> My neighbor is from NZ. He said the Maori ate the White people.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if it were so. There are several Maori legends that speak of pale-colored "faerie" people who lived in the bush, amongst which are tales of Te Arawa, who are the famous and noble tribe that populates the lands in-and-around Rotorua.
Maori were cannibals, of necessity: after they killed off the Moa, there would have been precious little protein in New Zealand to be had...
...except the human kind. Cannibalism is a matter of historical record in New Zealand. The Maori were (and are) a very fierce and proud warrior society and they would most naturally have sought to be well-fed. Cannibalism doesn't happen now (or even in recent memory), but a few hundred years ago, of course it did.
“The Maori were (and are) a very fierce and proud warrior society and they would most naturally have sought to be well-fed. “
Cannibalism as a positive cultural feature is not something I’m prepared to sign on to.
Name one successful cannibal society. You can’t find one. What I would say is that if a seafaring society is too lazy to fish that they turn to cannibalism to be “well fed” is probably closer to the truth.
The Maori themselves would not brag about their historical cannibalism. They seek to downplay it. It is often excused in the clintonian fashion: “Everybody did it”
No successful culture practices cannibalism. If the white man hadn’t shown up to Australia and New Zealand, the Maori would still be cannibals, if there were any left at all.