Rawson, Claude - Unspeakable Rites: Cultural Reticence and The Cannibal Question

Unspeakable Rites: Cultural Reticence and the Cannibal Question
Author(s): CLAUDE RAWSON

Source: Social Research, Vol. 66, No. 1, FOOD: NATURE and CULTURE (SPRING 1999), pp. 167-
193
Published by: The New School
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Unspeakable Rites:
CulturalReticence //
and the Cannibal/
Question / BY CLAUDE RAWSON
A hope it won't seem impolite,or as people say these days,inap-

propriate,in a conference on "Food: Nature and Culture,"to
address the question of cannibalism.This is hardlythe firstthing
thatmost of us thinkof as food, even ifwe don't belong to the
group of postcolonial thinkerswho think cannibalism doesn't
exist or never existed.1We don't, nowadays,eat each other very
often.But let me remindyou thatspecial cases occur more or less
everyyear,Jeffrey Dahmer being the best knownrecentexample,
though not usually,at least in Westerncities,as a tribalpractice.
When Freud announced that,of the threegreatprohibitedacts,
of homicide, incest and cannibalism,the firsttwo were widely
practiced in our cities, but cannibalism had been completely
eradicated,except as psychicdetrituson the analyst'scouch, he
was himselfcaught up in a bit of Freudian resistance.I once
quoted Freud's remarksin a seminar at Berkeley,adding that
even in the BayArea it probablydidn't happen veryoften.Mylit-
tlejoke, as it turnedout,wasn'ta joke. A studentput up her hand
and said that she workedin a lawyer'soffice,and yes, theyhad
plentyof homicide and incest... but cannibalism', "onlyonce."
I willcome back to Freud. He was rightto the extentthatcan-
nibalismobviouslywasn'tpracticedveryoftenby his patientsor
his readers,and human fleshisn'tone of our staple foods. But it
is a food which,in one wayand another,has had a lot to do with
SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Spring 1999)

168 SOCIAL RESEARCH
"nature," and evenmorewith"culture," and ithas certainly func-

tionedthroughout historyas a "marker of I
identity." once saw a
newspapercartoonshowinga missionary beingboiled in a pot.
Aroundhimweretheusualflockof natives, whoseunspeakable
ritesaroundthefirehavelongbeen a stapleofWestern imagina-
tion.Nearthemstoodsomebottlesof1989ChâteauLynch-Bages,
leftopen to breatheatjungle temperature. The boilingmission-
arysays: "Now I know thesepeople are savages.Theydrinkred
winewithwhitemeat."He was,we mayfeel,jumpingto conclu-
sions,and histasteinwinemayhavebeen simple,thoughI doubt
ifthesebottles,or anybottles, wouldgo wellwiththatparticular
dish.Ifit is thecase thatwe oftendefinepeople,or cultures, by
whattheyeat,and ofcourseitis,thenthecannibalexampleis not
onlythemostextremebutalso,historically, one ofthemostcom-
monand persistent of
ways doingit,thoughthemissionary in my
storyis notthemosttypicalcase.
FromthetimeoftheGreeks,and downtothepresent, societies
have ascribedcannibalism, or, to use a more strictly accurate
word,anthropophagy (theGreek word for man-eating), to other
societies,forreasonswhichrangefromimperialexploitation to a
hostofmoreor lesssubtleagendasofself-justification or self-def-
initionon theone hand,and defamation of the "other"on the
other.The word"cannibal"is itselfan illustration ofthepoint.It
is not,like"anthropophagy," a wordthatsignalsitsownmeaning
etymologically, and whichcould not easilymean anything else.
Instead,itis a geographical and ethnicterm.It pointsa fingerat
a particular people,and itdatesfrom1492.
To be quitespecific,weowetheword"cannibal"to Columbus.2
Itis a corruption oftheterm"Carib,"thenameofan Amerindian
people from the Caribbean islandsand northern SouthAmerica,
whichalso means"bold"or "fierce" in theirlanguage.Columbus'
informants were purportedly a rival indigenousgroup, the
Arawaks.The Arawakstold him the Caribswere man-eaters,
enactinga standardscenariooftellersofcannibaltales,in which
one tribe (whetheritselfanthropophagous or not) tends to
impute cannibalism to itsneighbors. On a wider historicalcanvas,

THE CANNIBAL QUESTION 169
conquerors and invaderstraditionallyimpute it (whetheraccu-

ratelyor not) to those theyconquer or invade,or to the domestic
mob, or to politicalenemies.
In one sense, then,"cannibalism"did not existbefore 1492. It
was invented,or, as postcolonial persons say, "constructed"by
Columbus. This isn't to say thatanthropophagywas unknownin
the ancientworld.It seems alwaysto have existed,or to have been
said to have existed,usuallyin "other"places. One postcolonial
scenario,as I suggested,claims thatit has alwaysbeen imputed,
but never actuallycarried out as a tribalpractice,and that this
imputationis a chronicallyrecurrentlie, withan imperiallymoti-
vated objectiveof ethnicdefamation.That it was sometimesa lie
and usuallyan intendeddefamationis demonstrable.That it was
sometimestrueis also demonstrablebythe kind of evidence usu-
allyaccepted forotherhistoricalevents:reportsand descriptions
bywitnessesand a varietyof archival,anthropological,and jour-
nalisticsources. The wishto believe otherwiseis partlythe prod-
uct of latter-daypolitical preoccupations,but also reflectsan
older and more general patternof denial, in the Freud-relatedas
well as the more ordinarysenses of the term,which attachesto
the topic in intriguingways.
When Columbus learned about Caribs,he didn't knowhe was
in the Caribbean. He thoughthe had reached the Orient, and
entertainedthe notion thatcannibals werewarriorsof the Great
Khan. Another idea was that the termwas related to the Latin
canis,or dog. There is a traditionalassociation of cannibalism
withdogs and wolves,which had a powerfulexistence in classi-
cal timeslong before the term"cannibal" could provide etymo-
logical encouragement.3 This may seem odd, in view of the
contrarynotion thatdog don't eat dog, and a common percep-
tion that eating one's own kind, supposedly a reversionto bes-
tiality,is more typical of humans than of other animals.
Columbus heard fromhis interpretersthat furtherto the East
were to be found one-eyedogres and man-eatingmen withdogs'
muzzles (hombresde un ojo, y otroscon hocicosde perrosque comían
A
los hombres)

