Numerous other instances might readily be given of strange combinations of the human form with that of some animal, but enough has been given as an illustration of the sort of thing to be freely met with in ancient and medieval history ; so we pass to our second division of humanity-those who are wholly human, yet in some way of so marked a departure from the ordinary type of mankind as to come within the scope of our strange history. These modifications sometimes arise from the suppression of some part, as in the case of the
headless people ; in its exaggeration, as in the instance of the men of India whose ears sweep the ground as they walk; or in the multiplication or subtraction of various members, as in the one-eyed Cyclops or the hundred-armed Briarxus.
One of the most notable beliefs in mediaeval times was that in the headless people
"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders."
Of the Anthropophagi we may read in Eden's " Historie of Travayle," a book published in the year 1577. The word in its literal sense means man-eaters or cannibals.
|
|