Cannibalism in Oceania

Cannibalism in Oceania is well documented for many parts of this region, with reports ranging from the early modern period to, in a few cases, the 21st century. Some archaeological evidence has also been found. Human cannibalism in Melanesia and Polynesia was primarily associated with war, with victors eating the vanquished, while in Australia it was often a contingency for hardship to avoid starvation.

Cannibalism used to be widespread in parts of Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"),^[1] among the Māori people of New Zealand, and in the Marquesas Islands.^[2] It was also practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands, and human flesh was sold at markets in some Melanesian islands.^[3] Cannibalism was still practised in Papua New Guinea as of 2012, for cultural reasons.^[4][5]

While it is generally accepted that some forms of cannibalism were practised in Australia in certain circumstances, the prevalence and meaning of such acts in pre-colonial Aboriginal societies are disputed.^[6] Before colonization, Aboriginal Australians were predominantly nomadic hunter-gatherers at times lacking in protein sources. Reported cases of cannibalism include killing and eating small children (infanticide was widely practised as a means of population control and because mothers had trouble carrying two young children not yet able to walk)^[7][8][9] and enemy warriors slain in battle.^[10][11][12]

In the late 1920s, the anthropologist Géza Róheim heard from Aboriginals that infanticidal cannibalism had been practised especially during droughts. "Years ago it had been custom for every second child to be eaten" – the baby was roasted and consumed not only by the mother, but also by the older siblings, who benefited from this meat during times of food scarcity. One woman told him that her little sister had been roasted, but denied having eaten of her. Another "admitted having killed and eaten her small daughter", and several other people he talked to remembered having "eaten one of their brothers".^[13] The consumption of infants took two different forms, depending on where it was practised:

When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure.^[14]

Usually only babies who had not yet received a name (which happened around the first birthday) were consumed, but in times of severe hunger, older children (up to four years or so) could be killed and eaten too, though people tended to have bad feelings about this. Babies were killed by their mother, while a bigger child "would be killed by the father by being beaten on the head".^[15] But cases of women killing older children are on record too. In 1904 a parish priest in Broome, Western Australia, stated that infanticide was very common, including one case where a four-year-old was "killed and eaten by its mother", who later became a Christian.^[16]

The journalist and anthropologist Daisy Bates, who spent a long time among Aboriginals and was well acquainted with their customs, knew an Aboriginal woman who one day left her village to give birth a mile away, taking only her daughter with her. She then "killed and ate the baby, sharing the food with the little daughter." After her return, Bates found the place and saw "the ashes of a fire" with the baby's "broken skull, and one or two charred bones" in them.^[17] She states that "baby cannibalism was rife among these central-western peoples, as it is west of the border in Central Australia."^[18]

The Norwegian ethnographer Carl Sofus Lumholtz confirms that infants were commonly killed and eaten especially in times of food scarcity. He notes that people spoke of such acts "as an everyday occurrence, and not at all as anything remarkable."^[19]

Some have interpreted the consumption of infants as a religious practice: "In parts of New South Wales ..., it was customary long ago for the first-born of every lubra [Aboriginal woman] to be eaten by the tribe, as part of a religious ceremony."^[20] However, there seems to be no direct evidence that such acts actually had a religious meaning, and the Australian anthropologist Alfred William Howitt rejects the idea that the eaten were human sacrifices as "absolutely without foundation", arguing that religious sacrifices of any kind were unknown in Australia.^[21]

Another frequently reported practise was funerary endocannibalism, the cooking and consumption of the deceased as a funerary rite.^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

When anyone dies, provided he or she be not too old, certain of the male relatives take the body out into the bush and cook it in a native oven.... When all the flesh is removed – apparently everything is eaten – the bones are collected, and, with the exception of the long ones from the arm, are wrapped in paperbark and handed over to the custody of a relative.^[24]

