Again, on the same analogy, the flesh and blood of brave men are eaten in order to inspire bravery. The Australian Kamilaroi eat the heart and liver of a valiant warrior in order to acquire his courage. The Philippine Islanders drink the blood of their bravest enemies. In the Shire Highlands {324}of Africa, those who kill a distinguished fighter eat his heart to get his courage. Du Chaillu’s negro, attendants, we saw, scraped their ancestors’ skulls, and drank the powder in water. “Our ancestors were brave,” said they; “and by drinking their skulls, we shall be brave as they were.” Here again I can only refer the reader for numerous examples to Mr. Frazer’s inexhaustible storehouse. The case of Du Chaillu’s warriors, however, takes us with one bound into the heart of the subject. Many savages for similar reasons actually eat their own dead fathers. * We learn from Strabo that the ancient Irish “deemed it honourable to devour the bodies of their parents.” So, Herodotus tells us, did the Issedones of Central Asia. The Massagetæ used “from compassion” to club and eat their aged people. The custom was quite recently common among the Battas of Sumatra, who used “religiously and ceremonially to eat their old relations.” In Australia, it was usual to eat relatives who died by mischance. Of the Cucumas we read that “as soon as a relation died, these people assembled and eat him roasted or boiled, according as he was thin or fat.” The Tarianas and Tucanas, who drink the ashes of their relatives, “believe that thus the virtues of the deceased will be transmitted to the drinkers.” The Arawaks think it the highest mark of honour they could pay to the dead to drink their powdered bones mixed in water. Generally speaking, in a large number of cases, the parents or relatives were eaten in order “not to let the life go out of the family” or to preserve the bodies and souls in a kindred body; or to gain the courage and other qualities of the dead relation. _In short, the dead were eaten sacramentally or, as one writer even phrases it, “eucharistically.”_ Mr. Hartland has collected many striking instances. * Since this chapter was written, the subject of honorific cannibalism has been far more fully treated by Mr. Sidney Hartland in the chapter on Funeral Rites, in the second volume of The Legend of Perseus.