Cannibals

by Ray Black

  They waited for several days and on the fifth day Reed returned looking very weak and dishevelled. He was riding a different horse from when he left and he explained to the anxious party about the difficulties they had experienced in trying to catch up with Hastings. The other two men who had accompanied Reed had decided to stay with Hastings, as their horses were exhausted and Hastings could only spare one fresh horse. Despite his promise on the note, Hastings was not coming back to meet up with the group. However, on his way back Reed had managed to explore a route through the canyon which had been suggested to him by Hastings himself. Although he knew it would be difficult, he felt that they could get their wagons through. Although the party was very dubious, they decided to take Reed’s word for it and they voted unanimously to take this route.

  The determined emigrants pushed on and on as the terrain became more and more difficult to cross. They were growing weaker and weaker by the day as they had to constantly use axes, picks and shovels to clear the way, and gradually their spirits became lower and lower. It was now August 27 and not only were they totally exhausted, the fear was starting to set in. They had been on their new route for 21 days now and so far they had only managed to travel 360 miles. Their provisions were running low and they knew that soon the weather would turn against them. On August 29 the party arrived at the spot where Reed had met up with Hastings. Apparently Hastings’s own party had managed to get through, and no doubt the Donner party would have been successful as well were it not for the onset of the winter weather. It seemed their fate was sealed when an unusually fierce winter storm hit the Sierra Nevada desert.

  It took the Donner party five days to cross the desert. Wagons which got stuck in the deep quagmire of wet salt and sand had to be abandoned. Their oxen went mad from the lack of water and either just ran away or died. The party decided to take inventory of the provisions and it proved that they did not have enough left to last them the 600-mile trek which was still ahead of them. They camped for the night, but when they woke in the morning they saw the mountain peaks were covered with a dusting of snow, and they realised that things were not going to improve. They managed to reach the Humbolt River by September 26, but it then hit them that the so-called diversion had cost them an extra 150 miles. As their nerves became more and more shattered, so the fights broke out. James Reed killed the Graves family’s leader, John Snyder – supposedly in self-defence – and he was subsequently banished from the party. He left his family behind, took a horse and rode on to California alone.

  As the family reached the base of the steep summit on October 31, the snow was starting to fall more heavily. Some of the group did manage to reach the summit, but they had to turn back because they realised that there was no way the entire party could make the ascent. Overnight the snow fell continually, and by the morning the pass had become completely blocked by extremely high snowdrifts. Frustration really set in now as they had made the 2,500 mile journey in seven months only to be beaten by the weather by one day. They were by now only 150 miles from their final destination of Sutter’s Fort, now known as Sacramento.

  The group, now realising that they were stranded, decided to make camps to see them through the worst of the winter. Their shelters were basic and crude. Using nothing but logs for the walls, wagon parts for the doors and leather hides for roofing, they managed to make cabins which provided them with minimal shelter. As the snow fell, the Donner party knew they were trapped, with steep slopes in front and behind them, there was absolutely nowhere they could go. The Donner brothers were old men, and there were very few left in the party who had any strength left in them. Over the following four months, the remaining men, women and children huddled together in their makeshift cabins. By now all the oxen had been killed and eaten, and by mid-December they lost their first casualty to malnutrition. They had nothing to do to occupy their time, but nevertheless they made the best out of the situation by chopping wood and attempting to fish and hunt. There was very little game in the area and the surface of the lake was frozen, so in the end they resorted to eating bark, twigs and boiled hides.

  Desperation set in and several attempts were made by small groups to cross the mountains. One group of 15 men, women and children did successfully cross the summit, but only seven of them survived to reach Sutter’s fort. Their arrival at the fort raised an outcry of alarm, and rescue attempts followed shortly afterwards.

  No Options Left

  Back at the camp, food was now depleted, the snow would not let up, and the remaining members of the party left alive were losing all their strength and hope. They had nowhere to go, and as a gruesome reminder of their plight, the bodies of the dead were always in their sights. The suggestion of cannibalism had been made, but no one was sure about this, nor indeed were they looking forward to the fact that this is what they would have to resort to. Soon they had no options left . . .

  Desperation set in, and four of the dead bodies at the camp, now known as ‘Camp of Death’ were cut up, and the meat was dried. After all nobody had been murdered, they were only resorting to this desperate measure in order to survive. The survivors were very careful about who they ate, they made sure that none of them were actually consuming any of their own relatives. Most of the dead had died from starvation so they could offer only a small amount of meat, but the little they were able to obtain provided them with enough strength to move on.

  At the end of December the storm, which had held the party in their makeshift camp, subsided and some of the party were able to leave the Camp of Death, leaving those who chose to stay behind. They took as much meat with them as they could carry in their packs, and then pushed ahead as far as they could. They knew they had a long way to go and that they were still miles away from any Indians, let alone white people. The sorry party of five men and five women trudged across the Sierra Nevada in their snowshoes in a desperate effort to reach their final destination.

