# Cannibals in the Amazon rainforest: Myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124 "2014-08-08T21:34:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/1 "2014-08-08T21:34:07Z")
I feel like a yahoo for even asking these questions, but I have to ask. Are there currently any tribes of indigenous people in the rainforests of the Amazon who practice cannibalism on a regular basis? It doesn’t matter if this is done ritually or simply as a part of their regular diet. If there currently are no such tribes, have there been in the past? If there have been cannibal tribes in that region in the past, how long ago was it? Did cannibalism persist into the first half of the twentieth century, and if so, did it persist into the second half as well? How widespread has cannibalism been among the indigenous peoples of that region? Have I been snookered by a big, fat racist lie? Don’t spare my feelings. If I have, don’t hold back. Lay it on me. Thanks in advance for any and all replies. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/2 "2014-08-08T21:41:12Z")
[The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/655/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-cannibalism) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/3 "2014-08-08T23:09:52Z")
> [@sweeteviljesus](#): > > [The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/655/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-cannibalism) That doesn’t really answer any of the specifics of the OP. While I might agree that the incidence of cannibalism has been exaggerated somewhat in the past, Aren’s thesis that it has never taken place anywhere routinely is flat out bonkers. Cannibalism is well attested to among the Aztecs and in the South Pacific, for starters. I don’t believe the Amazon was a real hotbed of cannibalism, but it certain occurred among certain tribes there. In [Keep the River on Your Right](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_River_on_Your_Right), the amateur anthropologist Tomas Scheebaum gives a first hand account of cannibalism (in which he participated) by an Amazon tribe in the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/4 "2014-08-09T00:00:49Z")
And just because a tribe aren’t actual cannibals doesn’t mean they aren’t murderous trophy hunters of any outsiders. Small consolation that they aren’t going to eat you. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/5 "2014-08-09T00:11:55Z")
The Wari’ tribe [practiced a form of mortuary cannibalism](http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/news/news_cannibalism_nsv.htm), endocannibalism within the tribe as part of funeral rituals. They gave it up in the '60s, though. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/6 "2014-08-09T00:15:06Z")
I am not sure that Tomas Schneebaum is exactly what I would call a trusted source. Even though the book is fascinating, poetic, highly unusual, and deeply felt, and he undoubtedly did live with an Amazonian tribe, it’s closer to a gay Carlos Casteneda fantasy of Amazonia, not anthropology per se. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/7 "2014-08-09T01:43:03Z")
Tobias Schneebaum, not Tomas ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/8 "2014-08-09T02:07:59Z")
> [@JWT\_Kottekoe](#): > > Tobias Schneebaum, not Tomas My mistake. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > I am not sure that Tomas Schneebaum is exactly what I would call a trusted source. Even though the book is fascinating, poetic, highly unusual, and deeply felt, and he undoubtedly did live with an Amazonian tribe, it’s closer to a gay Carlos Casteneda fantasy of Amazonia, not anthropology per se. As I said, Schneebaum was not a professional anthropologist. That does not make his eyewitness testimony to cannibalism false. In the film of the same name based on his book, IIRC they interviewed members of the tribe he had stayed with (now settled and “civilized”), and they verified that they had formerly been cannibals. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer with Darwin of evolution by natural selection, and a reliable observer, had this to say in _A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro_ (pp. 498-499): > [@](#): > > The Cobeus, alone among the Vaupés, are real cannibals. They eat those of other tribes whom they kill in battle, and even make war for the express purpose of procuring human flesh for food. When they have amassed more than they can consume at once, they smoke-dry the flesh over the fire and thus preserve it for food for a long time. They burn their own dead, and drink the ashes in caxiri in the same way as the Tarianas and Tucanos. Henry Walter Bates, Wallace’s sometime companion and another reliable observer, said this in _The Naturalist on the River Amazons_: > [@](#): > > Four months before my arrival, two young half-castes (nearly white) of the village went to trade on the Jauari, the Majerónas having shown signs of abating their hostility a year or two previously. They had not been long gone, when their canoe returned with the news that the two young fellows had been shot with arrows, roasted, and eaten by the savages. > > José Patricio, with his usual activity in the cause of law and order, despatched a party of armed men to make inquiries. When they reached the settlement of the horde who had taken the two men, it was found evacuated, with the exception of one girl, who had been in the woods when the rest of her people had taken flight. The men brought her back with them. > > … > > She was decidedly the best-humoured and, to all appearances, the kindest-hearted specimen of her race I had yet seen. Her ways were more like those of a careless, laughing country wench, such as might be met with any day among the labouring class in villages in our own country, than a cannibal. Yet I heard this artless maiden relate, in the coolest manner possible, how she ate a portion of the bodies of the young men whom her tribe had roasted. There are also well-known accounts by Hans Staden, a German ship-wrecked in Brazil in the 1500s, of cannibalism among the Tupinambas (not actually Amazonian, but at least South American). ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/9 "2014-08-09T04:48:48Z")
[QUOTE=The Straight Dope] In a 1979 book called The Man-Eating Myth, anthropologist William Arens argues that cannibalism is the equivalent of an urban legend: lots of researchers say they’ve heard about it, but hardly anybody has actually seen it happen. [/QUOTE] Well, I guess not… _My Fearful Ordeal ! I was a Teenage Cannibal Victim !_ ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/10 "2014-08-09T04:55:39Z")
