Originally posted on www.oddastic.com
1. Reverend Thomas Baker
A display memorializing Thomas Baker’s fate in the Fiji Museum in Suva.
When missionaries first arrived in the cannibal Isles of Fiji, they were horrified at what they saw. They recorded eye witness accounts of men buried alive; widows strangled to line the bottom of the husbands’ graves; men eating their wives at will; people butchered but kept alive to watch their flesh be cooked and consumed and captured enemies forced to gather firewood and dig the earthen ovens that will be used to cook them.
Despite living in constant fear of the Fijians, not one missionary was killed until Reverend Thomas Baker went into the secluded interior of Fiji’s largest Island. On July 21st, 1867, Baker and his party of Fijian Christians were killed and eaten by a remote tribe of inland Viti Levu. According to reports, they ate everything except Baker’s boot, and that was because it was still very hard to chew after boiling it for a week.
Bad crops, mysterious deaths and resulting bloodshed were the first realization that they had brought a terrible curse on themselves by eating Baker and incurring the wrath of the Christian God. Several attempts were made to atone for their actions which included building a memorial Cairn for Baker at the location he was killed, and giving their land to the church. In 2003, they invited Baker’s descendants to their village where they conducted a traditional forgiveness ceremony in hopes of lifting the curse once and for all.
2. The Legend of Chief Udre Udre
Staged photo depicting acts of cannibalism in Fiji.
Regarded as Fiji’s most prolific cannibal, Ratu Udre Udre, a chief from Rakiraki in the northern area of Fiji’s largest Island Viti Levu, is said to have eaten more people than any other cannibal throughout history. Legend has it that he used stones to keep tabs of how many humans bodies he ate. After his death, a gruesome discovery was made by missionary Richard Lyth – a long row of 872 stones were found, and by the many gaps found in the row, it looked like some stones might have been removed. So it is likely that there could have been more.
In fact, Chief Udre Udre’s son, Ravatu, in a conversation with the missionary confirmed that his father truly ate all these people and that they were victims killed in war. He stated that his father ate all of them by himself, never sharing it with anybody. He ate nothing but human flesh and what he couldn’t eat in one sitting, he would keep preserved in a box so he always had a steady supply at hand.
3. Richard Parker
Sketch of English bark Mignonette by Tom Dudley (1853-1900)
When the Mignonette, a ship sailing from England to Australia in 1884 sank, four crew members (including 17-year-old Richard Parker, who managed to grab a couple of tins of turnips) were able to get into a 13-foot lifeboat. Nineteen days after, things were beginning to go awry. Thomas Dudley, the captain, suggested that since Parker was in a worst condition than the rest, and was without wife and children, he should be dispatched for the survival of the rest. It was agreed. Dudley stabbed Parker in the neck with a penknife, and they ate his flesh and drank his blood.
They were found on the 24th day and Dudley and one other crewman was charged with murder and cannibalism. They were found guilty and imprisoned, but were pardoned and released six months after as a result of public sentiments in England.
4. Alferd Packer
In the winter of 1873 – 1874, Alferd Packer with a group of five prospectors went to the Brekenridge Mountains, Colorado to find gold. But things started to get really fishy when Packer staggered into another camp and claimed a storm had hit and the others had wandered off in search of food, never to be seen again. In fact, Packer had survived by eating all four of his friends, one he claimed he killed in self-defense.
He eluded the authorities for nine years before he was caught convicted, 40 years for manslaughter. When he was paroled in 1901, he was allegedly vegetarian.
5. Alexander Pearce
The skull of Tasmanian cannibal killer Alexander Pearce
Pearce, an Irish farmer, was sentenced to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, in 1819 for the theft of six pairs of shoes. He escaped in 1822, but was eventually caught. He received a longer sentence, and was moved to Macquarie Harbour Penal Station, a place with a reputation as one of the harshest penal settlements in Australia. Not long after, he led an escape with seven other convicts along the rough and untamed West Coast. Starvation began to take hold after 15 days in the wilderness, so the men drew straws to see who would become their next meal. When the unlucky bearer of the short straw was killed, three men fled the group. The remaining four battled it out to see who would outlast the others, but it was Pearce who landed the final axe blow.
Pearce was caught after 113 days on the run and locked up in Hobart. He confessed the fate of his fellow escapees to Rev. Robert Knopwood, but Knopwood didn’t believe it. He thought the others were still out there in the bush and Pearce was just covering for them. Pearce was sent back to Macquarie Harbour where he escaped again less than a year later, this time with a young convict named Thomas Cox. He was caught alone 10 days later with pieces of human flesh in his pockets. Though he carried with him a good supply of food, it seems he didn’t wait long before dispatching and consuming his unsuspecting victim.
There was no question of his guilt this time. Pearce was sentenced to death and hanged in Hobart on July 19, 1824. Just before his death, he reportedly said, “Man’s flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork.”
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