  By early January the party had made reasonably good progress, but they still had a long way to go and food supplies were again running low. One of the party, Joe Fosdick grew terribly sick and was unable to keep up with the others. Understandably he was left behind with his wife Sarah. After a couple of days William Foster and one other person, presuming that the couple would be dead, turned back to find the corpses and use them for food. But to their surprise, Sarah Fosdick was still alive, although extremely weak. Remaining faithful to her husband she had stayed by his side, and even after his death a short while later she had abandoned any hope of continuing the journey on her own. Right before Sarah’s eyes her husband’s corpse was cut up and, after filling the packs with the meat, Foster and Mrs. Fosdick returned to the others who had made a camp to wait for Foster’s return.

  However, the meat from one very undernourished body did not provide much sustenance for nine people. Among these nine were two Indians, and luckily for the white people they refused to eat any of the human flesh. William Foster was becoming more and more deranged and started to make plans to kills the two Indians, Luis and Salvadore, to give the remaining party more food. Immediately the two Indians ran away, frightened for their lives. It was easy for the party to follow their tracks though, because their bare feet had become so raw from exposure that the majority of their toes had fallen off, and they were leaving a trail of blood wherever they went. Foster decided that even if the Indians didn’t lead them to safety, they could at least find their bodies and use them for food.

  Gradually, through lack of food and exposure, the two Indians became weaker and weaker, and eventually the party caught up with them at a small creek. Despite the protests of other members of the party, Foster took out a rifle and shot the two Indians. Even though they were close to death, the others still considered the act to be horrifying.

  Armed with more supplies the party reached an Indian village on January 11. There were now two men and five women and the natives offered them clothes, shelter and, more importantly, food. The Indians were well aware that these
starving people could easily die from overeating, so they were careful to only feed them small amounts, offering them thin soups made from acorns and venison meat. Despite the constant pleading from the survivors, the Indians would not feed them any more food.

  William Foster and the five women were all in a terrible condition, and it was still uncertain whether they would in fact survive. The other man, William Eddy, who was also very sick, knew he had to survive in order to get help to his family who had stayed behind at the lakeside encampment. Whilst the others stayed and rested, Eddy persuaded the Indians to take him to Johnson’s Ranch, and a posse of scouts and women led what became known as the First Relief.

  Despite being desperately sick, Eddy pushed on through the mountains in a desperate effort to reach his family in the hope that they had survived. However, because he was so weak and holding them back, the First Relief sent him back to Sutter’s Fort along with the draft animals.

  The First Relief arrived at the camp on Truckee Lake just ten days after Mrs. Eddy had died. The snow was so deep it covered over the top of the cabins and, at first sight, the rescuers feared there were no survivors. All of a sudden, a head popped out of the snow, it was a woman called Lavinah Murphy. She was so pale and gaunt she gave the impression of a ghost, and not sure whether she was dreaming or not she asked the rescuers, ‘Do you men come from California, or do you come from God?’

  The rescue party managed to take out 21 members of the party left at the lake and Alder Creek, and left enough provisions with the remaining ones that were too weak to leave.

  Subsequent rescue efforts brought out the remaining survivors. There were still more deaths at the camp and some died on the torturous trip out of the mountains. Despite their very weakened state, the survivors had to make the journey on foot because the snow was still too deep for horses or mules to negotiate. The last of the survivors reached Sutter’s Fort exactly one year after their original departure from Missouri. In total, of the 87 men, women and children in the Donner party, 46 survived and 41 died.

  George Donner and his wife died at the camp, along with his brother Jacob and his wife, and most of the Donner children. James Reed, having safely reached Sutter’s Fort actually led one of the rescue parties. Reed’s family managed to survive.

  The story of the tragedy spread far and wide, and newspapers started to print outrageous stories of men and women who had gone mad by eating human flesh.

  The site of the Donner Party encampment is now a State Memorial Park, and there is also a museum to commemorate their suffering.

  Werewolves of France

  Werewolves (or wolf-men) have been fabled as supernatural legends in numerous cultures throughout the world for centuries

  Werewolves were always associated with a kind of madness that was exacerbated by the appearance of a full moon. The werewolf in literature is the person who acts out the stereotype characteristics of the wolf in the wild, a mental illness known as Lycanthropy. This name derives from the Greek word for wolf, ‘lykoi’, and for man, ‘anthropos’. Quite literally it is the delusion of turning into a wolf, whether through witchcraft or your own will.

  In European folklore, a werewolf is a man who transforms himself at night into a wolf, both in form and appetite, and then roams in search of human victims to devour. The werewolf must return to his human form at daybreak by shedding his wolf’s skin and concealing it. If this skin should be found and destroyed, then the werewolf would die. A werewolf who is wounded immediately reverts to his human form and can be detected by the corresponding wound on his body.

  Belief in ‘wer’ (or man) animals was common in the Middle Ages, and was probably a relic from early cannibalism. In 16th century France the superstition regarding werewolves seems to have been widespread and prevalent, as is shown by the many trials for murder and cannibalism, all attributed to lycanthropy. However, this belief is now all but extinct.