170 SOCIAL RESEARCH
These monsters, whichhad becomestaplesof travelnarrative,

ultimately derivefrom theCyclopesofthe Odyssey and theCyno-
cephali (dog-heads)reportedbyPlinyin his NaturalHistory, as
wellas frommorerecenttravel-writers likeSirJohnMandeville
and MarcoPolo.5Theyare an exampleoftherelentless habitof
earlyvoyagers to America and elsewhere ofconsciously uncon-
or
sciouslyassimilating theirdiscoveries to classicalgeography,his-
tory, and myth:speculations that America mightbe, or might
resemble,thelostAtlantis, or Arcadia,or thatIndianlanguages
werederivedfrom,or resembled,Greek,wereas widespreadin
actualas in imaginary or fictitioustravel-narratives.
The factthat
reportsof cannibalactivity generally evokedclassicalsourcesor
had some classicalcolorationhas recently been adduced as an
argument forthinking themto be whollyfabricated. Thiswould
be on a parwitharguing, on thesamegrounds,thatSouthAmer-
ica didn'texist.
Cannibalaccusations, trueor false,are usuallyexpressions of
xenophobia.I'll beginwitha classicalexample,theproductofa
peculiarlyexacerbated,even enraged,imperialperspective. It
comesfromthesecondcentury AD, and is bytheRomansatirist
Juvenal, who is one of the earliestsatirists
ofan imperialmetrop-
olis.I don'tmeanthathe wasanti-imperialist. Buthe wroteabout
a bigcitythatwasthecapitalofa greatempire,fullofpeoplefrom
conqueredlandsin Europe,NorthAfrica,and theMiddleEast.
He didn'tlikeit.It wastoo multicultural. He wantedto returnto
thegood old dayswhenRomanswereRomans.The moreinflu-
entialor fashionable theforeignculture,themorehe dislikedit.
He especiallyhatedGreeks,because theywereéliteforeigners,
like Europeanprofessors in Americanuniversities. But he also
hatedotherforeigners: and
Jews,Syrians, Egyptians.
InJuvenal's fifteenth satire,there'san episodeofcannibalism,
said to be a real-life
event,unlikethestoriestoldin the Odyssey
abouttheCyclopesand theLaestrygonians. It seems,in reallife,
tohaveoccurredinAD 127,aboutthreeyearsbeforethepoemis
thoughtto havebeen written. It involvesyouthsfromtworival
townships divided by religioushatred.The scene is Egypt,not

Rome. One of the townswas Tentyraor Dendereh, which wor-

shipped Hathor,the cow-headedgoddess of love; the other was
Ombi, now Negadeh, ten miles away,whichworshippedSet, the
pig-headed god of darkness,and the crocodile, abominated by
Tentyrites.6It's perhapsthefirstaccountwe have,in an important
poem, both of urban gang-warfare, and of inter-communal riot-
ing of a sortendemic in our own time,from Belfastto Nicosia or
Bombay:
...whenone townhad a big feast-day,the leaders and chief

Citizensof itsrivaldecided to
...wreckthe gaymerrymaking
And break up the funof the party,the tablesthatwould be
spread
...forthe day-and-night
junketing
That can last a whole week non-stop.
(11.38-44)7
But the poem is less concerned withrivalgangs,like WestSide

Story,than with the fact that both reflectundifferentiated bar-
barism.It's notjust a question of a "plague on both theirhouses,"
as in the famousprototypefor WestSideStory, but of "whatelse do
you expect from such people?" It is a
mainly xenophobic outburst
against Egyptians, in the way that much of Juvenal's satire is
fueledbyxenophobia, thoughthat,as I said, is usuallyagainstfor-
eign riff-raff
infestingthe streetsof Rome, ratherthan, as here,
in
aliens theirown nativehabitat.The incidentis at least partly
authenticatedbyindependentevidence (of a kindsometimessaid
to be lackingin cannibal narratives) . One thingwe can be sure of,
however,is thatthe cannibal imputation,irrespectiveof itstruth,
is targetingthe foreignnessof aliens.
The account continues,evokingthe drunken,orgiasticexcita-
tionsof"mobviolence,"tribalprovocationsand incitements to riot,
and a climaxofgorycombatthatyieldsnothingto X-ratedmovies:
[Theywere]...slurred
ofspeechand lurching
frombooze ...
all greasywithrankpomadeand

172 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Sporting garlandsgalore,wreaths all askewon theirheads.

... Insults
Begantheaffray...
oathsvolleyedback,battlewasjoined
Withnakedhandsas weapons.Fewjawsgotthrough
Thispunch-upunscathed, hardlyanyonehad an unbroken
Nosebytheend.Throughout theranksthereappeared
Faceshalf-bashed knockedoutoftrue,
to a jelly,features
Fistsbloodiedfromeyes,splitcheekslaidwideto expose
thebone.
(11.47-58)
Then, there is a decisive escalation: a ritualtearingto pieces,

reminiscentof Dionysiacfestivals,the so-calledmaenadic sparag-
mos,followedbythe collectivecannibal orgy:
Butone ofthem,panic-stricken, pressedon

A littletoofast,tripped, and
fell, was captured.The victorious
Rabbletorehimapartintobits and pieces,so many
Thatthissinglecorpseprovideda morselforall. Theywolfedhim
Bonesand all,notbothering evento spit-roast
Or makea stewofhiscarcass.Buildinga properfire-pit
Wasa bore,and tooktime- so theyscoffed thepoordevilraw.
(11.77-83)8
Eatingrawis a finalindignity, the deepest markofbarbarism.If

cannibalismis the ultimatepariah act, doing it rawwas the lowest
possiblewayof doing it.Juvenalis drawingon an old idea of the
savageryof raw-eating, whichwentback to ancient Greece (I will
give a Homeric example) and reappears in manylater forms.It
was ofteninvokedas an incrementalsavagery,compounding the
basic barbarityof the cannibal act.
In the Renaissance, European imaginationswere especially
stirredby the reportedanthropophagyof the indigenousinhabi-
tantsof the New World.Indeed, as we have seen, we owe theword
cannibalto Columbus. For two or three centuries,Amerindians
became the officialexemplarsof the man-eatingbarbarian,fitfor
imperial missionsof conquest and civilization,or (if theywere
lucky) merelycandidates for ethnic defamation.Not only the

