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Folkways, by William Graham Sumner
A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages,
Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
CHAPTER VIII
CANNIBALISM
Cannibalism. — Origin in food supply. — Cannibalism not abominable. — In-group cannibalism. — Population policy. — Judicial cannibalism. — Judicial cannibalism in ethnography. — Out-group cannibalism. — Cannibalism to cure disease. — Reversions to cannibalism. — Cannibalism in famine. — Cannibalism and ghost fear. — Cannibalism in sorcery and human sacrifice. — Cult and cannibalism. — Superstitions about cannibalism. — Food taboos in ethnography. — Expiation for taking life. — Philosophy of cannibalism.
338. Cannibalism. Cannibalism is one of the primordial mores. It dates from the earliest known existence of man on earth. It may reasonably be believed to be a custom which all peoples have practiced.1039 Only on the pastoral stage has it ceased, where the flesh of beasts was common and abundant.1040 It is indeed noticeable that the pygmies of Africa and the Kubus of Sumatra, two of the lowest outcast races, do not practice cannibalism,1041 although their superior neighbors do. Our intense abomination for cannibalism is a food taboo (secs. 353-354), and is perhaps the strongest taboo which we have inherited.
339. Origin in food supply. It is the best opinion that cannibalism originated in the defects of the food supply, more specifically in the lack of meat food. The often repeated objection that New Zealanders and others have practiced cannibalism when they had an abundant supply of meat food is not to the point. The passion for meat food, especially among people who have to live on heavy starch food, is very strong. Hence they eat worms, insects, and offal. It is also asserted that the appetite for human flesh, when eating it has become habitual, becomes a 330passion. When salt is not to be had the passion for meat reaches its highest intensity. "When tribes [of Australians] assembled to eat the fruit of the bunya-bunya they were not permitted to kill any game [in the district where the trees grow], and at length the craving for flesh was so intense that they were impelled to kill one of their number, in order that their appetites might be satisfied."1042 It follows that when this custom has become traditional the present food supply may have little effect on it. There are cases at the present time in which the practice of using human flesh for food is customary on a large and systematic scale. On the island of New Britain human flesh is sold in shops as butcher's meat is sold amongst us.1043 In at least some of the Solomon Islands human victims (preferably women) are fattened for a feast, like pigs.1044 Lloyd1045 describes the cannibalism of the Bangwa as an everyday affair, although they eat chiefly enemies, and rarely a woman. The women share the feast, sitting by themselves. He says that it is, no doubt, "a depraved appetite." They are not at all ashamed of it. Physically the men are very fine. "The cannibalism of the Monbutto is unsurpassed by any nation in the world."1046 Amongst them human flesh is sold as if it were a staple article of food. They are "a noble race." They have national pride, intellectual power, and good judgment. They are orderly, friendly, and have a stable national life.1047 Ward1048 describes the cannibalism on the great bend of the Congo as due to a relish for the kind of food. "Originating, apparently, from stress of adverse circumstances, it has become an acquired taste, the indulgence of which has created a peculiar form of mental disorder, with lack of feeling, love of fighting, cruelty, and general human degeneracy, as prominent attributes." An organized traffic in human beings for food exists on the upper waters of the Congo. It is thought that the pygmy tribe of the Wambutti are not cannibals because they are too "low," and because they do not file the lower incisors. The 331latter custom goes with cannibalism in the Congo region, and is also characteristic of the more gifted, beautiful, and alert tribes.1049 None of the coast tribes of West Africa eat human flesh, but the interior tribes eat any corpse regardless of the cause of death. Families hesitate to eat their own dead, but they sell or exchange them for the dead of other families.1050 In the whole Congo region the custom exists, especially amongst the warlike tribes, who eat not only war captives but slaves.1051
It is noteworthy that a fork1052 was invented in Polynesia for this kind of food, long before the fork was used for any other.
340. Cannibalism not abominable. Spix and Martius1053 asked a chief of the Miranhas why his people practiced cannibalism. The chief showed that it was entirely a new fact to him that some people thought it an abominable custom. "You whites," said he, "will not eat crocodiles or apes, although they taste well. If you did not have so many pigs and crabs you would eat crocodiles and apes, for hunger hurts. It is all a matter of habit. When I have killed an enemy it is better to eat him than to let him go to waste. Big game is rare because it does not lay eggs like turtles. The bad thing is not being eaten, but death, if I am slain, whether our tribal enemy eats me or not. I know of no game which tastes better than men. You whites are really too dainty."
341. In-group cannibalism. Cannibalism was so primordial in the mores that it has two forms, one for the in-group, the other for the out-group. It had a theory of affection in the former case and of enmity in the latter. In the in-group it was so far from being an act of hostility, or veiled impropriety, that it was applied to the closest kin. Mothers ate their babies, if the latter died, in order to get back the strength which they had lost in bearing them. Herodotus says that the Massagetæ sacrificed the old of their tribe, boiling the flesh of the men with that of cattle and eating the whole. Those who died of disease before attaining old age were buried, but that they thought a less happy fate. He says that the Padeans, men in the far east of India, put a sick man of their tribe to death and ate him, lest his flesh should be wasted by disease. The women did the same by a sick woman. If any reach old age without falling victims to this custom, they too are then killed 332and eaten. He mentions also the Issidones, in southeastern Russia, who cut up their dead fathers, mingle the flesh with that of sacrificed animals, and make a feast of the whole. The skull is cleaned, gilded, and kept as an emblem, to which they make annual sacrifices. They are accounted a righteous people. Amongst them women are esteemed equal with men.1054 Strabo1055 says that the Irish thought it praiseworthy to eat their deceased parents. The Birhors of Hazaribag, Hindostan, formerly ate their parents, but "they repudiate the suggestion that they ate any but their own relations" [i.e. each one ate his own relatives and no others?]1056. Reclus1057 says that in that tribe "the parents beg that their corpses may find a refuge in the stomachs of their children rather than be left on the road or in the forest." The Tibetans, in ancient times, ate their parents, "out of piety, in order to give them no other sepulcher than their own bowels." This custom ceased before 1250 A.D., but the cups made of the skulls of relatives were used as memorials. Tartars and some "bad Christians" killed their fathers when old, burned the corpses, and mingled the ashes with their daily food.1058 In the gulf country of Australia only near relatives partake of the dead, unless the corpse is that of an enemy. A very small bit only is eaten by each. In the case of an enemy the purpose is to win his strength. In the case of a relative the motive is that the survivors may not, by lamentations, become a nuisance in the camp.1059 The Dieyerie have the father family. The father may not eat his own child, but the mother and female relatives must do so, in order to have the dead in their liver, the seat of feeling.1060 The Tuaré of Brazil (2 S. 67 W.) burn their dead. They preserve the ashes in reeds and mix them with their daily meals.1061 The Jumanas, on the head waters of the Amazon, regard the bones as the seat of the soul. They burn the bones of their dead, grind them to powder, mix the powder with intoxicating liquor, and drink it, "that the dead may live again in them."1062 All branches of the Tupis are cannibals. They brought the custom from the interior.1063 The Kobena drink in their cachiri the powdered bones of their dead relatives.1064 The Chavantes, on the Uruguay, eat their dead children to get back the souls. Especially young mothers do this, as they are thought to have given a part of their own souls to their children too soon.1065 In West Victoria "the bodies of relatives who have lost their lives by violence are alone partaken of." Each eats only a bit, and it is eaten "with no desire to gratify or appease the appetite, but only as a symbol of respect and regret for the dead."1066 In Australian cannibalism the eating of relatives has behind it the idea of saving the strength which 333would be lost, or of acquiring the dexterity or wisdom, etc., of the dead. Enemies are eaten to win their strength, dexterity, etc. Only a bit is eaten. There are no great feasts. The fat and soft parts are eaten because they are the residence of the soul. In eating enemies there appears to be ritual significance.1067 It may be the ritual purpose to get rid of the soul of the slain man for fear that it might seek revenge for his death.
