Derek Stavarski's List: azande cannibalism

• That the cannibal habit was very rife with the Nyam-nyam of the Bahr-El-Ghazal  before the present Government’s days is an undoubted fact
• Those used for food were commonly the killed, wounded and prisoners taken during  Page:  274-275b raids
• Persons about to die amongst their own tribe are declared also to have been  violently put to death and eaten by their neighbours
• Human carcases were apparently treated exactly as are those of animals, the skin  being drawn off complete, the body eviscerated, disjointed, cut into sections,  and laid on a bed of fresh leaves prior to distribution
• Babies were seemingly treated whole. Human meat, termed Kowar (Zandeh), besides  being eaten raw, was, true to the old song, either ‘roast or boiled or dried in  the sun,’ the flayed hide sometimes being converted into a water-skin.

3 more annotations...

• The eating of the flesh of enemies was considered to  make the consumer fierce, warlike and wise.”

• The Azande rely on wild as well as cultivated crops. Termites are an important  addition to a diet in which fat is deficient, and many millions are collected  during the rainy season, particularly before the early storms. They are eaten  either raw or fried, or are rendered down for their oil. The Azande consider  termites as a crop, and as such the property of the homestead in whose area the  mound lies
• The Azande are fond of most leafy vegetables, which they cook well. Wild  seed-bearing grasses, fruits, and roots of various sorts are sought after,  particularly when the granaries are empty of eleusine and the first maize is not  yet ready. Edible fungus is a popular dish
• Certain species of caterpillars are a luxury; land crabs, frogs, snails—in fact  most living things, except giraffes, totemic animals, and certain snakes such as  the puff adder and python—may be eaten
• Azande suffer from an acute meat shortage and all observers have commented on  their passion for it. Schweinfurth suggested this deficiency as a reason for  their former cannibalism.
• The Azande now profess to despise cannibalism, but Lelong suggests that it is  still practised in remote parts by the Mangbetu, and by the Abarambo who were  the most notorious cannibals of the group

3 more annotations...

• Having no domesticated flocks or herds for killing purposes (owing to the  prevalence of tsetse), and, finding the trapping and hunting of game only  possible during the three [274] or four dry months of the year, meat is as a  rule scarce, which fact, coupled with their inordinate craving for it, must tend  strongly towards cannibalism

• If possible, Azande carried away their dead and buried them in their camp. If  the enemy reached the corpses first, they appear frequently to have mutilated  them, cutting off the ears or genitals or both and taking them back to court as  trophies. Whether the bodies of the dead were sometimes eaten or not — Azande  had a reputation for cannibalism
• In the case of the raids it was, if I understood Azande correctly, little more  than pride, the desire to display prowess and to have something to boast Page:  262 about
• It is true that there was spoil, but the looting was less for the value of the  things looted than for the loss their removal caused the enemy. The loot was  brought home and displayed at court as a concrete sign of victory. A raid was  successful if everything belonging to the enemy in the homesteads attacked was  eliminated
• The raids were not intended, and obviously on so small a scale they could not  have achieved, an occupation of the enemy’s country. However, if we are to  understand them sociologically we have to look beyond the apparent pointlessness  of the border raids to their political function, which was, I would suggest, the  expression, by this sort of demonstration, of loyalty to the prince who ruled a  province and to the king in whose name he ruled this province

2 more annotations...

• However, Azande say that it is only a tradition that they learnt to smelt and  work iron from others, for they have practised these skills for a very long  time. So, even if they learnt them from others, it was so long ago that most of  what they now fashion in iron may be said to be part of their indigenous  material culture: spears, knives, throwing-knives,  hoes, axes, hammers, rings for wrists, arms and ankles, hair-pins, beads,  rattles, etc.
• Azande use two types of spears, throwing-spears and heavier thrusting-spears,  and he says that the first do not differ from those of the Mangbetu. The second  ( deli   ) are said Page:  93 to belong to the original Zande weapons. The implication is that  the throwing-spears were Mangbetu in origin in contrast to the thrusting-spears,  which were Mbomu

• Azande believe that “witchcraft” is a substance in the bodies of witches
• As it is part of the body, even though it works psychically, it grows with the  rest of the body and increases in range and potency. Hence we find that Azande  will be chary about raising the wrath of an old person just in case he is a very  strong witch.
• Both men and women may be witches and witchcraft runs in families, sons  inheriting from the father and daughters from the mother. This accords with the  general Zande theory of conception, but though a person may inherit the  potentiality, he need not become an active witch ( bongo mangu   ) so long as the substance remains cool.

1 more annotation...