Regnum Congo

Relatione del reame del Congo (1591) by Filippo Pigafetta, translated into Latin as Regnum Congo. [Filippo Pigafetta, Wikipedia, 11/18/2020] A very interesting article on this book by ahtzib can be found at Regnum Congo and the Horror of Theodor de Bry's Engravings [miskatonicmuseum.blogspot.com, dated September 6, 2010, retrieved 11/18/2020]. Google Books hosts the online text of an English translation titled A Report of the Kingdom of Congo. A suggestive passage follows: "They have fhambles for human flefh, as we have of animals, even eating the enemies they have killed in battle, and felling their flaves if they can get a good price for them; if not, they give them to the butcher, who cuts them in pieces and then fells them to be roafted or boiled. It is a remarkable fact in the hiftory of this people, that any who are tired of life, or wifh to prove themselves brave and courageous, efteem it great honour to expofe themselves to death by an act which fhall fhow their contempt for life. Thus they offer themselves for flaughter, and as the faithful vaffals of princes, wifhing to do them fervice, not only give themfelves to be eaten, but their flaves also, when fattened, are killed and eaten. It is true many nations eat human flefh, as in the East Indies, Brazil, and elfewhere, but to devour the flesh of their own enemies, friends, fubjects, and even relations is a thing without example except amongft the Anzichi tribes." In this passage, shambles is apparently a reference to "a place where animals are brought to be slaughtered" ["shambles" meaning 2, Dictionary.com].

A traveler found a copy of Regnum Congo, in the Latin edition printed at Frankfort in 1598, in an old house in the Miskatonic Valley. The owner showed an unhealthy relish for Plate XII, which represented, in gruesome detail, a butcher’s shop of the cannibal Anziques. (See here for a detail of this plate as redrawn in Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature by Thomas Huxley.) [HPL Picture (online text)]

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