342. Some inhabitants of West Australia explained cannibalism (they ate every tenth child born) as "necessary to keep the tribe from increasing beyond the carrying capacity of the territory."1068 Infanticide is a part of population policy. Cannibalism may be added to it either for food supply or goblinism. When children were sacrificed in Mexico their hearts were cooked and eaten, for sorcery.1069
343. Judicial cannibalism. Another use of cannibalism in the in-group is to annihilate one who has broken an important taboo. The notion is frequently met with, amongst nature peoples, that a ghost can be got rid of by utterly annihilating the corpse, e.g. by fire. Judicial cannibalism destroys it, and the members of the group by this act participate in a ritual, or sacramental ceremony, by which a criminal is completely annihilated. Perhaps there may also be the idea of collective responsibility for his annihilation. To take the life of a tribe comrade was for a long time an act which needed high motive and authority and required expiation. The ritual of execution was like the ritual of sacrifice. In the Hebrew law some culprits were to be stoned by the whole congregation. Every one must take a share in the great act. The blood guilt, if there was any, must be incurred by all.1070 Primitive taboos are put on acts which offend the ghosts and may, therefore, bring woe on the whole group. Any one who breaks a taboo commits a sin and a crime, and excites the wrath of the superior powers. Therefore he draws on himself the fear and horror of his comrades. They must extrude him by banishment or death. They want to dissociate themselves from him. They sacrifice him to the powers which he has offended. When his comrades eat his corpse they perform a duty. They annihilate him and his soul completely.
334344. Judicial cannibalism in ethnography. "A man found in the harem of Muato-jamvos was cut in pieces and given, raw and warm, to the people to be eaten."1071 The Bataks employ judicial cannibalism as a regulated system. They have no other cannibalism. Adulterers, persons guilty of incest, men who have had sex intercourse with the widow of a younger brother, traitors, spies, and war captives taken with arms in their hands are killed and eaten. The last-mentioned are cut in pieces alive and eaten bit by bit in order to annihilate them in the most shameful manner.1072 The Tibetans and Chinese formerly ate all who were executed by civil authority. An Arab traveler of the ninth century mentions a Chinese governor who rebelled, and who was killed and eaten. Modern cases of cannibalism are reported from China. Pith balls stained with the blood of decapitated criminals are used as medicine for consumption. Cases are also mentioned of Tartar rulers who ordered the flesh of traitors to be mixed with the rulers' own food and that of their barons. Tartar women begged for the possession of a culprit, boiled him alive, cut the corpse into mince-meat, and distributed it to the whole army to be eaten.1073
345. Out-group cannibalism. Against members of an out-group, e.g. amongst the Maori, cannibalism "was due to a desire for revenge; cooking and eating being the greatest of insults."1074 On Tanna (New Hebrides) to eat an enemy was the greatest indignity to him, worse than giving up his corpse to dogs or swine, or mutilating it. It was believed that strength was obtained by eating a corpse.1075 A negro chief in Yabunda, French Congo, told Brunache1076 that "it was a very fine thing to enjoy the flesh of a man whom one hates and whom one has killed in a battle or a duel." Martius attributes the cannibalism of the Miranhas to the enjoyment of a "rare, dainty meal, which will satisfy their rude vanity, in some cases also, blood revenge and superstition."1077 Cannibalism is one in the chain of causes which keeps this people more savage than their neighbors, most of whom have now abandoned it. "It is one of the most beastly of all the beastlike traits in the moral physiognomy of man." It is asserted that cannibalism has been recently introduced in some places, e.g. Florida (Solomon Islands). It is also said that on those islands the coast people give it up [they have fish], but those inland retain it. The notion probably prevails amongst all that population that, by this kind of food, mana is obtained, mana being the name for all power, talent, and capacity by which success is won.1078 The Melanesians took advantage of a crime, or alleged crime, to offer the culprit to a spirit, and so get fighting mana for the warriors.1079 The Chames of Cochin China think that the gall of slain enemies, mixed with brandy, is an 335excellent means to produce war courage and skill.1080 The Chinese believe that the liver is the seat of life and courage. The gall is the manifestation of the soul. Soldiers drink the gall of slain enemies to increase their own vigor and courage.1081 The mountain tribes of Natal make a paste from powder formed from parts of the body, which the priests administer to the youth.1082 Some South African tribes make a broth of the same kind of powder, which must be swallowed only in the prescribed manner. It "must be lapped up with the hand and thrown into the mouth ... to give the soldiers courage, perseverance, fortitude, strategy, patience, and wisdom."1083
