The Man-Eating Myth: Are reports of cultural cannibalism believable?

(To make it obvious, ‘cultural cannibalism’ is my nonce term for cannibalism that is a part of a culture, not the behavior of a deranged individual (Dahmer) or the actions of people in an emergency (Donner).)

In “The Man-eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy”, W. Arens seems to doubt many historical stores of cultural cannibalism:

He even has an answer to the existence of kuru:

So, is Arens creditable? Is there evidence he’s wrong, and that cultural cannibalism did or does exist?

My favorite anthropologist, Marvin Harris, devotes an entire chapter to anthropophagy in his book Good to Eat, in which he gives his rebuttals to Arens. Harris has a reason – he championed Michael Harner’s theory that Aztec human sacrifices ended up being eaten. It’s not quite accurate )as Harris points out) to say that the Aztecs performed sacrifice “in order to get some meat.” But it would certainly be inviting.

Book review in the Washingon Post - 7/30/08

AMONG THE CANNIBALSL Adventures on the Trail of Man’s Darkest Ritual, by Paul Raffaele.

From the article:

Dismissing accounts because of a Spanish decree does not rule out other accounts and does not necessarily rule out reports from Spanish explorers. The decree that permitted only cannibals for slaves could very well be because there really were cannibals. Certainly the quantity of human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs should have met a criteria for “use as slaves” by the Spanish. Human sacrifice at least is documented by the Spanish explorers, the Aztecs, and by archaeological evidence.

There is also incontrovertible evidence of the Anasazi practicing cannibalism (from Archaeological Instiute of America):

It seems to have gone on over an extended period of time. More then would be expected from a single event like the Donner party.

My impression of Arens is that he a priori believes that cannibalism does not exist and makes his case while disregarding and dismissing contrary evidence out of hand because the observers may be biased without showing that the bias actually exists.

OK, that makes sense. Thanks, everyone, for the enlightening thread.

Allegedly, some isolated tribes in New Guinea still serve man; for certain they still did well into the 20th century.

Enlightening, that is, unless you’re having lunch right now.

Yep. There’s almost certain evidence of cannibalism in New Guinea, by way of the history of the disease Kuru.

Well, depends on what you are having for lunch… :eek:

The Master Speaks

That is still one impressive column on the subject.

I recall seeing a documentary on TV once where cannibals were interviewed. IIRC it was in New Guinea and one woman described eating a piece of her mother as part of a funeral ritual. She said she had loved her mother right up until her death from natural causes, and now, her mother would always be a part of her.

The allegation that certain tribes were identified as cannibals for political reasons by the Spanish has to be one of the silliest claims made by those who deny the reality of cultural cannibalism. In the Caribbean, for example, the Taino (Arawaks) possessed the larger, richer islands of the Greater Antilles, the primary object of Spanish conquest, yet they were not alleged to be cannibals (and this was not used as an excuse to enslave them). On the other hand, the Caribs (who gave their names to “cannibalism”) inhabited mostly smaller islands in the Lesser Antilles, which the Spanish were not particularly interested in. Why should the Spanish have highlighted cannibalism among the Caribs, and not the Arawak, if an excuse for conquest were needed? And the Spanish never really required much of an excuse to enslave Indians, cannibal or not.

Likewise, while the Aztecs were alleged to be cannibals (and as has been said, there is ample evidence for very large scale human sacrifice), the Incas, the other major Empire the Spanish conquered, were not. If politics were involved, why didn’t the Spanish make such claims against the Incas or many other groups?

<Insert obligatory “To Serve Man” joke here>

Don’t you mean they gave their name to the Caribbean?

Regardless, I agree that cannibalism deniers are starting to look more and more like Holocaust deniers. I suspect that many cannibalism deniers are descendants of cultures that used to practice cannibalism.

There appears substantial first and second hand evidence for cultural cannibalism having existed among some of the Maori of New Zealand, even unto relatively recent post-European-contact times, a particular late example being the Maori invasion of the Chatham Islands, and subsequent slaughter of the indigenous Moriori people.

This page offers a selection of relevant quotes. (I have no idea if the site is reputable per se however… and I haven’t found another source for the Cook journal entry).

Arens’s book is more subtle than secondhand recountings of his argument tend to make it appear. Strictly, his argument was not that cannibalism has never existed, but that anthropologists had been too ready to uncritically accept secondhand reports of its existance. Depending on one’s preconceptions, one may or may not find his reasons for being wary of different accounts convincing, but he does explain those reasons. (Personally, I suspect his suggested alternative explantions for kuru were a stretch when the book was written and developments since have hardly bolstered his case in this instance.)

Arens has in fact appeared to be relatively open to new evidence. For instance, interviewed by Douglas Preston for a New Yorker profile of Christy Turner in November 1998, he happily agreed, on the basis of Turner and others’ archaeological work, that it was entirely possible that some of the Anasazi were routinely practicing cannibalism. While still sceptical, he doesn’t appear to be totally close minded on the subject.

They gave their name to both. The word “cannibal” is derived from Carib, as is the name Caribbean.

From Merriam-Webster: