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From: iayork@panix.com (Ian A. York)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Cannibals (book review)
Date: 22 May 1996 18:50:35 -0400

Since the cannibalism thread has spontaneously regenerated, it's probably time to post this book review. Thanks to my sister (Hi, Morag!) and Max for finding the book in some obscure back corner used book store and sending it to me.

W. Arens
The Man-eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979
ISBN 0-19-502793-0

206 pages, approx. 200 references

Arens is (or at least was, at the time of writing this book) Associate professor of Anthropology, State University of New York at Stony Brook.

In this book, Arens attempts to track down and examine the evidence for cannibalism as a feature of any society. That is, he excludes the acts of rare lunatics such as Dahmer, and occasional desperate survival acts such as the Donner Party or the "Alive" events. He's interested in whether any society, ever, has accepted cannibalism.

The book is loosely organized into seven chapters, covering such topics as "The Classic Man-Eaters" and "The Mythical World of Anthropology." It's well-referenced; Arens made a point of examining originals as much as possible, and tries to put accounts into their historical context. The text is dry and dense - perhaps Arens was concerned about writing an overly popular book and bent the other way, because reading this is slow going.

He seems to have examined just about every society accused of cannibalism - Africa, New Guinea, North America, the Aztecs, prehistoric man, and so on. He tries to find credible witnesses to the act and (in a process that will be familiar to anyone who's tried to find the source of an urban legend) generally manages only to find that the so-called witnesses are only recounting what they've been told.

He points out that many explorers' descriptions of cannibalism are inherently unreliable, because the Spanish royal proclamation of 1503 specifically permitted the use of cannibals - and only cannibals - for slaves.

The expected scramble for the profit to be made in human bondage followed immediately. Islands once thought to be inhabited by Arawak upon closer examination turned out in reality to be overrun with hostile cannibals. Slowly but surely great areas were recognized as Carib and their enslavement legalized (Newson 1976:72). Thus the operational definition of cannibalism in the sixteenth century was resistance to foreign invasion followed by being sold into slavery, which was held to be a higher status than freedom under aboriginal conditions.

He finds a handful of documents that purport to be by direct witnesses of cannibalism. In each case he throws doubt on either the credibility of the witness (pointing out, for example, that Hans Staden, a seaman who claimed to have observed cannibalism by the Tupinamamba Indians in the 16th century, claimed also to have understood conversations by the Tupinamamba in detail on the first day of his capture as they discussed where and how to eat him; not to mention that common sailors in the 16th century were not known for their literacy and ability to write books about their experiences), or on the accuracy of their observation (Dole in 1962 described an apparent cannibalism ritual, but Arens notes that her description of the bones changes on occasion, suggesting that either she has left out steps of the ritual preparation or failed to observe them - allowing for substitution).

With regard to the Dole's description, Arens says:

The reader who thinks this sort of careful combing of the text is uncalled-for should remember that this is the one and only description by an anthropologist who explicitly claims to have witnessed cannibalism. If the custom of eating the dead was well documented and confirmed independently by others then such an approach as the one guiding this study would be unnecessarily tedious.

In various chapters, Arens considers and dismisses as second-hand such sources as various explorers, who generally seem to have entered an area *just* after the tribe (or, more often, the neighbouring tribe) has given up cannibalism; Jesuit missionaries in North America, who turn out never to have actually been eyewitnesses to the event (Arens cites "the collected documents of the Jesuit missionaries (Thwaites 1969) for this); and Carleton Gajdusek, who initially popularized the idea that kuru was spread among the Fore in New Guinea by cannibalism. Oddly, the Fore had given up cannibalism *just* before Gajdusek arrived there. (Arens adds, "While this book was in press, Gajdusek began to treat the cannibal notion more cautiously, since he is now quoted as saying that 'there has been so far no convincing evidence that the infections can be acquired by eating or drinking affected material or by any means other than direct invasion of the bloodstream' (Schmeck 1978:16)."

I'm not able to fully judge Arens' case. Perhaps he's ignored some documents that are more convincing than the ones he discusses; perhaps he's misrepresented the contents of some he does mention. But the book is clearly not aiming at notoriety, and if his descriptions are remotely accurate then - at the very least - societies that accept cannibalism are and always have been extremely rare.

Personally, I find it very convincing, and I think that the burden of proof is now on those who disagree with Arens to show convincingly why he's wrong.