Cannibalism in Oceania

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.

"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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[42] According to one scholarly article, Apart from the passing European, however, Maori cannibalism, like its Aztec counterpart, was practised exclusively on traditional enemies – i.e., on members of other tribes and hapuu.

Manawa went to a Ngati Rau burial ground and dug up the corpse of a man who he knew had been recently buried there; he took the body home, cooked and ate it.

[44]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.

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.