Thus, for example, in the latter field, among the degraded Feejee Islanders, where one would be least likely to look for the sway of a religious sentiment in the more barbarous customs of that barbarous people, this truth has been recognized by Christian missionaries, who would view the relics of heathenism with no undue favor. The Rev. Messrs. Williams and Calvert,--the one after thirteen years, and the other after seventeen years of missionary service there,--said on this subject: “Cannibalism is a part of the Fijian religion, and the gods are described as delighting in human flesh.” And again: “Human flesh is still the most valued offering [to the gods], and their ‘drink offerings of blood’ are still the most acceptable [offerings to the gods] in some parts of Fiji.”[382] It was the same among the several tribes of the North American Indians, according to the most trustworthy testimony. A Dutch clergyman, Dominie Megapolensis, writing two centuries ago from near the present site of Albany, “bears the strongest testimony to the ferocity with which his friends, the Mohawks treated their prisoners, ... and is very explicit as to cannibalism. ‘The common people,’ he says ‘eat the arms, buttocks, and trunk; but the chiefs eat the head and the heart.’ This feast was of a religious character.”[383] Parkman says, of the “hideous scene of feasting [which] followed the torture of a prisoner,” “it was, among the Hurons, partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite.”[384] He cites evidence, also, that there was cannibalism among the Miamis, where “the act had somewhat of a religious character [and], was attended with ceremonial observances.”[385] Of the religious basis of cannibalism among the primitive peoples of Central and South America, students seem agreed. Dorman who has carefully collated important facts on this subject from varied sources, and has considered them in their scientific bearings, is explicit in his conclusions at this point. Reviewing all the American field, he says: “I have dwelt longer upon the painful subject of cannibalism than might seem desirable, in order to show its religious character and prevalence everywhere. Instead of being confined to savage peoples, as is generally supposed, it prevailed to a greater extent and with more horrible rites among the most civilized. Its religious inception was the cause of this.”[386] Again, he says, of the peoples of Mexico and of the countries south of it: “All the Nahua nations practised this religious cannibalism. That cannibalism as a source of food, unconnected with religious rites, was ever practised, there is little evidence. Sahagun and Las Casas regard the cannibalism of the Nahuas as an abhorrent feature of their religion, and not as an unnatural appetite.”[387]