> [@JWT\_Kottekoe](#): > > Tobias Schneebaum, not Tomas of course. sloppy sloppy sloppy. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/11 "2014-08-09T04:56:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by The Straight Dope > In a 1979 book called The Man-Eating Myth, anthropologist William Arens argues that cannibalism is the equivalent of an urban legend: lots of researchers say they’ve heard about it, but hardly anybody has actually seen it happen. [There’s plenty of evidence in the American Southwest.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72aYa8KTO7U) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/12 "2014-08-09T05:15:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by The Straight Dope > In a 1979 book called The Man-Eating Myth, anthropologist William Arens argues that cannibalism is the equivalent of an urban legend: lots of researchers say they’ve heard about it, but hardly anybody has actually seen it happen. Hardly anybody has seen anyone be eaten by a tiger either, but man-eating tigers still exist. The only observers who usually observe cannibals are other cannibals, or are the dessert. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/13 "2014-08-09T05:24:17Z")
> [@sweeteviljesus](#): > > [The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/655/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-cannibalism) Quoth Cecil Adams: > [@](#): > > Most accounts by early explorers are so **larded** with patent nonsense that no credence can be placed in them. I see what Cecil did there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/14 "2014-08-09T05:37:15Z")
[QUOTE=Cecil] In some cases, I should point out, the mistake was no accident. Stories about cannibalism in the Caribbean spread in part because Spanish kings allowed only cannibal tribes to be enslaved. Naturally this inspired the conquistadors to declare just about every inhabitant of the New World guilty. [/QUOTE] This is very much a distortion of the actual case. While it is possible there were occasional allegations of cannibalism against many groups, the reputation for cannibalism varied drastically between different groups. In the Caribbean, the Arawaks, who inhabited the largest and richest islands, were not generally regarded as cannibals. The Caribs (whose name in fact is the origin of cannibal) in contrast had a fearsome reputation as cannibals. But the Caribs at the time were confined to the Lesser Antilles. Why should the Spanish tag the Caribs, who inhabited tiny islands, as cannibals, while not doing so with the Arawaks, who had much more desirable territories? Likewise on the mainland. If anything, the Inca Empire was even larger and richer than that of the Aztecs. But the Aztecs were considered cannibals, while the Incas were not. If the Spanish only accused indigenous people of cannibalism for political reasons, why didn’t they do so in the case of the Inca? Or any one of a number of other groups. To the best of my knowledge, the Spanish never made any allegation of cannibalism against groups in Panama, despite their possession of large amounts of gold. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/15 "2014-08-09T12:57:37Z")
> [@sweeteviljesus](#): > > [The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/655/is-there-really-such-a-thing-as-cannibalism) Count me as one with the “sharply divided” opinion. I’ve mentioned [before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=17595978#post17595978) my time in the Fore valley in the late '60s, and Kuru was not the only indication that cannibalism still happened. Anyway, that article came before Mad Cow Disease had such a salutary effect on general education. In the early '70s, many people thought that the Kuru/Cannibalism link was a myth, part of the larger cannibilism myth. Consequently, they scoffed at my Mother for suggesting that [Brain Dura Transplants](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207058/) and [pituitary extract](http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Creutzfeldt_Jakob_disease) represented a potential health risk. By the 80’s, the general medical profession had ean epedemic of iatrogenic CJK /CJD, and by the '90s the general population had learned that you can actually get ‘infectious’ brain desease by eating meat, so suddenly the Kuru/Cannibalism link didn’t seem so strange and exotic. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/16 "2014-08-09T15:38:44Z")
I recall reading once that some lower animal (maybe Planaria) could be taught to run a maze, and then the educated planaria were ground up and fed to untrained Planaria, who learned more quickly. If this is true, it could be that Darwinian selection could favor cannibalism. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/17 "2014-08-09T17:31:01Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I recall reading once that some lower animal (maybe Planaria) could be taught to run a maze, and then the educated planaria were ground up and fed to untrained Planaria, who learned more quickly. If this is true, it could be that Darwinian selection could favor cannibalism. [These results are no longer considered valid.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian) > [@](#): > > This experiment intended to show that memory could be transferred chemically. The experiment was repeated with mice, fish, and rats, but it always failed to produce the same results. The perceived explanation was that rather than memory being transferred to the other animals, it was the hormones in the ingested ground animals that changed the behavior.[16] McConnell believed that this was evidence of a chemical basis for memory, which he identified as memory RNA. McConnell’s results are now attributed to observer bias.[17][18] No blinded experiment has ever reproduced his results of ‘maze-running’. Subsequent explanations of maze-running enhancements associated with cannibalism of trained planarian worms were that the untrained flatworms were only following tracks left on the dirty glassware rather than absorbing the memory of their fodder. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cannibals-in-the-amazon-rainforest-myth/695124/18 "2014-08-09T17:35:53Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Count me as one with the “sharply divided” opinion. I don’t even think the reaction was as “sharply divided” as Cecil suggests. As far as I know most anthropologists accept that cannibalism occurred regularly in some groups. It’s a long way from saying that the incidence of cannibalism has been exaggerated to agreeing with Arens’ idea that it was virtually non-existent.