CANNIBAL TRIBE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA ISSUES APOLOGY

Source: WorldWide Religious News

A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologized for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a valiant British clergyman. The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytizing mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878. They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief, Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten. The Fijians - a minister and three teachers - were under the leadership of the Reverend George Brown, an adventurous Wesleyan missionary who was born in Durham but spent most of his life spreading the word of God in the South Seas. Thousands of villagers attended a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul, the capital of East New Britain province, once notorious for the ferocity of its cannibals. Their leaders apologized for their forefather's taste for human flesh to Fiji's high commissioner to Papua New Guinea. Cannibalism was common in many parts of the South Pacific - Fiji was formerly known as the Cannibal Isles - and dozens of missionaries were killed by hostile islanders.