  When werewolves are portrayed in films or books, they show physiological changes including bone structure, skin texture, and the emergence of fangs. Hair grows over the body, the nose protrudes, fangs enlarge, and pointy ears emerge from the head. The difference between the original werewolf and the werewolf of current films is not its behaviour, because that has changed little, but it is the difference in its physical metamorphosis. Perhaps the real horror of the werewolf is the mystery that surrounds it.

  In France alone, between the years 1520 and 1630, some 30,000 individuals had the misfortune to be labelled werewolves. Many of these people underwent criminal investigation and torture, confessed, and suffered a vile death at the stake. For those who escaped such a fate, the trauma of interrogation must have left lifetime scars. Here is a collection of some French werewolf trials which have been recorded.

  Jean Grenier

  In the early spring of 1603 fear spread through the St. Sever districts of Gascony, in the extreme south-west of France. Young children had mysteriously begun to disappear from the hamlets and smaller villages in the area, and no trace was ever found. It seemed no children were safe, and even a baby was stolen from its cradle while its mother went about her work around the cottage where they lived. There was talk in the villages of wolves, but deep down inside the people knew that it was something far more sinister.

  Just when fear was at its height, a 13-year-old girl named Marguerite Poitier came forward to tell of an attack by a savage beast, resembling a wolf, on the night of the full moon. The girl told the Judge that she had been watching her cattle, when a wild beast, not unlike a huge dog, had rushed out from the thicket and tore at her skirt with its sharp, fang-like teeth. She said she had been able to ward off the attack by using a pointed staff which she kept with her.

  Meanwhile a 14-year-old boy, Jean Grenier, was proudly announcing to his fellow villagers that he was in fact the wolf and had hunted down and eaten many young girls. He claimed he could transform himself into a wolf by means of a ‘magic ointment’ and a wolfskin cloak that had been given to him by a black man whom he called ‘Maître de la Forêt’.

  The next girl to come forward with information was 18-year-old Jeanne Gaboriaut. She told the Judge that she had been tending her flock, accompanied by Jean Grenier, both of whom worked for a farmer by the name of Saint-Paul Pierre Combaut. Jean commented that Jeanne was a ‘bonnie lass’ and he vowed that one day he would like to marry her. When she enquired who his father was, he coarsely replied, ‘I am a priest’s bastard’. Jeanne remarked that he was both rude and dirty and would never dream of marrying someone like him. To this he replied, that when he wore the wolf-skin it somehow turned him into a beast that prowled the forests by night. He also told the girl that he belonged to a coven of werewolves and that there were nine other members. He claimed that he lusted after the flesh of small children, which he preferred because they were nice and tender. When he took on his wolf’s shape and he felt hungry, he told her that he often killed dogs and would lap at their hot blood, but it was not as tasty as the flesh of young boys and girls.

  The girl complained to her parents about the behaviour of Jean and told them that he frightened her with his horrible stories. However, her father and mother ignored her accounts until one day she returned home early from watching her flock, and this time she was in a state of complete alarm.

  Sobbing uncontrollably she told her parents once more about the terrible stories that Jean had related to her about acquiring the form of a wolf and eating the flesh of young girls. She said she had been watching her sheep as usual, this time without the company of Jean Grenier, when she heard a rustle in the bushes behind her. On turning around a wild beast rushed towards her and tore at her clothes with its sharp fangs. She managed to beat the creature off by using her shepherd’s staff. The creature retreated a few paces and seated itself on its hind legs like a dog. She fled in terror from the animal which she said resembled a wolf, although it was a little shorter and stouter. It had red hair, a stumpy tail, and the head was considerably smaller than that of a g
enuine wolf.

  The child’s statement caused panic among the parish, as it was well known that several young girls had vanished under mysterious circumstances of late. The case was immediately taken up by the authorities and brought before the Bordeaux parliament.

  Jean Grenier was brought to court on June 2, 1603, where he freely confessed of the most hideous and abominable werewolf crimes. It turned out that Jean was the son of a poor labourer from the village of S. Antoine de Pizon, and not the son of a priest as he had so often claimed. Three months before he was arrested he had left home and had been employed by several masters doing odd jobs, or just wandering around the countryside begging. On a couple of occasions he had been hired to look after flocks belonging to farmers, but had been discharged for neglect of his duties.

  When he was questioned about the missing children, he openly admitted that he had both killed and eaten as a wolf. He told of the time when he had been overcome by hunger and had entered a cottage where he had found a baby asleep in its cradle. He dragged the baby out of its cradle, carried it into the garden, leaped over the hedge, and devoured it until he had satisfied his hunger. The remainder of the body he fed to a wolf.

  When he was asked to explain his actions, he told the court that when he wore the wolf-skin, as commanded by the Lord of the Forest, he would go out hunting for children. Before his transformation, Jean said that he smeared himself with the special salve which he preserved in a small pot, and then hid his normal clothes in the thicket. He said that most of his hunting was carried out during the day when the moon was at its wane, but sometimes his expeditions were at the dead of night by the light of the full moon.