The Ottawa and some of their allies occasionally practiced ritual cannibalism.

British Captain Donald Campbell was one of Pontiac's prisoners. After British soldiers killed and scalped a Chippewa chief's nephew, the chief demanded Pontiac turn Campbell over to him. Unwilling to offend his Chippewa allies, Pontiac did as he was asked. The chief took the British captain back to his camp and killed him with his tomahawk before tearing out his heart and eating it.

Captain James Dalyell was killed leading a group of British soldiers against Pontiac and his warriors in the Battle of Bloody Bridge. After the battle, Ottawa warriors cut out Dalyell's heart, wiped it on their British prisoners' faces and then ate it.

Charlie Myers, Ottawa medicine man, war veteran, and doctor of pharmacology, says they did it for religious/spiritual reasons. "People [were] eaten if they were extremely strong. [If he] had a very strong arm they'd eat the muscle out of his arm, the fast runner -- the calf out of his leg, if he was just gutsy and hard to deal with they'd eat his heart and so on," says Mr. Myers. The idea was "getting that power from the person they have killed."