e
feast must be marked with human blood. Cannibalism, in connection
with religious festivals and human sacrifice, was extravagantly
developed in Mexico, Central America, and British Columbia. The
rites show that the human sacrifice was sacramental and
vicarious. In one case the prayer of the person who owned the
sacrifice is given. It is a prayer for success and prosperity.
Flesh was also bitten from the arm of a living person and eaten.
A religious idea was cultivated into a mania and the taste for
human flesh was developed.[1097] Here also we find the usage that
shamans ate the flesh of corpses, in connection with fasting and
solitude, as means of professional stimulation.[1098] Preuss
emphasizes the large element of sorcery in the eating of parts of
a human sacrifice, as practiced in Mexico.[1099] The combination
of sorcery, religious ritual, and cannibalism deserves very
careful attention. The rites of the festival were cases of
dramatic sorcery. At the annual festival of the god of war an
image of the god was made of grain, seeds, and vegetables,
kneaded with the blood of boys sacrificed for the purpose. This
image was broken into crumbs and eaten by males only, "after the
manner of our communion."[1100] The Peruvians ate sacrificial
cakes kneaded with the blood of human victims, "as a mark of
alliance with the Inca."[1101] In Guatemala organs of a slain
war captive were given to an old prophetess to be eaten. She was
then asked to pray to the idol which she served to give them many
captives.[1102] Human sacrifices and sacramental cannibalism
exist amongst the Bella-coola Indians in northwestern British
America. Children of the poor are bought from their parents to be
made sacrifices. The blood is drunk and the flesh is eaten raw.
The souls of the sacrificed go to live in the sun and become
birds. When the English government tried to stop these sacrifices
the priests dug up corpses and ate them. Several were thus
poisoned.[1103]

+351. Cult and cannibalism.+ The cases which have been cited show how
cult kept up cannibalism, if no beast was substituted. Also, a great
number of uses of blood and superstitions about blood appear to be
survivals of cannibalism or deductions from it. The same may be said of
holiday cakes of special shapes, made by peasants, which have long lost
all known sense. In one part of France the las