I was called upon to decide questions of justice that would puzzle even a Metropolitan magistrate, especially considering the fact that the people who made the complaint had not the remotest idea of the law as laid down by the State. The old chief of the Isanghi one day preferred a curious point to me. The people of Isanghi, the Lokete, are neighbours of the Topoke, and are more or less of the same race, with the exception that he Lokete are a riverside people and the Topoke belong to the interior. They are in constant communication with one another, and are everlastingly at war. There is seldom any cause for the quarrel, but that is a matter of complete indifference to most of the Upper Congo tribes, who look upon warfare as a diversion. One day when I was up in these parts on business affairs this old chief came to me with a complaint. I asked him what was the matter.

      He explained that there had been a fight between his village and one of the Topoke; and that the other side had killed four of his men. "Well," I said, "and how many of theirs did you kill?"

      "Only two," was the reply.

      "And what do you want me to do?" I asked.

      "Want you to make them give me two more."

      "And what do you want them for?" I asked.

      "To eat," was the laconic reply. "Why should they have more people to eat than we have?"

      This was cannibalism with a vengeance! I found out that it was customary among these people not to eat their own side; but to hand the killed over to their opponents, receiving theirs in exchange. The old chief evidently thought that if he could enlist my sympathies on his side I should help him to equalize matters.

        Captain Burrows had to explain to the chief that the administration took a dim view of cannibalism. But he did ask how many people the chief had eaten. He brought out twenty skulls, most of them from the Topoke, about whom he spoke with respectful affection. He also claimed to be able to identify the former owners of the skulls. On further questioning, he explained he would reserve a great enemy for his own repast, and it would take him two days to get through it, but if he invited his wives and children to the feast they would make short work of it.

Reference: Captain Guy Burrows (June 1902), "Life in the Congo Free State. II." The Wide World Magazine 9:162-168 at 168