Caribs,but the Inca of Peru, the Tupinamba of Brazil,the Aztecs

of Mexico, the Iroquois of North America were to many Euro-
peans what the Scythiansand other barbarians were to the
Greeks,and whatthe Egyptiansrepresentedto the ratherspecial
imaginationofJuvenal.Theybecame the subjectsof an extended
debate in whichthe distinctionbetweenrawand cooked anthro-
pophagyreappears much as in Homer or Juvenal,and the issue
of rawversuscooked even became mixed up in the parallel and
contemporaneousdebates in Europe over the sacramentof the
Eucharist.
Thus, in the Brazilian lands where the Tupinamba lived,
famousforthe revengeritualin whichtheycooked and ate their
enemies' bodies, French commentatorsin the 1550s noted a
neighboringtribe,the Ouetaca, who ate theirvictimsraw.They
were a lower sort,comparable, in Protestanteyes, to Catholics
who preened themselveson consuming the body and blood of
Christ in the Eucharistie rite. Indeed, the insistence by the
Roman Church on the doctrine of the "real presence" offered
Protestantsthe polemical opportunityof describingCatholics as
cannibals.At the timeof the FrenchReligiousWars (1562-1598),
Protestantshad a special feelingforthe Indians of America,see-
ing them as fellowvictimsof the imperial Catholic powers.The
great Huguenot ethnographer,Jean de Léry,who wrote with
deep insightabout the Tupinamba and became a role-modelof
Claude Lévi-Strauss,made a point of contrastingtheirritualnot
only with the exploitative voracities of conquering Catholic
invaders,but withthe raw-eatingimplicationsof the sacrament,
both of them,in his view,much worsethan honestman-eating.It
is a factof widerimportthatthe greatdebate over the cannibal
characterof New WorldIndians, and itstheologicaland political
implications,coincided witha period of intensifiedpreoccupa-
tion with Eucharistie doctrine; that the Eucharistie debate
bounced back and forthacross the Atlantic,interpenetrating
with the Indian question; and that the hardening Roman
Catholic insistence on the real presence, culminatingat the
Council of Trent in the 1550s and 1560s, posed challenges of

174 SOCIAL RESEARCH
anguished self-definition as well as providingProtestantswith

debatingpoints.
In 1580, the great French essayistMichel de Montaigne pub-
lished an essay "Of Cannibals," covertlybut unmistakablyinflu-
enced bythe ProtestantLéry.It was an account,and a defense,of
the Tupinamba thathas become a classicstatement,and is some-
timescreditedas being the inaugural declarationof the idea of
the noble savage. The essaywas writtenduringthe bitterperiod
of the ReligiousWars,and Montaigne,who was a Catholic, and
verycautious, kept a discreetsilence over the Eucharistand its
cannibal associations.But his theme,even more than the Protes-
tant Léry's, is the superiority of the supposedly savage
AmerindianoverMontaigne'sown cruel and bloodthirsty compa-
triotsin the French civilwars. UnlikeJuvenal (whom he quotes
respectfully), he is concerned to praise a cannibal tribeby com-
parison withthe fratricidalFrench. The Tupinamba earn Mon-
taigne's approval because they eat their enemy, not their
brothers,and because theydo so frommotivesof vengeance and
honor ratherthan naked hatred (or hunger), thatis to sayforrit-
ual reasons ratherthan frompassional need. They also eat him
cooked ratherthan raw.But theirdecisivevirtueforMontaigne
(alwayshorrifiedby the torturesand live burningsof European
civilconflicts)lies less in the distinctionofcooked versusrawthan
in the fact that the victimis cooked dead ratherthan roasted
alive.10
The discreditthatJuvenalplaced on the mob's raw-eatingof a
corpse is transferredby Montaigne to a diametricallyopposite
atrocity,the cooked-eating(or so it seems) of a non-corpse:
I thinkthere is more barbarityin eating a man

alive than in eating him dead; and in tearingby
torturesand the racka bodystillfullof feeling,in
roastinga man bitbybit,in havinghim bittenand
mangled by dogs and swine (as we have not only
read but seen withinfreshmemory,not among
ancientenemies,but among neighborsand fellow

citizens,and whatis worse,on the pretextof piety

and religion), than in roasting and eating him
afterhe is dead. (p. 155)
The Frenchare more barbaricand more cannibal thanthe can-

nibalsbecause theycook theirbrothersliveinsteadofeatingtheir
enemy dead. What Montaigne is reticentabout is that, in the
French religiouswars,cannibal atrocitiesdid occur,literallyand
in fact,in whichFrench compatriotswere not onlyburned alive,
but actuallyeaten.
This fact was cunninglyconcealed in his wording,though it
would have aided his argumentto bringit out,just as Eucharistie
connectionsare also concealed in his entiretreatmentof the sub-
ject, thoughthe issue of the Eucharistwas close to people's minds
whenAmerindianpracticeswere discussed.
Notice, however,the extent to which Montaigne's wording,
whileultimately withdrawing fromthe mostdamagingdisclosure,
flirtswithit,leads us on, speakingof the Frenchmob's practiceof
"eatinga man alive" and "roasting[him] bit by bit." It is onlyat
the end thatwe realize thathe doesn't mean whatwe have been
led to thinkhe meant,so thatthe victims'corpses are not, after
all, said to be eaten by theircompatriots,but thrownto dogs and
pigs.It seems thatMontaignecould not bringhimselfto utterthe
most uncomfortabletruth,howeversupportiveof his argument.
But nor could he remainsimplysilent.It's a case ofnot being able
to take the issue straightor to leave it alone, and Montaigne
found refuge, like many other writers,in the bolt-hole of
metaphor.
Juvenaldescribesa collectiveor mob-cannibalism, in whichthe
Egyptianyouthswolfedtheirvictim"bones and all, not bothering
even to spit-roast... his carcase."This forthrightdescriptiondiffers
totallyfromMontaigne'spseudo-forthrightness. Montaigneis elo-
quent as to how it'smore barbaricto eat a man alive,roastinghim
bit by bit,havinghim chewed and mangled and so on, elaborat-
ing thehighlyspecificsuggestionin pruriently diversionary detail,
only to reveal that when it comes to his own depraved people

176 SOCIAL RESEARCH
devouring theirbrothers and devourers theydo notdo it,or not

literally
(though the literalactoccurred and,as I said,Montaigne
knewit), butonlybyproxy. Itis,in theend,onlythedogsand pigs
whodo theactualchewingand mangling.
This extraordinary slippage is not unique to Montaigne,
though the almostseamless transitionfromcannibalsuggestion
to non-cannibal realityis hisown.It is a particularlypuremicro-
or
stylistic syntactical reflection, sentence-level, the pull of
at of
thecannibalimplication and theultimaterefusaltofaceup to it.
Thismaybe specialto Montaigne.Butthereis a Homericprece-
dentforsucha last-minute diversion fromtheidea ofmeneaten
bymen to thatof men eatenbydogs and therest.In a famous
sceneofBookXXII oftheIliad,whenAchillesisabouttokillHec-
tor,Hectorasksfora deal inwhichthewinnerwillensurethatthe
loser'sremainswillbe returned tohisownpeople.Achillesreplies
thattherewillbe no deal,callsHectora dog,and sayshe willbe
leftfordogstoeatup. Thisis itself an interestingdisplacementof
the cannibalidea frommen to dogs,and one thatincidentally
castsan ironiclighton thecommonidea thatdog don'teat dog,
whichhauntsexpressionsof the cannibalobsessionat many
points.In betweenthesetwomentions ofdogs,Achillesraisesthe
spectreofwarrior eatingwarrior:
No moreentreating... youdog ...
I wishonlythatmyspiritand fury[menos and thumos]
woulddriveme
to hackyourmeatawayand eat itraw...
no,butthedogsand thebirdswillhaveyouall
fortheirfeasting.
(XXII. 345-54)
Thiscannibaltaunt,sandwiched(ifyoulike)betweenthedogs,
has a beguilingresemblanceto an Amerindianwarriortaunt
reportedbyHans Staden,whowascaptiveofanotherTupitribe,
the Tupinikin,some years before Montaignewrote of the
Tupinamba:"Cursedbe thoumymeat...vengeanceon youforthe

