The
practice, on the other hand, is execrated by the Efiks of Old
Calabar, who punish any attempts of the kind with extreme
severity. During 1862 the slaves of Creek-town attempted it, and
were killed. At Duke-town an Ibo woman also cut up a man, sun-
dried the flesh, and sold it for monkey's meat--she took
sanctuary at the mission house. Yet it is in full vigour amongst
their Ibo neighbours to the north-west, and the Duallas of the
Camarones River also number it amongst their "country customs."
The Mpongwe, as has been said, will not eat a chimpanzee; the Fan
devour their dead enemies.
The Fan character has its ferocious side, or it would not be
African: prisoners are tortured with all the horrible barbarity
of that human wild beast which is happily being extirpated, the
North American Indian; and children may be seen greedily licking
the blood from the ground. It is a curious ethnological study,
this peculiar development of destructiveness in the African
brain. Cruelty seems to be with him a necessary of life, and all
his highest enjoyments are connected with causing pain and
inflicting death.
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