Sleeping with cannibals

[Azaziel]

www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/cannibals.html?c=y&page=1

[Tamrin]

BTW, I had the curious pleasure of sleeping with Dayak headhunters in a longhouse in Sawawak back in the late 1960's. Through an interpretor, the villagers winkingly told us they no longer collected skulls, but a few of the older folk claimed credit for some of those strung up from the roof!

[Tamrin]

Brief history of cannibal controversies

[Excerpt - Article by David F. Salisbury, Exploration, 15 August 2001 - Linked Above]

"Cannibalism is a difficult topic for an anthropologist to write about, for it pushes the limits of cultural relativism, challenging one to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior," writes Beth Conklin in her new book, Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society [University of Texas Press].

Historically, charges of cannibalism were used by European nations to help justify their colonization efforts. As a result, many historical allegations of people eating are undoubtedly false. But the fact that such allegations were made is not sufficient grounds to conclude that all reports of cannibalism are untrustworthy and should be discounted, Conklin says.

During the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, when Europeans invaded the New World, they saw cannibalism as the quintessential expression of savagery and evil, and used this as a justification for employing violent means to subjugate native people. This theme dates back to Columbus' accounts of a supposedly ferocious group of man-eaters who lived in the Caribbean islands and parts of South America called the Caniba, which gave us the word cannibal. In the 16th century, Pope Innocent IV declared cannibalism a sin deserving to be punished by Christians through force of arms and Queen Isabella of Spain decreed that Spanish colonists could only legally enslave natives who were cannibals, giving the colonists an economic interest in making such allegations.

Accounts of cannibalism in times of famine have been established;
In ritual cannibalism, the possibility of symbolism ought to be considered (e.g., the Eucharist);
Accounts of routine cannibalism need to be cautiously evaluated