death of myfriends...before sunsetyourfleshshall be myroast

meat,"language thatin turnbears a resemblanceto some boasts
of Tupinamba captivesin Montaigne'sessay.11From one perspec-
tive,thesetauntsare partofa ritualizedbattlefieldmachismo,not
necessarilycannibal,equally common in epic speechmakingand
in variousreal-lifewarriorcultures(includingtheJapanese samu-
rai),,12and nowadaysdomesticatedin the verbal foreplayof the
professionalboxing ring. That the latterritual has not lost all
tracesof older cannibal aggressionsto thisday maybe surmised
fromthe episode, a year or twoago, when Mike Tyson"bitboth
of Evander Holyfield'sears in a heavyweight titlefight."His box-
ing license has recently been restored by the Nevada State Ath-
letic Commission,an event thatmayseem to exist in a more or
less fearfulsymmetry withthe factthatcannibalismis not in itself
illegal in the United Statesor the United Kingdom,though it is
punishable (sometimesby fifteenmonths' hard labor) in Papua
New Guinea, or bydeath in Burundi.
But Achilles' cannibal taunt differsfromthe one reportedby
Staden because itis hypothetical.He isn'tgoing to do it,so it isn't
a threat."I wishI had the menosand thumos to eat you raw."It's not
thathe wantsto, or would ifhe could: he can, ifhe wins,and he
is going to win. It's thathe wantsnot so much to do it,as towant
to do it.The implicationis thathe doesn't do such things,though
if he did he would do it violently and do it raw: ü[i'
ànoxa'xvó[ievov Kpéa ëô|ievai (XXII. 347; the Greek word
'
order puts "raw"(ù[i ) at the beginningof the line, then "tear"
or "hack,"then "flesh,"then "eat"). Once again, raw-eatingrein-
forcesthe ferocity or savageryof the act,but in thiscase the act is
not performed.In fact,nobodygetseaten bya human in the Iliad
(the folk-taleogres of the Odyssey are another matter,honorary
non-humans,ifyou like) and, forall the talkabout corpsesbeing
eaten by dogs and birds in the Iliad, "no one is ever fed to the
dogs" either.Dogs mayor maynot be a substitutefantasy, replac-
ing what,in more primitiveversionsof the Iliadic epic, might
have been directcannibal threatsor even cannibal actsfromwar-
riorto warrior,as some Homeric scholarsbelieve (Griffin, 1980).

178 SOCIAL RESEARCH
We may or may not be witnessing,on the poet's part,a com-

prehensiveshrinkingfromthe subject,as too shockingto Greek
tastes,and on Achilles' part,a suggestionthatwhatevermaypass
on battlefieldsas the world goes, Greeks don't actuallydo such
things,even when sorelyprovoked. In Book XXIV, there is a
closelyparallel scene thatadds color to this reading (XXIV.200
ff.).The Trojan queen Hecuba, motherof the dead Hector,is rag-
ing at Achilles for what he did to Hector,just as Achilles had
raged at Hector forwhathe did to Patroclus,and callingAchilles
d)|iTiöTf|9(207),a word usuallytranslatedas "savage"but thatlit-
erallysignifiesraw-eating.In the earlierscene, Achilleshad told
Hector that "not even... the lady your mother" (XXII. 352-53)
can preventhis fate (i.e., being eaten bydogs and birds).
When Hecuba actuallyspeaks in Book XXIV, her intervention
has thusbeen ironicallypreparedforin Book XXII, and she now
repeatsthe same cannibalvelleityas Achilles,but in a significantly
modifiedform.Aftermourningthatthe dogs willfeed on Hector
(whichin the end theydo not), she saysof the imputedlyraw-eat-
ing Achilles (who doesn't do such things):
I wishI couldsetteeth
in themiddleofhisliverand eat it.Thatwouldbe vengeance
forwhathe did to myson
(XXIV.212-14)
Now thissaysshe wantsto do it,not thatshe wantsto wantto;

thatshe would if she could, not thatshe couldn't if she had the
chance. In a contextwherethe parallelsare so close and the sub-
ject so horrifyingly memorable thatwe are bound to remember
the earlierscene, a reversesymmetry pointsto an inescapable dis-
tinction.Hecuba, the broken-heartedold queen, will do it, and
Achilles,the ferociousfighter, won't. Is it because he is a Greek
and she is not?or because she is a woman,and women,especially
older women, are a recurrenttype of voracious cannibal ogre,
encountered also among Montaigne's Tupinamba, and in the
canniballore oftheFrenchreligiouswarsofMontaigne'slifetime,
as well as thatof the Irish faminesreportedby the seventeenth-

centuryEnglishwriterFynesMoryson,to whom I shall return.It

is apposite,in thisconnection,thatthe wolfin "LittleRed Riding
Hood" is disguised as a grandmother.In a post-Homericstory,
Hecuba ended up, incidentally, changed into a bitch.1^
The cannibalism of the French, in Montaigne's account, is
worse than the Brazilian cannibals' real man-eating,but it
remainsafterall metaphorical,and thereforenot so bad as the
real thing.In this,it resemblesthe Eucharist,whichmay not be
called metaphoricbut may not be allowed to be anythingelse.
The complicatedpudeur about these issues is radicallyexempli-
fiedin the Catholic Church'sinsistenceon the "real"presence in
the Eucharistierite,whichFreud and othershave interpretedas a
sublimationof pagan ritesof ingestinga dead god or leader. The
Church professed the sacrament to be (on the contrary) a
demonstrationthatit,unlikepagan cults,avoidssanguinarysacri-
fices.In reality,theinsistenceon the "real presence"as literal,and
the actual practice of physicallyemployingbread and wine as
metaphorsof Christ'sfleshand blood, is a remarkablephenome-
non in whichphysicalobjects,ratherthanwords,are used in a fig-
urative way, shielding us from a literalness which, however
stridently asseverated,cannot be countenanced. It is comparable
to the use of substituteanimals or objects in human sacrifice,
thoughmore strikingin itsdefianceof semanticappropriateness.
It epitomizesin a particularly starkand specialized formthe fact
thatwe can't face the idea of cannibalismstraightbut can't leave
it alone. Montaigne'sinsistencethatFrenchmenare more canni-
bal than the cannibals,and his effectivedenial thatFrenchmen
do it literallyas distinctfrommetaphorically(againstevidencewe
know he knew,which he refersto as having "not only read but
seen withinfreshmemory",and which,as I suggested,would have
powerfullyand literallystrengthenedhis ostensibleargument),
suggests a similar pattern, repeated with variationsby other
authors,including Swifton the Irish in his famous "cannibal"
pamphlet,A ModestProposal
I should perhaps say somethingabout thispamphlet by Swift,
published in 1729, whose fulltitleis A ModestProposalfvrPrevent-

