Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 615 of 777 - First - Home
It Is Known That Cannibalism And The Practice Of Human Sacrifices,
With Which It Is Often Connected, Are Found To
Exist in all parts of
the globe, and among people of very different races;* but what strikes
us more in
The study of history is to see human sacrifices retained in
a state of civilization somewhat advanced; and that the nations who
hold it a point of honour to devour their prisoners are not always the
rudest and most ferocious. (* Some casual instances of children
carried off by the negroes in the island of Cuba have led to the
belief, in the Spanish colonies, that there are tribes of cannibals in
Africa. This opinion, though supported by some travellers, is not
borne out by the researches of Mr. Barrow on the interior of that
country. Superstitious practices may have given rise to imputations
perhaps as unjust as those of which Jewish families were the victims
in the ages of intolerance and persecution.) The painful facts have
not escaped the observation of those missionaries who are sufficiently
enlightened to reflect on the manners of the surrounding tribes. The
Cabres, the Guipunaves, and the Caribs, have always been more powerful
and more civilized than the other hordes of the Orinoco; and yet the
two former are as much addicted to anthropophagy as the latter are
repugnant to it. We must carefully distinguish the different branches
into which the great family of the Caribbee nations is divided. These
branches are as numerous as those of the Mongols, and the western
Tartars, or Turcomans.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 615 of 777
Words from 167087 to 167346
of 211397