346. Cannibalism to cure disease. Notions that the parts of the human body will cure different diseases are only variants of the notion of getting courage and skill by eating the same. Cases are recorded in which a man gave parts of his body to be eaten by the sick out of love and devotion.1084
347. Reversions to cannibalism. When savage and brutal emotions are stirred, in higher civilization, by war and quarrels, the cannibalistic disposition is developed again. Achilles told Hector that he wished he could eat him. Hekuba expressed a wish that she could devour the liver of Achilles.1085 In 1564 the Turks executed Vishnevitzky, a brave Polish soldier who had made them much trouble. They ate his heart.1086 Dozy1087 mentions a case at Elvira, in 890, in which women cast themselves on the corpse of a chief who had caused the death of their relatives, cut it in pieces, and ate it. The same author relates1088 that Hind, the mother of Moavia, made for herself a necklace and bracelets of the noses and ears of Moslems killed at Ohod, and also that she cut open the corpse of an uncle of Mohammed, tore out the liver, and ate a piece of it. It is related of an Irish chief, of the twelfth century, that when his soldiers brought to him the head of a man whom he hated "he tore the nostrils and lips with his teeth, in a most savage and inhuman manner."1089
336348. In famine. Reversion to cannibalism under a total lack of other food ought not to be noted. We have some historical cases, however, in which during famine people became so familiarized with cannibalism that their horror of it was overcome. Abdallatif1090 mentions a great famine in Egypt in the year 1200, due to a failure of the inundation of the Nile. Resort was had to cannibalism to escape death. At first the civil authorities burned alive those who were detected, being moved by astonishment and horror. Later, those sentiments were not aroused. "Men were seen to make ordinary meals of human flesh, to use it as a dainty, and to lay up provision of it.... The usage, having been introduced, spread to all the provinces. Then it ceased to cause surprise.... People talked of it as an ordinary and indifferent thing. This indifference was due to habit and familiarity." This case shows that the horror of cannibalism is due to tradition in the mores. Diodorus says that the ancient Egyptians, during a famine, ate each other rather than any animal which they considered sacred.1091
349. Cannibalism and ghost fear. Human sacrifice and cannibalism are not necessarily conjoined. Often it seems as if they once were so, but have been separated.1092 Whatever men want ghosts want. If the former are cannibals, the latter will be the same. Often the notion is that the gods eat the souls. In this view, the men eat the flesh of sacrificed beasts and sacrifice the blood, in which is the life or soul, to the gods. This the Jews did. They also burned the kidneys, the fat of the kidneys, and the liver, which they thought to be the seat of life. These they might not eat.1093 When men change, the gods do not. Hence the rites of human sacrifice and cannibalism continue in religion long after they disappear from the mores, in spite of loathing. Loathing is a part of the sacrifice.1094 The self-control and self-subjugation enter into the sacrament. All who participate, in religion, in an act which gravely affects the imagination as 337horrible and revolting enter into a communion with each other. Every one who desires to participate in the good to be obtained must share in the act. As we have seen above, all must participate that none may be in a position to reproach the rest. Under this view, the cannibal food is reduced to a crumb, or to a drop of blood, which may be mixed with other food. Still later, the cannibal food is only represented, e.g. by cakes in the human form, etc. In the Middle Ages the popular imagination saw a human body in the host, and conjured up operations on the host which were attributed to sorcerers and Jews, which would only be applicable to a human body. Then the New Testament language about the body and blood of Christ took on a realistic sense which was cannibalistic.