180 SOCIAL RESEARCH
ing theChildrenofpoor People in Ireland,frombeinga Burden to their

Parentsand Country;and formakingthembeneficialtothePublick.This
proposal is based on a parade of demographicresearchand sta-
tisticalanalysis,and it advocates the idea of rescuing the Irish
economyby selling offforfood the babies of parentswho can't
supportthem.Contraryto popular misconceptions,thispiece of
black humor is not a Dickensian cryof compassion for the beg-
gars of Dublin (Swiftthoughttheyought to be, in the Biblical
phrase,destroyedfromthe face of the earth),or forthe plightof
theirchildren.Nor is it mainlyan attackon the Englishexploita-
tion of Ireland, thoughSwiftdid sometimesattackthat.Its point
is thatthe Irishare so fecklessin promotingtheirown self-inter-
est thattheyare pursuinga course of self-destruction tantamount
to eatingeach otherup. It is the same point thatJoyce'sStephen
Dedalus makeswhen he speaksofIreland as "theold sow thateats
her farrow."
This is a fantasywhichmade André Breton,the Pope of Surre-
alism,identify A ModestProposalas an inauguraltextof humoir noir,
a mode of imaginationwhichis unchecked by satiricalor moral-
istic agendas, which allows itselfto entertainunspeakable, out-
landish or prohibitedideas, and which has the freedom to be
"cruel"in the special sense of thattermwhichis usuallyimplied
bythe phrase "literatureof cruelty."14 Of course,Swifthad a satir-
ical and moral agenda, and Breton musthave knownit. He pre-
sumablymeant thatthe cannibal fantasyspillsover the discursive
implicationsinto a free sphere of cruel play.In thatsphere, the
cannibalismis "forreal." But it is only "forreal" as long as, in
anotherphrasewe like to use, "it'sonlyin the mind."Its cruelfris-
sons are entertainablebecause we know thatthe proposal offers
no suggestionof literalenactment.Readers of this poker-faced
piece of advocacyhave seldom been takenin by it in the way,for
example, that many readers,at the time and in our time,have
been takenin bythe "finalsolution"aspectsofanotherearlyeigh-
teenth-century mock-proposal,Defoe's Shortest WaywiththeDis-
senters(1702), whose chilling mimicryof covert murderous
intentionslooks forwardwithuncannyprescience to some stylis-

ticfeaturesof Hitler'sMeinKampf.Defoe hintsat killing,not can-

nibalism,and killing(like Freud's thirdgreat taboo, incest,and
unlikecannibalism),is an act which,thoughprohibited,we don't
findtoo outlandishto contemplatein, or ascribe to, ourselves.
This is a large story,involving"denial" on a culturalscale. For
now,the factto insiston is thatthe officialimportof Swift'scan-
nibal proposal is metaphorical,in the way that his remarkthat
England "wouldbe glad to eat up our whole Nation"is metaphor-
ical, except thathis main target,as I said, is Irishself-destruction.
However,it is not as simple as that.Contemporarieswould have
recognizedas partof thejoke thatcannibalismin the literalsense
was routinelyascribedto the IrishbyEnglishwriters, fromthe six-
teenth-century onwards. The idea had several sources,the oldest
being a referencein the Greek geographer Strabo to the inci-
dence of anthropophagyin lerne, or Ireland, reinforcedby a
more recentfalseetymology thatassociated the Irishor Scotiwith
the Scythians.15
The most immediatefactorwas a common assimilationof the
"savage old Irish" to other conquered peoples, most specifically
the Indians of Ibero-America, who were the predominantobjects
of cannibal imputationin sixteenth-century Europe. It has long
been recognized that the English discourse about the Irish was
closelymodeled on Spanish accounts of Indians,and in case any-
one thoughtthatthe remotenessfactorwould suggesta greater
degree of ethnicdifferentiation fromIndians thanfromIrish,Ire-
land was referredto by FynesMorysonas an island in "the Vir-
ginianSea." The Yahoos of Gulliver's Travels, widelyrecognized,in
one of their dimensions,as a portrayalof the bog Irish, are
describedas havingflatnoses, thicklips, and other physicalfea-
tures"common to all savage Nations."So when,in the 1590s,the
poet Spenser,in his Viewof thePresentStateofIreland,proposed
dealing withthe Irish in such a waythattheywill "quicklie Con-
sume themseluesand devourone another,"he was givingvoice to
a commonlyexpressed sentimentin which the idea of actual
anthropophagy, actuallypracticed,more than competeswithany
metaphorical alternatives.

182 SOCIAL RESEARCH
This is how Englishwriterswrote,includingnot onlySpenser,

Camden, and others,but the author of TheIrishRebellion (1646),
Sir John Temple, fatherof Swift'spatron Sir William Temple.
Now, as I suggested,it is abundantlyclear that Swift'sown pro-
posal is,on thisissue,metaphoricaland fictive,not literaland fac-
tual, and equally clear thatthisjoke derivespoint and piquancy
from a conventionallyestablished literal discourse. Swiftalso
introducesa second piquancy in the factthatthe principalpur-
chasersof the infants'fleshwill not be the savage Irish,who are
the producersbut can't affordthe product,but insteadthe afflu-
ent or ruling classes of Anglo-Irishadministrators, landowners,
merchants,bankers, fashionable ladies, and othergroups,includ-
ing theAnglicanclergyofwhichSwifthimselfwas a member.That
joke, which extends the cannibal imputationfromthe "savage"
old Irish to the "civilized"new Irish,the governingélites of met-
ropolitanprovenanceor origin,is a Swiftiansignaturealso found
in theYahoos, whose ultimatetendencyis to assimilatethe whole
of humanityto itsown despised subgroups.
Even so, or especiallyso, nowherein A ModestProposalare you
givenanyseriouslyfunctionalinvitationto thinkofcannibalismin
literallyenactable terms,or not in the "here and now" of thispar-
ticular advocacy. One would have thought that, as with Mon-
taigne's anthropophagous Frenchmen, any literal applications
could be assumed or expected to reinforcethe insult,and indeed
clinchan argumentthatotherwiserestsmainlyon an analogythat
is metaphoricaland thus,by definition,incomplete.Beyond the
commonplacesof xenophobic imputation,moreover,therewere
specificand actual cases of faminecannibalismamong the Irish,
documented or reported by English writerslike Moryson.Two
cases fromMorysonwerecitedtheyearbeforethe ModestProposal,
in November1728, bySwift'sfriendand colleague Thomas Sheri-
dan, in an essaycelebratingSwift'sbirthdayin the Intelligencer, a
paperjointly edited by himselfand Swift.
So we know Swiftknew,as we knowMontaigneknew,and the
question arises of why,in a workwhose cruel fantasyis for the
mostpartuncompromisingly givenitshead, the last painfultwist

is withheld.Swiftis not an author who usuallyshrinksfromlast

painfultwists,and the omissionis even more strikingthan Mon-
taigne's,whose own claim to a special truthfulness is thathe takes
his reflectionswhereverthe subject mightlead. Arguably,things
wereeasier forSwiftthanforMontaigne,ifself-implication in the
cannibal idea is the obstacle to literaldisclosure,since the savage
old Irish could be bracketed,in the wayof Spenser and others,
with"all savageNations."Swiftmayhave blocked offthatroutefor
himselfby redefiningthe Irish as a whole to include his own
Anglo-Irishpeople, thus allowing them to fall, in the fiction,
under an imputationtraditionallyreservedonly for natives.Or,
perhaps like other Anglo-Irishmen,he may already have been
nursingthatsense ofa likenessbetweenthe Irishand the English,
which is based on a recognitionof ethnic relatednessand on a
continuousculturalinterpénétration, and is currently the subject
of some attention:a perceived kinship variouslyregisteredby
Shaw and others,includingthe criticDeclan Kiberd,who sees the
twogroups as so similarthattheyneed, and indeed deliberately
mythologize,their differencesfrom one another in order to
definetheirown selves.It would not have been necessaryforSwift
to adopt the latterviewin order to feel an uneasinessof cultural
self-implication in a too literalapplicationof the cannibal slur.
Cannibalismcannot be contemplatedamong "us,"even in our
supposedly most clear-sightedand ruthless exposures of our-
selves,except in a metaphoricalform.The possibilitiesof a literal
applicationto "ourselves"as distinctfromothersare a matterof
endlesslyfascinatingspeculativeself-implication and tease, but
usuallyblocked, in the last that
analysis,by strategies range from
soft-pedalingevasions or circumventions,as in Montaigne, to
barefaceddenial. A French anthropologicaljoke has an anthro-
pologistaskinga tribalchiefif thereare any cannibals leftin his
tribe,to which the chief replies,"Not any more: we ate the last
one yesterday." It is widelyreportedthattribeswhichare thought
or knownto practiceanthropophagyroutinelydeny it,ascribing
the practiceinsteadto a neighboringtribe.This seems to be the
patterninvolvedin the distinctionbetween Arawaks,who told

184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Columbus about the man-eatingCaribs, and the Caribs them-

selves,fromwhom our word "cannibal"derives.It is a secondary
need of ours thatour "us" should be balanced not by one but by
two"thems,"a good and a bad, an interesting phenomenon there
is no timeto discusshere,but whichis probablynot unconnected
withthatpreferencefortripartite ratherthanbinarydivisionsthat
has givenus the concept of a "thirdworld."
At all events,the instinctto affirmthatthe other tribeis "can-
nibal" seems universal,and belongs to a long historyof imperial
imputations.All civilizationshave alwayshad multiplebarbarians
to despise,but each oftenidentifiesspecial or typifyinggroups.To
the Greeks,it was the Scythiansand theirneighborswho were
cannibals; to the Romans, at a particularpoint, the earlyChris-
tians; to later European empires, successivelyAmerindians,
Africans,Polynesians.Accordingto Arens,New Guinea has now
taken over fromAfrica.It is indeed probable thata geo-political
historyof empires could be writtenby chartingthe successive
places where a dominantculturelocated its cannibal other.The
common factorin the long historyof cannibal imputationsis the
combinationof denial of it in ourselvesand attributionof it to
"others,"whom "we" wish to defame, conquer, appropriate,or
"civilize."In the present atmosphere of postcolonial guilt and
imperial self-inculpation, the culture of denial has turned out-
ward, in defense of those once accused of "unspeakable rites,"
down to the recentacademic fantasythatno people has everprac-
ticed cannibalismas an authorized tribalactivity, which makes
from the undoubted fact of politicallymotivatedimputationa
dubious inferencethatthe imputationwas alwaysfalse.
Whatis of interestis thatdenial about ourselveshas here been
extended to denial on behalfof "others."Our timeis perhapsthe
firstin which the "other" has been systematically rehabilitated
into an equalitywith"us." This is in some waysto our credit.But
in the cannibal debate, "equality"has oftenbeen submergedbya
competingparadoxical idea of the cannibal's "superiority." The
scenario in which the helpless or harmlessor defeatedvictimis

betterthantheimperialor tyrannical monsteris also in circula-

tion.Contrary to expectation, thelatteris nota postcolonialfor-
mula,though may it have acquiredenhancedcurrency in the
postcolonialera. It is an old idea, coexisting, fromthe earliest
if
times, only a in recessive way,with the once dominant notion
thatitis thevictimized barbarianotherwhois savageand canni-
bal. This idea is the nucleusof Montaigne'sargumentthathis
countrymen are moresavagethanthesavagesand morecannibal
thancannibals,butwasnotinventedbyhim,evenin respectto
Amerindians, and is foundin ancientGreeceand amongearly
Christians.
"Superiority" is notthesameas equality, and thedifference is
conveniently ambiguous.Saying the cannibal is superior to the
Frenchman, or thatthe Frenchmanis more cannibalthanthe
cannibal,is onlypossibleforMontaigneat thecostofconcealing
thefactthatthe Frenchmanis literally cannibalhimself, which
wouldproveMontaigne's pointbutdisablehisreadinessto make
it. The concessionof the real cannibal'ssuperiority, in other
words,depends on a pretence that the Frenchman is only
metaphorically cannibal,thathe doesn'treallydo it,so thatifhe
isworse,he is also in anothersensebetter.Beingworsethancan-
nibalshas thisin commonwithbeingbetter,thatneithercon-
cedes equality,and thereis a sense,fromthisperspective, in
whichbeingworseis alwaysbetterthanbeingthesame.
In all theliterature thatself-castigatingly
affirmsthecannibals'
"superiority" to "us"thereis an implicit self-exclusion,suggesting
thatat leastwedon'tdo such things,thatthey'reinconceivable
amongus, thatour wayof beingworseis onlyanotherwayof
beingbetter, since"our"purported inferiorityisitself
in suchcon-
textsa savingdifference. Greekand othermythologies are fullof
episodes in which gods devour in
humans;or which,on theother
hand,cannibalism is describedas bestialor worse-than-bestial; a
peculiarhomologyin whichthe higher-than-human and the
lower-than-human can bothbe acceptedas savingly wow-human,
and thusultimately as letting"us" offthe hook. These Greek

