- description
- # APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM
## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)
This is a section of text extracted from the novel *Typee* and labeled "APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM". It is part of [Chapter Thirty-Two](arke:01KG8AJRVDF15YJG4FE8SFQY08) of the novel and was extracted on January 30, 2026. The section focuses on the narrator's fears and observations regarding cannibalism among the Typee people.
## Context - Background and provenance from related entities
This section is part of the larger work *Typee*, a novel contained within the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The text was extracted from the file [typee.txt](arke:01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4). It follows the section titled "Apprehensions of Evil and Frightful Discovery" and precedes "SECOND BATTLE WITH THE HAPPARS--SAVAGE SPECTACLE".
## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details
The section begins with the narrator's anxieties about his potential fate, including the possibility of being devoured. It then discusses the narrator's initial hope that cannibalism was rare among the Typee, which was later destroyed. The text then shifts to a broader discussion of cannibalism, noting the lack of eyewitness accounts and the tendency of Polynesian tribes to deny the practice to Europeans. The section concludes with an anecdote about the fate of Captain Cook's body and a chief who claimed to possess Cook's big toe.
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- 2026-01-30T20:49:27.966Z
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- description_title
- APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM
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- 10023
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.749Z
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- 9963
- text
- with gloom. I shuddered at the idea of the subsequent fate his inanimate
body might have met with. Was the same doom reserved for me? Was I
destined to perish like him--like him perhaps, to be devoured and my
head to be preserved as a fearful memento of the events? My imagination
ran riot in these horrid speculations, and I felt certain that the
worst possible evils would befall me. But whatever were my misgivings, I
studiously concealed them from the islanders, as well as the full extent
of the discovery I had made.
Although the assurances which the Typees had often given me, that they
never eat human flesh, had not convinced me that such was the case, yet,
having been so long a time in the valley without witnessing anything
which indicated the existence of the practice, I began to hope that it
was an event of very rare occurrence, and that I should be spared the
horror of witnessing it during my stay among them: but, alas, these
hopes were soon destroyed.
It is a singular fact, that in all our accounts of cannibal tribes we
have seldom received the testimony of an eye-witness account to this
revolting practice. The horrible conclusion has almost always been
derived from the second-hand evidence of Europeans, or else from the
admissions of the savages themselves, after they have in some degree
become civilized. The Polynesians are aware of the detestation in which
Europeans hold this custom, and therefore invariably deny its existence,
and with the craft peculiar to savages, endeavour to conceal every trace
of it.
The excessive unwillingness betrayed by the Sandwich Islanders, even at
the present day, to allude to the unhappy fate of Cook, has often been
remarked. And so well have they succeeded in covering the event with
mystery, that to this very hour, despite all that has been said and
written on the subject, it still remains doubtful whether they wreaked
upon his murdered body the vengeance they sometimes inflicted upon their
enemies.
At Kealakekau, the scene of that tragedy, a strip of ship’s copper
nailed against an upright post in the ground used to inform
the traveller that beneath reposed the ‘remains’ of the great
circumnavigator. But I am strongly inclined to believe not only the
corpse was refused Christian burial, but that the heart which was
brought to Vancouver some time after the event, and which the Hawaiians
stoutly maintained was that of Captain Cook, was no such thing; and that
the whole affair was a piece of imposture which was sought to be palmed
off upon the credulous Englishman.
A few years since there was living on the island of Maui (one of the
Sandwich group) an old chief, who, actuated by a morbid desire for
notoriety, gave himself out among the foreign residents of the place
as the living tomb of Captain Cook’s big toe!--affirming that at the
cannibal entertainment which ensued after the lamented Briton’s death,
that particular portion of his body had fallen to his share. His
indignant countrymen actually caused him to be prosecuted in the native
courts, on a charge nearly equivalent to what we term defamation of
character; but the old fellow persisting in his assertion, and no
invalidating proof being adduced, the plaintiffs were cast in the suit,
and the cannibal reputation of the defendant firmly established. This
result was the making of his fortune; ever afterwards he was in the
habit of giving very profitable audiences to all curious travellers who
were desirous of beholding the man who had eaten the great navigator’s
great toe.
- title
- APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM