I came across this passage while reading Owen Rutter's account of his 1922 visit to Taiwan in Through Formosa: "The Chinese atrocities [in Taiwan], however, far exceeded any committed by the [aborigines]. The latter took heads, it is true, but the Chinese ate and even traded in their victims flesh. After killing an [aborigine], the head was commonly severed from the body and exhibited to those who were not on hand to witness the prior display of slaughter and mutilation. The body was then either divided among its captors and eaten, or sold to wealthy Chinese and even to high officials, who disposed of it in a like manner. The kidney, liver, heart, and soles of the feet were considered the most desirable portions, and were ordinarily cut up into small pieces, boiled and eaten somewhat in the form of soup. The flesh and bones were boiled, and the former made into a sort of jelly. The Chinese profess to believe, in accordance with an old superstition, that the eating of savage flesh will give them strength and courage…. During the outbreak of 1891 [aboriginal] flesh was brought in – in baskets – the same as pork, and sold like pork in the open markets of Tokoham 桃園 before the eyes of all, foreigners included; some of the flesh was even sent to Amoy 廈門 to be placed on sale there (Rutter 224-5)."
A lot of items are whitewashed from Chinese history. Still I have met a Taiwanese who can confirm this account. My friend Gloria, a sixty-year-old Hakka from near Ta Hsin (大興) atop Nanshih Chiao Mountain (南勢角山), Miaoli (see above picture), told me that her great-great uncle killed aborigines for this purpose. Her family would then boil the aboriginal flesh to make pills which were useful in bribing Ching Dynasty officials. One day, the uncle went out into the mountains never to return. His body minus a head was found a month later in a field. All of his flesh was still in tact, only decomposed a bit.