350. Cannibalism, sorcery, and human sacrifice. Among the West African tribes sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism in fetich affairs is almost universal.1095 Serpa Pinto1096 mentions a frequent feast of the chiefs of the Bihe, for which a man and four women of specified occupations are required. The corpses are both washed and boiled with the flesh of an ox. Everything at the feast must be marked with human blood. Cannibalism, in connection with religious festivals and human sacrifice, was extravagantly developed in Mexico, Central America, and British Columbia. The rites show that the human sacrifice was sacramental and vicarious. In one case the prayer of the person who owned the sacrifice is given. It is a prayer for success and prosperity. Flesh was also bitten from the arm of a living person and eaten. A religious idea was cultivated into a mania and the taste for human flesh was developed.1097 Here also we find the usage that shamans ate the flesh of corpses, in connection with fasting and solitude, as means of professional stimulation.1098 Preuss emphasizes the large element of sorcery in the eating of parts of a human sacrifice, as practiced in Mexico.1099 The combination of sorcery, religious ritual, and cannibalism deserves very careful attention. The rites of the festival were cases of dramatic sorcery. At the annual festival of the god of war an image of the god was made of grain, seeds, and vegetables, kneaded with the blood of boys sacrificed for the purpose. This image was broken into crumbs and eaten by males only, "after the manner of our communion."1100 The Peruvians ate sacrificial cakes kneaded with the blood of human victims, "as a mark of alliance with the Inca."1101 338In Guatemala organs of a slain war captive were given to an old prophetess to be eaten. She was then asked to pray to the idol which she served to give them many captives.1102 Human sacrifices and sacramental cannibalism exist amongst the Bella-coola Indians in northwestern British America. Children of the poor are bought from their parents to be made sacrifices. The blood is drunk and the flesh is eaten raw. The souls of the sacrificed go to live in the sun and become birds. When the English government tried to stop these sacrifices the priests dug up corpses and ate them. Several were thus poisoned.1103
351. Cult and cannibalism. The cases which have been cited show how cult kept up cannibalism, if no beast was substituted. Also, a great number of uses of blood and superstitions about blood appear to be survivals of cannibalism or deductions from it. The same may be said of holiday cakes of special shapes, made by peasants, which have long lost all known sense. In one part of France the last of the harvest which is brought in is made into a loaf in human shape, supposed to represent the spirit of corn or of fertility. It is broken up and distributed amongst all the villagers, who eat it.1104
A Mongolian lama reported of a tribe, the Lhopa of Sikkim or Bhutan, that they kill and eat the bride's mother at a wedding, if they can catch no wild man.1105
352. A burglar in West Prussia, in 1865, killed a maid-servant and cut flesh from her body out of which to make a candle for use in later acts of theft. He was caught while committing another burglary. He confessed that he ate a part of the corpse of his first-mentioned victim "in order to appease his conscience."1106
353. Food taboos. It is most probable that dislike to eat the human body was a product of custom, and grew in the mores after other foods became available in abundance. Unusual foods now cost us an effort. Frogs' legs, for instance, repel most people at first. We eat what we learned from our parents to eat, and other foods are adopted by "acquired taste." Light is thrown on the degree to which all food preferences and taboos 339are a part of the mores by a comparison of some cases of food taboos. Porphyrius, a Christian of Tyre, who lived in the second half of the second century of the Christian era, says that a Phœnician or an Egyptian would sooner eat man's flesh than cow's flesh.1107 A Jew would not eat swine's flesh. A Zoroastrian could not conceive it possible that any one could eat dog's flesh. We do not eat dog's flesh, probably for the same reason that we do not eat cat's or horse's, because the flesh is tough or insipid and we can get better, but some North American Indians thought dog's flesh the very best food. The Banziris, in the French Congo, reserved dog's flesh for men, and they surround meals of it with a solemn ritual. A man must not touch his wife with his finger for a day after such a feast.1108 The inhabitants of Ponape will eat no eels, which "they hold in the greatest horror." The word used by them for eel means "the dreadful one."1109 Dyaks eat snakes, but reject eels.1110 Some Melanesians will not eat eels because they think that there are ghosts in them.1111 South African Bantus abominate fish.1112 Some Canary Islanders ate no fish.1113 Tasmanians would rather starve than eat fish.1114 The Somali will eat no fish, considering it disgraceful to do so.1115 They also reject game and birds.1116 These people who reject eels and fish renounce a food supply which is abundant in their habitat.
