Cannibalism of slain enemies was common across Polynesia. If there was nothing left to eat, stealing shit from the guts of a dead warrior was proof you were in the battle.
During WW2 in the Pacific, US troops sometimes took ears, teeth, and other body parts from dead Japanese soldiers as grisly souvenirs.
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In the May 22, 1944 issue of LIFE magazine, a striking and controversial image was featured as the “Picture of the Week.” It showed 20-year-old Natalie Nickerson of Phoenix, Arizona, gazing at a human skull — reportedly of a Japanese soldier — that she had received from her boyfriend, a Navy lieutenant serving in the Pacific
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The Japanese mutilated the dead too.
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The Ear Mound, or Mimizuka, in Kyoto is a memorial burial mound for the severed noses of Korean and Chinese victims killed during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea in the late 16th century.
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A plaque, which was later removed, stood in front of the Ear Mound in the 1960s with the passage, "One cannot say that cutting off noses was so atrocious by the standard of the time." Most guidebooks do not mention the Ear Mound, and only a few Japanese or foreign tourists visit the site.[10] The majority of visiting tourists are Korean—Korean tour buses are often seen parked near the Ear Mound.[citation needed]
In 1982, not a single Japanese school textbook mentioned the Ear Mound.
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But sure, let's all get extra pissed off about Confederate monuments...
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