186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
examplesseeminglyapplyto the human species as a whole,rather

thanspecificethnicgroups,but theyamount to a broaderversion
of the same denial (if indeed theydon't reflectthe even deeper
ethnocentricity of assuming that Greeks are the only human
group).
But the definitionsof cannibalismas bestial,or worsethan bes-
tial,run againstthe contraryperception,stronglyin evidence in
Juvenal,thathumansare the onlyanimalswho eat theirown kind.
These opposed perceptions lead to an either-way-you-lose por-
trayalof the in
human,implicit Juvenal, and laterdeveloped into
a trueSwiftiansignature,just as Juvenal'sexpansion of the attack
on Egyptiansto a meditationon human crueltyanticipatesSwift's
tacticof assimilatinghumankindto its despised subgroups.This
takes a meditative,self-implicating format the end ofJuvenal's
satire, and reminds us that the kinshipof "others"with"us" has
long been an object ofanxiety,oftenin theformofa troubledsus-
picion of a savage residue in ourselves. The anxiety haunts
attemptsat civilizedself-definition on "our" part,fromPlato to
the Conrad of Heart ofDarknessand to Freud (himself,on this
matter,more a case to be explained than an aid to explanation).
Long beforeFreud, an assumptionexistedboth thatthe barbar-
ian's waysare reallyan earlierstage of "our own" evolution,and
that each of "us" individuallycarries a potential of barbarian
reversion.Thus Plato tellsus in the Republicthatthe behaviorof a
tyrant is an emergenceinto daylightofburied primitiveappetites,
which include the eating of his own children,though there is
again no suggestionthatthe tyrantdoes so literally.16
Conrad's HeartofDarknessoffersa more complicatedpicture.In
thatmodernfictionof Empire,the narratorMarlowis hauntedby
the call of the Africanbush and the atavisticseductionsof tribal
drums.Kurtz,his alterego, succumbsto thatcall: he goes native,
and performs"unspeakablerites,"a phrase,common in Victorian
adventurestories,whichreferreddarkly, witha nudge and a wink,
to whatthe nativesget up to round a fire,itselfa fictionalstereo-
typegoing back at least as far as RobinsonCrusoe,and ultimately

derivingfromtravelbooks. Kurtzseemsliterallyto have consumed

human flesh,as Plato's tyrantdoes not, or so we are teasingly
encouraged to think.But we are neverexplicitlytold what these
"rites"were, even as we are teased into guessing.On the other
hand,when some blackcrew-menrefrainfromeatinghuman flesh
at Marlow'srequesttheyare neverthelessspoken of as cannibals,
whileKurtzis not. In thisfictionso permeatedbythe idea of "our"
kinshipwiththe other,it stillcannot be said outright,any more
thanin Montaigne,thatour representative is cannibal (thoughit's
hintedthathe musthave done the deed), whilethe native"other"
is calledcannibal,thoughwe knowhe didn'tdo it.
Such blurred and ambiguous treatmentsare characteristicof
most of the fictionwhich deals withthissubject. If we know the
deed was done, as in Kurtz,we don't knowwhatitwas; ifwe know
what it was, as in some episodes of cannibal fantasyin Jean
Genet's FuneralRites{Pompesfunèbres)or Monique Wittig'sLes-
bian Body {Le Corpslesbien)9two homosexual novels of great
power,we are never sure whetherit was actuallydoneX1Canni-
balismis almostnevertreated,in modern fiction,in the manner
we associate with the realist tradition,even by writers,from
Defoe to the present,who are closelyidentifiedwiththat tradi-
tion. Circumvention,ambiguity,hinted denials, melodramatic
horroror the nervousjoke, invariablytakeover,in narrativesoth-
erwiseremarkablefortheirparade of sober factuality. Jokerie,in
particular,is endemic: a newspaper announcement of a radio
programI once did on thissubject,printedbeforethe talkitself
existed,quipped thatit should be "somethingto chew on." And
a retreatinto cannibal metaphors,where the forbiddenidea can
be entertainedwithoutdanger,as in Montaigne,is common: the
novels of William Golding are an unusuallyinterestingillustra-
tion of this.
Freud, however,is the classic example. Most of his manyrefer-
ences to cannibalism are metaphorical,dealing with the oral
phase of sexuality,incorporation,introjection,narcissismand
homosexuality.18 Set alongside Freud's tendencyto deny the fact

188 SOCIAL RESEARCH
ofliteralcannibal survivals, thisdriftto metaphoron his partis an

exceptionallyclear case of the phenomenon observed in Mon-
taigneand otherauthors,as well as in some of our ordinaryways
ofspeaking:when,forexample,loverssay"I could eat you up," or
call theirbeloved sugar or honey,or experience a devouringpas-
sion; or when a woman is called a dish; or when retiringSpeakers
of the United StatesHouse of Representativessay theircongres-
sional colleagues are cannibals;19or when a tyrantor a conquer-
ing nation swallowsup its victims;or when we batten on one
anotherin our personalrelations;or when mechanicscannibalize
a car forspare parts;or when literarytheoristsuse cannibal lan-
guage to mean whateverliterarytheoristsmean. This compulsion
to metaphorappears to be universal.In the sexual department,as
Lévi-Strausstells us, it seems to exist in all languages, including
non-Western or "tribal"ones. It showsbetterthananyotherexam-
ple an endemic obsession withthe subject and a reluctance to
face itsvariousrealities.
No doubt,Freud's patientsand his readerswere more likelyto
have experienced the metaphoricalformsof cannibalism (the
oral phase, or narcissism,or whatever),than the literalones. Still
it is hard, as I said at the beginning,not to see in Freud's treat-
ment of the subject an example of Freudian resistance.In Totem
and Taboo (1913) and Moses and Monotheism(1939), Freud
attemptedwhat I thinkis his only account of a literal anthro-
pophagous act. He retellsin these twobooks the Darwinianmyth
of the "primalhorde," in which,at the beginningof society,the
sons kill and devour the father.This myth,largelydiscredited
among ethnologistsby Freud's time, caused Freud many prob-
lems.His writingon thistopicis a panic-stricken mixtureofunsci-
entific speculation, bald assertion, and defensive footnoting,
deterioratingin successiveafterthoughts under pressureof criti-
cism.It speaks eloquentlyof the even for
subject'sunspeakability,
Freud,who knewabout denial, and who prided himselfon speak-
ing out. But thatis anotherstory.