According to Bates, exocannibalism was also practised in many regions. Foreigners and members of different ethnic groups were hunted and eaten much like animals. She met "fine sturdy fellows" who "frankly admitted the hunting and sharing of kangaroo and human meat as frequently as that of kangaroo and emu." The bodies of the killed were roasted whole in "a deep hole in the sand". There were also "killing vendettas", in which a hostile settlement was attacked and as many persons as possible killed, whose flesh was then shared according to well-defined rules: "The older men ate the soft and virile parts, and the brain; swift runners were given the thighs; hands, arms or shoulders went to the best spear-throwers, and so on." Referring to the coast of the Great Australian Bight, Bates writes: "Cannibalism had been rife for centuries in these regions and for a thousand miles north and east of them." Human flesh was not eaten for spiritual reasons and not only due to hunger; rather it was considered a "favourite food".^[27]

Lumholtz similarly notes that "the greatest delicacy known to the Australian native is human flesh", even adding that the "appetite for human flesh" was the primary motive for killing. Unrelated individuals and isolated families were attacked just to be eaten and any stranger was at risk of being "pursued like a wild beast and slain and eaten".^[28] Acquiring human flesh is this manner was something to be proud of, not a reason for shame.^[29] He stresses that such flesh was nevertheless by no means a "daily food", since opportunities to capture victims were relatively rare.^[30] One specific instance of kidnapping for cannibal purposes was recorded in the 1840s by the English immigrant George French Angas, who stated that several children were kidnapped, butchered, and eaten near Lake Alexandrina in South Australia shortly before he arrived there.^[31]

In parts of Melanesia, cannibalism was still practised in the early 20th century, for a variety of reasons – including retaliation, to insult an enemy people, or to absorb the dead person's qualities.^[32]

As in some other New Guinean societies, the Urapmin people engaged in cannibalism in war. Notably, the Urapmin also had a system of food taboos wherein dogs could not be eaten and they had to be kept from breathing on food, unlike humans who could be eaten and with whom food could be shared.^[33]

The Korowai tribe of south-eastern Papua could be one of the last surviving tribes in the world engaging in cannibalism.^[5]

A local cannibal cult killed and ate victims as late as 2012.^[4]

One tribal chief, Ratu Udre Udre in Rakiraki, Fiji, is said to have consumed 872 people and to have made a pile of stones to record his achievement.^[34][35] Fiji was nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles" by European sailors, who avoided disembarking there.

The first encounter between Europeans and Māori may have involved cannibalism of a Dutch sailor.^[36] In June 1772, the French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and 26 members of his crew were killed and eaten in the Bay of Islands.^[37] In an 1809 incident known as the Boyd massacre, about 66 passengers and crew of the Boyd were killed and eaten in Whangaroa, Northland.

Cannibalism was a regular practice in Māori wars.^[38] In one instance, on 11 July 1821, warriors from the Ngāpuhi tribe killed 2,000 enemies and remained on the battlefield "eating the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of decaying bodies".^[39] Māori warriors fighting the New Zealand government in Tītokowaru's War on the North Island in 1868–1869 revived ancient rites of cannibalism as part of a radical interpretation of the Pai Mārire religion.^[40]

According to the historian Paul Moon, enemies were eaten out of rage and in order to humiliate them. Moon has criticized other historians for ignoring Māori cannibalism or even claiming that it never happened, despite an "overwhelming" amount of evidence to the contrary. Margaret Mutu, professor of Māori studies at the University of Auckland, agrees that "cannibalism was widespread throughout New Zealand" and that "it was part of our [Māori] culture", but warns that it can be hard for non-Māori to correctly understand and interpret such customs due to a lack of contextual knowledge.^[41]

The dense population of the Marquesas Islands, in what is now French Polynesia, was concentrated in narrow valleys, and consisted of warring tribes, who sometimes practised cannibalism on their enemies. Human flesh was called "long pig".^[42][43] Historian William Rubinstein wrote:

It was considered a great triumph among the Marquesans to eat the body of a dead man. They treated their captives with great cruelty. They broke their legs to prevent them from attempting to escape before being eaten, but kept them alive so that they could brood over their impending fate.... With this tribe, as with many others, the bodies of women were in great demand.^[44]

• Alexander Pearce, Irish criminal who confessed to practising cannibalism while on the run in Australia
• Asmat people, a Papuan group with a reputation of cannibalism
• Cannibalism in Africa
• Cannibalism in Asia
• Cannibalism in Europe
• Cannibalism in the Americas
• Child cannibalism
• List of incidents of cannibalism