Cannibals in the South Seas
How Cannibalism Was Practised in Sumatra and the Islands
Cannibalism in the South Sea Islands of Indonesia and Malaysia occurred in different areas and for different reasons until the beginning of the twentieth century. For some, the need for protein when food was scarce might have prompted cannibalism on a sporadic or ad hoc basis. However, there were other, more systematic reasons why the practice persisted for so many centuries. Many of these reasons were connected with religion and the spread of terror.
Until the C16th, Chinese travellers and others reported that rulers of states on the southern side of the Straits of Malacca used cannibalism as a specific and unusual type of punishment for criminals who had perpetrated particularly heinous crimes: traitors, spies and deserters; armed enemies caught lurking outside the village; commoners who slept with the wife of a raja. This occurred in Aru, which was a state located on Sumatra and which had a reputation for ‘roasting’ the unfortunate condemned person, who was subsequently given to the common people to eat.
The capture of an enemy could, therefore, become an occasion of great celebration and festival. The word would go out to surrounding villages and mini-states and allies would come pouring in to the successful village ready and eager to participate in the forthcoming excitement. The victim is lashed to a stake and fires prepared. The chief claims the victim is a criminal and is not a human but a ghost in human form and so eligible for this punishment. He then cuts the first piece of flesh from him and drinks the blood before roasting the meat on fire. Then the other festival-goers have their chance to cut off pieces of flesh which they can also roast or, in the case of those consumed with blood lust, raw.
Another reason for cannibalism was linked to the religious practice of Vajrayana (‘Lightning Bolt’) Buddhism. This school of Buddhism, which is also very popular in Tibet, teaches that it is possible to reach enlightenment through a single stroke or lightning bolt by using various chants, magic spells and other actions. These include Tantric activities such as ritual sex and drinking and, when the local people also pay respect to the dark local god Heruka, to human sacrifice as well. In this case, people could be captured for sacrifice and consumption as part of a religious ritual. This practice seems to have made the kings who wished to import them became very unpopular, perhaps understandably, and so while it continued until the beginning of the twentieth century in parts of Sumatra, for example, it did so in a mostly secretive and degenerate state.
References and Further Reading
Munoz, Paul Michel, Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet Pte. Ltd., 2006).
John Walsh, Shinawatra University, April 2007
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