Notes
^ee W. Arens,1979 and the exchange betweenArens and Marshall
Sahlins, 1979. For surveysof the debate, see Gina Kolata, 1987 and
Lawrence Osborne, 1997.
^The termcannibal made itswayinto Spanish, Italian, French,and
English in ensuing years. See, for example, RaymondArveiller,1963,
142-46.
3See Claude Rawson, 1978, especially310-13; Claude Rawson, 1984,
II. 1159-87,especially1164-68,1179; and David Gordon White, 1991.
^Columbus' JournalofFirstVoyage,abstracted by Bartolomé de las
Casas, 4 November 1492, where the word canibadoes not yetappear,
and entriesfor23 and 26 November,where we read again of the one-
eyed men "and others called cannibals" (y otrosque se llamavan
caníbales), and of people fromCaniba or Canima.
5Homer, Odyssey, I. 69-71,IX. 105ff;Pliny,NaturalHistory,
VII. ii. 10,
23-24; Marco Polo, Travels,III. xiii, Complete Yule-Cordier Edition,
New York,Dover, 1993, 3 vols., II.309-12 and nn., III. 109-10 nn (also
11.228 n.3); Sir John Mandeville, Travels,trs. C.W.R.D. Mosely, Har-
mondsworthPenguin, 1983, p. 134; see White, Mythsof theDog-Man,
esp. pp. 53-64, 184-85; forwider informationon Cynocephali,as well
as on the dog/cannibal connection, see the index to White's impor-
tantbook, under Cynocephali and Cannibals; also Lestringant,Canni-
bals,pp. 15, 192 n.3.
bFordetailsof the eventor supposed event,and itspossible date, see
E. Courtney,1980, and Peter Green, 1974, pp. 289-90,especiallynn. 6-
10. For parallel eventsin Egypt,see Philo of Alexandria, Contemplative
Life,V, who cites anthropophagous riotsat drunken Egyptiangather-
ings,and Plutarch,"Isis and Osiris,"Moralia,380 BC. For an old tradi-
tion thatJuvenal had personal experience of Egypt,which Courtney
treatssceptically(pp. 8, 599), and its bearing on Satire XV, see espe-
cially GilbertHighet, 1954, 1962, pp. 28-31, 149-53, 284-86 nn., and
Lindsay,1963, 109-21.
7I use Peter Green's translation(see previous note). The lineation
given in the textis thatof the Latin original,to which Green adheres
closely. For historicalbackground see, in addition to Green's notes
(288-92), see Courtney,1980, 590-612. On some classical literatureof
inter-communalenmity,see Courtney,1980, 593.
8AnapparentlyunconsummatedAztec parallel of interurbanhostil-
ity, involving Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and the rival town of
Tlatelolco, is reported, from Diego Duran 's Historiade las Indias de
Nueva España, by Inga Clendinnen: aftersome marketwomen from

190 SOCIAL RESEARCH
both citiesgot into a fight,Tenocha bravesstrolledthroughTlatelolco

marketand were shouted at: "Whatmerchandisehave you broughtto
sell? Do you wantto sell yourintestinesor hearts?"(Clendinnen, 1991,
1995), pp. 47-48.
9For a fullaccount of these questions,see Frank Lestringant,1990,
1996; forJean de Léry's comments,see Whatley,1990, pp. 28-30 and
235 no. 5, 41 and 236 no.7.
10I cite the translationby Donald Frame, 1965, 150-59. Page-refer-
ences in the text are to this edition. The ensuing remarkson Mon-
taigne,Léry,the French religiouswars and the Amerindianquestion,
drawon Claude Rawson, 1992, 299-363,especially 299-330,whichmay
be consulted forfullerdocumentation.
nHans Staden, The TrueHistoryofHis Captivity, 1557, trs.Malcolm
Letts,London, Routledge, 1928, p. 152, cited in Rawson, "Literature
and the Proscribed Act,"p. 1164. See also Montaigne,p. 158.
12Onsamurai,see Noel Perrin,1979, pp.16-17; forepic speech-mak-
ing, see Pope's commentin his "Essayon Homer's Battels,"VII. 260.
13Euripides,Hecuba 11.1265-73;see "Narrativeand the Proscribed
Act,"pp. 1168,1183 n.49.
14Breton,André,Anthologie de l'humournoir,rev. ed. (Paris: Livre de
Poche, 1966, 19ñ). Preface,pp. 9-16, 23.
15Strabo,Geography, IV.v.4; VII.iii.6-7; See "'Indians' and Irish,"pp.
345 ff.
16Détienne, Marcel, DionysosSlain, pp. 58-59; Plato, Republic,IX.
571C, and commentaryin Republic, Adam,Jamesand Rees, D. A, eds.,
2nd ed., Cambridge, 1965, II. 319-20 nn.
17Fora full discussion of this question, see Rawson, "Cannibalism
and Fiction,II," esp. pp. 270 ff.
18Fora listof Freud's cannibal references,see "Cannibalismand Fic-
tion,II," p. 229 n.7.
19JimWright,on 3 May 1989, cited in the New YorkTimeson 8
November 1998; on Newt Gingrich,on 6, 7, 8 November 1998.
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192 SOCIAL RESEARCH
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Unspeakable Rites: Cultural Reticence and the Cannibal Question

Author(s): CLAUDE RAWSON

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

A hope it won't seem impolite,or as people say these days,inap-

SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Spring 1999)

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

"nature," and evenmorewith"culture," and ithas certainly func-

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

conquerors and invaderstraditionallyimpute it (whetheraccu-

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

These monsters, whichhad becomestaplesof travelnarrative,

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Rome. One of the townswas Tentyraor Dendereh, which wor-

...whenone townhad a big feast-day,the leaders and chief

But the poem is less concerned withrivalgangs,like WestSide

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

Sporting garlandsgalore,wreaths all askewon theirheads.

Then, there is a decisive escalation: a ritualtearingto pieces,

Butone ofthem,panic-stricken, pressedon

Eatingrawis a finalindignity, the deepest markofbarbarism.If

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

Caribs,but the Inca of Peru, the Tupinamba of Brazil,the Aztecs

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

anguished self-definition as well as providingProtestantswith

I thinkthere is more barbarityin eating a man

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citizens,and whatis worse,on the pretextof piety

The Frenchare more barbaricand more cannibal thanthe can-

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devouring theirbrothers and devourers theydo notdo it,or not

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death of myfriends...before sunsetyourfleshshall be myroast

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We may or may not be witnessing,on the poet's part,a com-

Now thissaysshe wantsto do it,not thatshe wantsto wantto;

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centuryEnglishwriterFynesMoryson,to whom I shall return.It

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ing theChildrenofpoor People in Ireland,frombeinga Burden to their

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

ticfeaturesof Hitler'sMeinKampf.Defoe hintsat killing,not can-

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

This is how Englishwriterswrote,includingnot onlySpenser,

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is withheld.Swiftis not an author who usuallyshrinksfromlast

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

Columbus about the man-eatingCaribs, and the Caribs them-

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

betterthantheimperialor tyrannical monsteris also in circula-

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

examplesseeminglyapplyto the human species as a whole,rather

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

derivingfromtravelbooks. Kurtzseemsliterallyto have consumed

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

ofliteralcannibal survivals, thisdriftto metaphoron his partis an

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM

This content downloaded from 188.72.96.189 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:38:38 AM