{"id":"01KG8AKFW2REKG23X47D2J4KCG","cid":"bafkreihmc2whrjtirsyulbodhyftloqg2ugldi3a5sx4efivmirx5in3fy","type":"section","properties":{"description":"# APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM\n\n## Overview - What this is (type, form, dates, scope)\nThis 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.\n\n## Context - Background and provenance from related entities\nThis 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\".\n\n## Contents - What it contains, key subjects and details\nThe 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.\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:27.966Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM","end_line":10023,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.749Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM","source_file":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","start_line":9963,"text":"with gloom. I shuddered at the idea of the subsequent fate his inanimate\r\nbody might have met with. Was the same doom reserved for me? Was I\r\ndestined to perish like him--like him perhaps, to be devoured and my\r\nhead to be preserved as a fearful memento of the events? My imagination\r\nran riot in these horrid speculations, and I felt certain that the\r\nworst possible evils would befall me. But whatever were my misgivings, I\r\nstudiously concealed them from the islanders, as well as the full extent\r\nof the discovery I had made.\r\n\r\nAlthough the assurances which the Typees had often given me, that they\r\nnever eat human flesh, had not convinced me that such was the case, yet,\r\nhaving been so long a time in the valley without witnessing anything\r\nwhich indicated the existence of the practice, I began to hope that it\r\nwas an event of very rare occurrence, and that I should be spared the\r\nhorror of witnessing it during my stay among them: but, alas, these\r\nhopes were soon destroyed.\r\n\r\nIt is a singular fact, that in all our accounts of cannibal tribes we\r\nhave seldom received the testimony of an eye-witness account to this\r\nrevolting practice. The horrible conclusion has almost always been\r\nderived from the second-hand evidence of Europeans, or else from the\r\nadmissions of the savages themselves, after they have in some degree\r\nbecome civilized. The Polynesians are aware of the detestation in which\r\nEuropeans hold this custom, and therefore invariably deny its existence,\r\nand with the craft peculiar to savages, endeavour to conceal every trace\r\nof it.\r\n\r\nThe excessive unwillingness betrayed by the Sandwich Islanders, even at\r\nthe present day, to allude to the unhappy fate of Cook, has often been\r\nremarked. And so well have they succeeded in covering the event with\r\nmystery, that to this very hour, despite all that has been said and\r\nwritten on the subject, it still remains doubtful whether they wreaked\r\nupon his murdered body the vengeance they sometimes inflicted upon their\r\nenemies.\r\n\r\nAt Kealakekau, the scene of that tragedy, a strip of ship’s copper\r\nnailed against an upright post in the ground used to inform\r\nthe traveller that beneath reposed the ‘remains’ of the great\r\ncircumnavigator. But I am strongly inclined to believe not only the\r\ncorpse was refused Christian burial, but that the heart which was\r\nbrought to Vancouver some time after the event, and which the Hawaiians\r\nstoutly maintained was that of Captain Cook, was no such thing; and that\r\nthe whole affair was a piece of imposture which was sought to be palmed\r\noff upon the credulous Englishman.\r\n\r\nA few years since there was living on the island of Maui (one of the\r\nSandwich group) an old chief, who, actuated by a morbid desire for\r\nnotoriety, gave himself out among the foreign residents of the place\r\nas the living tomb of Captain Cook’s big toe!--affirming that at the\r\ncannibal entertainment which ensued after the lamented Briton’s death,\r\nthat particular portion of his body had fallen to his share. His\r\nindignant countrymen actually caused him to be prosecuted in the native\r\ncourts, on a charge nearly equivalent to what we term defamation of\r\ncharacter; but the old fellow persisting in his assertion, and no\r\ninvalidating proof being adduced, the plaintiffs were cast in the suit,\r\nand the cannibal reputation of the defendant firmly established. This\r\nresult was the making of his fortune; ever afterwards he was in the\r\nhabit of giving very profitable audiences to all curious travellers who\r\nwere desirous of beholding the man who had eaten the great navigator’s\r\ngreat toe.\r\n\r","title":"APPREHENSIONS OF EVIL--FRIGHTFUL DISCOVERY--SOME REMARKS ON CANNIBALISM"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRVDF15YJG4FE8SFQY08","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JYRSHWXR7JM0HYS9D4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFW2J4QSDMKVSYK4F3Y2","peer_type":"section","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKFWBNB1R8XNM7YQ0R1HQ","peer_type":"section","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:06.018Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:28.533Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}