354. Food taboos in ethnography. Some Micronesians eat no fowl.1117 Wild Veddahs reject fowl.1118 Tuaregs eat no fish, birds, or eggs.1119 In eastern Africa many tribes loathe eggs and fowl as food. They are as much disgusted to see a white man eat eggs as a white man is to see savages eat offal.1120 Some Australians will not eat pork.1121 Nagas and their neighbors think roast dog a great delicacy. They will eat anything, even an elephant which has been three days buried, but they abominate milk, and find the smell of tinned lobster too strong.1122 Negroes in the French Congo "have a perfect horror of the idea of drinking milk."1123
340355. Expiation for taking life. The most primitive notion we can find as to taking life is that it is wrong to kill any living thing except as a sacrifice to some superior power. This dread of destroying life, as if it was the assumption of a divine prerogative to do so, gives a background for all the usages with regard to sacrifice and food. "In old Israel all slaughter was sacrifice, and a man could never eat beef or mutton except as a religious act." Amongst the Arabs, "even in modern times, when a sheep or camel is slain in honor of a guest, the good old custom is that the host keeps open house for all his neighbors."1124 In modern Hindostan food which is ordinarily tabooed may be eaten if it has been killed in offering to a god. Therefore an image of the god is set up in the butcher's shop. All the animals are slaughtered nominally as an offering to it. This raises the taboo, and the meat is bought and eaten without scruple.1125 Thus it is that the taboo on cannibalism may be raised by religion, or that cannibalism may be made a duty by religion. Amongst the ancient Semites some animals were under a food taboo for a reason which has two aspects at the same time: they were both offensive (ritually unclean) and sacred. What is holy and what is loathsome are in like manner set aside. The Jews said that the Holy Scriptures rendered him who handled them unclean. Holy and unclean have a common element opposed to profane. In the case of both there is devotion or consecration to a higher power. If it is a good power, the thing is holy; if a bad power, it is unclean. He who touches either falls under a taboo, and needs purification.1126 The tabooed things could only be eaten sacrificially and sacramentally, i.e. as disgusting and unusual they had greater sacrificial force.1127 This idea is to be traced in all ascetic usages, and in many mediæval developments of religious usages which introduced repulsive elements, to heighten the self-discipline of conformity. In the Caroline Islands turtles are sacred to the gods and are eaten only in illness or as sacrifices.1128
356. Philosophy of cannibalism. If cannibalism began in the interest of the food supply, especially of meat, the wide ramifications of its relations are easily understood. While men were unable to cope with the great beasts cannibalism was a leading feature of social life, around which a great cluster of interests centered. Ideas were cultivated by it, and it became regulative and directive as to what ought to be done. The sentiments of kinship made it seem right and true that the nearest relatives 341should be eaten. Further deductions followed, of which the cases given are illustrations. As to enemies, the contrary sentiments found place in connection with it. It combined directly with ghost fear. The sacramental notion seems born of it. When the chase was sufficiently developed to give better food the taboo on human flesh seemed no more irrational than the other food taboos above mentioned. Swans and peacocks were regarded as great dainties in the Middle Ages. We no longer eat them. Snakes are said to be good eating, but most of us would find it hard to eat them. Yet why should they be more loathsome than frogs or eels? Shipwrecked people, or besieged and famine-stricken people, have overcome the loathing for human flesh rather than die. Others have died because they could not overcome it, and have thus rendered the strongest testimony to the power of the mores. In general, the cases show that if men are hungry enough, or angry enough, they may return to cannibalism now. Our horror of cannibalism is due to a long and broad tradition, broken only by hearsay of some far-distant and extremely savage people who now practice it. Probably the popular opinion about it is that it is wicked. It is not forbidden by the rules of any religion, because it had been thrown out of the mores before any "religion" was founded.
1039 See Andrée, Anthropophagie; Steinmetz, Endokannibalism, Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. in Wien, XXVI; Schaffhausen in Archiv für Anthrop., IV, 245. Steinmetz gives in tabular form known cases of cannibalism with the motives for it, p. 25.
