Posted on 08/16/2007 2:12:55 PM PDT by blam
Cannibal tribe apologises for eating Methodists
By Nick Squires in Sydney
Last Updated: 3:29pm BST 16/08/2007
A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologised for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a doughty British clergyman.
Sorcery and witchcraft are still common in some Papuan tribes
The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytising mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878.
They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief, Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten.
The Fijians - a minister and three teachers - were under the leadership of the Reverend George Brown, an adventurous Wesleyan missionary who was born in Durham but spent most of his life spreading the word of God in the South Seas.
Thousands of villagers attended a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul, the capital of East New Britain province, once notorious for the ferocity of its cannibals.
Their leaders apologised for their forefather's taste for human flesh to Fiji's high commissioner to Papua New Guinea.
"We at this juncture are deeply touched and wish you the greatest joy of forgiveness as we finally end this record disagreement," said Ratu Isoa Tikoca, the high commissioner.
Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific - Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles - and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.
Born at Barnard Castle, Durham, Rev Brown emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and served as a missionary in Samoa before moving with his wife and children to New Guinea.
He was familiar with the cannibalistic traditions of the region and once described a visit to a village in which he counted 35 smoke-blackened human jaw bones dangling from the rafters of a hut.
"A human hand, smoke-dried, was hanging in the same house. And outside I counted 76 notches in a coconut tree, each notch of which, the natives told us, represented a human body which had been cooked and eaten there," he told the Royal Geographical Society.
Even so, he was shocked when told that four of his staff had been cannibalised.
"They were killed simply because they were foreigners, and the natives who killed them did so for no other reason than their desire to eat them, and to get the little property they had with them," he wrote.
He reluctantly agreed to launch a punitive expedition, ordering his men to burn down villages implicated in the murders and destroy wooden canoes.
At least 10 tribe members blamed for the attack were killed in an area known as Blanche Bay. Rev Brown claimed the raids made the region safe for Europeans.
In a letter to the general secretary of the London Missionary Society he wrote: "The natives respect us more than they did, and as they all acknowledge the justice of our cause they bear us no ill will."
But the reprisals attracted fierce criticism from the press, particularly in Australia.
The Australian newspaper said: "If missionary enterprise in such an island as this leads to wars of vengeance, which may readily develop into wars of extermination, the question may be raised whether it may not be better to withdraw the mission from savages who show so little appreciation of its benefits."
However, an official investigation by British colonial authorities a year later exonerated Rev Brown.
GGG Ping?
that could be an onion headline
Missionary Reparations.
“Yeah, sorry about all that.” ::burrrrrrp!::
Tastes like chicken.
They chose Methodists because clowns “taste funny” ??
Missionary, The other white meat.........
So it would have been OK if they were Presbyterian or Catholics?
Better “ate” than never.....
Meadow Muffin
Ping to a Methodist...Apparently you folks are good eatin’. ; )
Mmmmmmm...long pork.
(insert Homer Simpson picture here.)
Long pork non ping?
Did you hear the story of the cannibal that passed his brother in the jungle?
Meadow Muffin
My first thought was this was from Scrappleface.
Whaaattt?!? No jokes about ‘fava beans and a nice chianti’?
I’ll have the roast Methodist with the mango salsa, asparagus with Hollandaise and a glass of Merlot.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
they’re just sorry because they found out how bland Methodists are - they could have eaten spicy Greek Orthodox or Southern Fried Baptist...
"During the course of a few early trips I got to know and befriended a stunningly beautiful Dayak girl named Mary who worked at the Hilton Hotel Kuching. Over the course of a few months we got to know each other quite well and she invited me one June back to her grandparents longhouse to celebrate Gawai Dayak. This was my first trip out to the countryside in Sarawak and I was quite excited and yet a bit nervous to meet her family members for the first time. When we arrived, I noticed in the longhouse along the wall up near the ceiling, human skulls. I remember whispering to her later and asking about it and having her tell me "Oh don't worry about that, you are safe here. That was during my grandfather's time, but we are civilized now!". Her grandfather later explained to me that those were the skulls of a few Japanese soldiers that he had killed towards the end of World War II and some other skulls that had been passed down through the generations."
"I would stay up that first night nervously laughing and drinking copious amounts of tuak with her grandfather, father and three brothers and in my drunkenness shamefully wondering to myself if the potent tuak might accidentally trigger some sort of phyletic circuitry in the brains of my hosts where they could suddenly freak out about something and lop my head off. Eventually though I passed out drunk only to woken a few hours later by a rooster's crowing."
continued...
The Pillsbury Dought Boy....:>)
Baptists are furious, what about an apology for them?
Ecumenical Dietary Caution -
Southern Baptists - Fiery but stringy, tough chewing
Episcopalians - bland
Catholics - Too garlicky and enjoy the pain of boiling too much...
Unitarians - way too sweet
Jews - Don’t taste enough like pork.
Muslims - Too sour to eat.
Maybe start off with some appetizers, perhaps some lady fingers. They can dip into a nice liver pate.
Their national motto is “People Serving People”.
I’ve been reading headlines too long today- I saw “Cannibal Tribe Apologises For Eating Methods...”
LOL! I spose he’d have to be doughty - or doughy - since he didn’t end up on some Papuan’s dinner plate.
"Mother and Father were missionaries."
"They were eaten by their Bible class."
Or, People Who Need People (are the luckiest people in the world)
OK. Two cannibals were eating a clown.
One turned to the other and said...
“Does this taste funny to you?”
People who are eaten by people are the unluckiest people in the world!
"How did you prepare them?" he asked.
"Boiled them with some nice taro root," they said.
The witch doctor then asked to see the clothes of the missionaries. When he spied brown tunics with hoods he exclaimed, "Here's the problem! You boiled them, but these were Friars!"
-JoA
Obey the Slack
Cannibal: mmmm tastes just like soylent green!
At the cannibal meat market, there was a sign over the counter: Americans $3.00/lb; British $4.00/lb; Arabs $11/lb. A customer asked, "Why are the Arabs so much more expensive?"
The butcher replied, "Have you ever tried to clean one?"
Tip your waitress folks, I'll be here all week.
I am not going there — but, we might try “Democrats” !
For sure, those turkeys would not rate too high as a discriminating epicurean’s favorite !
So there! Got that off my chest...and feeling better by the minute. *S*
I think cannibals would like Democrats.
They come with their own whine.
Too stringy, I’d imagine.
Isn’t Hillary a Methodist? Those thighs could solve world hunger.
Q: What is a cannibal’s favorite game?
A: Swallow the leader.
How about send the entire Sr. demoCrap delagation from congress for a fact finding mission..........
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