Jean de Léry’s description of cannibalism among the Tupinamba of Brazil, from History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (Histoire d’un Voyage (1578)), trans. Janet Whatley (Berkeley, U of Calif. Press, 1990): 122-3.

It now remains to be seen just how prisoners of war are treated in the land of their enemies. As soon as they arrive, not only are they fed with the best food that can be found, but also the men are given wives (the women prisoners, however, are not given husbands); he who has a prisoner will not hesitate to give him even his daughter or his sister in marriage, and the wife that the prisoner gets will treat him well and minister to all his needs. Furthermore, they will keep these captives for greater or lesser periods of time, without any predetermined limit, according to whether they find the men good hunters, or good fishermen, and the women adept at gardening or at gathering oysters; nonetheless, after being fattened like pigs at the trough, the captives are finally slain and eaten, with the following ceremonies.

First, all the villages in the vicinity of the one holding the prisoner are told of the day of execution; men, women, and children arrive from all directions, and begin to dance and to drink caouin and revel throughout the morning. Even he who is not unaware that this gathering is on his account, and that in a short time he will be clubbed to death in all his feathered regalia, is by no means downcast; on the contrary, leaping about and drinking, he will be one of the merriest ones there. However, after he has sung and caroused for six or seven hours, two or three of the most respected in the throng will take hold of him, and bind him with ropes made of cotton or of the bark of a tree that they call yvire, which is like our linden; without his offering any resistance, even though both his arms are left free, he will be walked for a little while through the village, and displayed as a trophy. But for all that, do you think that he bows his head, as our criminals over here would do? By no means: on the contrary, with an incredible audacity and assurance, he will boast of his past feats of prowess, saying to those who hold him bound: “I myself, who am valiant, first bound and tied your kinsmen.” Then, exalting himself more and more, with a demeanor to match, he will turn from side to side and say to one, “I have eaten your father,” and to another, “I have struck down and boucané your brothers.” He will add, “Of you Tupinamba that I have taken in war, I have eaten so many men and women and even children that I could not tell the number; and do not doubt that, to avenge my death, the Margaia, whose nation I belong to, will hereafter eat as many of you as they can catch.”