A joint of "black
brother" is never seen in the villages: "smoked human flesh" does
not hang from the rafters, and the leather knife-sheaths are of
wild cow; tanned man's skin suggests only the tannerie de Meudon,
an advanced "institution." Yet Dr. Schweinfurth's valuable
travels on the Western Nile prove that public anthropophagy can
co-exist with a considerable amount of comfort and, so to speak,
civilization--witness the Nyam-Nyam and Mombattu (Mimbuttoo). The
sick and the dead are uneaten by the Fan, and the people shouted
with laughter when I asked a certain question.
The "unnatural" practice, which, by the by, has at different ages
extended over the whole world, now continues to be most prevalent
in places where, as in New Zealand, animal food is wanting; and
everywhere pork readily takes the place of "long pig." The damp
and depressing atmosphere of equatorial Africa renders the
stimulus of flesh diet necessary. The Isangu, or Ingwanba, the
craving felt after a short abstinence from animal food, does not
spare the white traveller more than it does his dark guides; and,
though the moral courage of the former may resist the
"gastronomic practice" of breaking fast upon a fat young slave,
one does not expect so much from the untutored appetite of the
noble savage.
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