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Question: Was there ever a documented account of a 19th C missionary being boiled in a big black pot in Africa!?
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The big black couldron depicted in these pictures is of western origine!. The time and technology required to make such a pot would have been beyond the finances of many tribes!.

Central African pottery tends to utilize eathenware temperatures, where the clay has been burnished before firing!. The pots are made by coiling the clay and, when dry, placing them in a large pit filled with sawdust!. The sawdust is then lit and left to smoulder as a layer of earth is placed over the top!. After 2 - 3 days the pit is unearthed and the contents removed from the pit!.

Such techniques make for an adequate, but unsturdy pot!. These pots are easily broken and cracks may occur during the firing process!. If you were to make a pot large enough to boil a missionary, the chances are that it would crack during the firning process as differences in clay thickness stressed the sides of the pot during the heating up and cooling down of firing!.

So the pot idea is not viable!. However, canibalism did happen!. Not just in Africa, but in many cultures!. The reasons for this were varied, but usually spiritual!. During the final stages of the Roman invasion of Britain, the future looked very desparate for the Britains!. Evidence sugests that, because they believed that terrible acts could appease the gods and grant them a victory over the Romans, the Druids practiced canibalism with low level nobels!.

In the polynesian cultures, prisoners of war were sometimes eaten by the conquering tribe!. A little piece would be injested by each warrior!. It was considered an awful practice by all involved, but was deamed necessary to stop the enamys angry spirit returning and exacting revenge!. The meat was cut into bite sized chunks and placed onto the end of sticks, like marsh mallows!. These were eaten raw!.

Common cooking methods include covering the body parts in clay and baking over a fire or digging a pit and, after heating large slabs of stone on a bonfire, placing these stones into the pit, forming the floor and sides of an oven, which the meat is placed into before being covered with branches and earth and left for a couple of hourse!. Rotisary also works!. (Long pig anyone!?)

LuckWww@QuestionHome@Com

I've had a quick scan through some books, and whilst there is plenty of evidence of cannibalism, especially dead and wounded after battles, no sign of the cartoon-type big black pot boiling missionaries alive!.

Usual practice seems to have been butchering body prior to cooking/eating!. I'd like to think someone will find a reference to this having happened as its such a popular image!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Very much doubt it!. Seems more like an ironic jibe at meddlesome missionaries, getting their due desserts at the hands of the so-called savages!.
It's 50 years since I read it but I think Evelyn Waugh's 'Black Mischief' has a missionary boiled and eaten!. It's a good read!.Www@QuestionHome@Com