I’m in the middle of reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. As an aside, I’d characterize it as ‘Jerzy Kosinski visits the Wild West’ (catch my drift?)
In any case, there’s a passage in the book in which a group of Comanches annihilate a US Cavalry outfit. After their victory, at least one of the Indians is described as then sodomizing the corpse of his (most unfortunate and rather bloody) victim.
Is this in any way based on fact? Are there contemporary reports attesting to this type of behaviour? Or is this just included for its sensationalist impact (in a book, mind you, with LOTS of other gruesome accounts).
Thanks!
Didn’t the ancient Egyptians do the same to their victims after battle? I seem to remember reading that somewhere, as well as confirming that certain AmInd groups did it as well. I don’t have my library handy, so no cite.
Well, if it was a fabrication would seem to be a pretty incendiary one. If not, yuck.
You know what the old saying is: “Dead men’s tails no tell.”
[sub]or something like that. Sorry, I couldn’t resist[/sub]
Cateyo, who mostly lurks these days, tells me: Neither Comanche nor any other Native American people characteristically did this. The act implies that sex is an act of domination and the ultimate humiliation. It is not defined as such in the Indian world.