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Student Research submissions 2013 (2013 research options)
Research Post One: |
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Valerie Mead
22 October 2013
Crusoe’s
Cannibals: Fact or Fiction?
Cannibalism is something that
has always interested me in a macabre way, simply because it is so shocking on
so many levels.
It is one of the last taboos that shocks equally across
the majority of modern cultures.
Ever since childhood, I have been confronted with
this ultimate taboo: Snow White’s evil stepmother wanted to eat her heart,
Hansel and Gretel were almost eaten by a wicked witch, and the giant wanted to
crush Jack’s bones to make a loaf of bread.
Upon growing up, I have been confronted with the
concept numerous times, and after reading
Robinson Crusoe
for the third time, I became determined to find out exactly why and to what
extent cannibalism was practiced throughout the Caribbean during that time
period.
As I know little of cannibalism, the topic drew me in on
its own, as I am naturally curious in that regard.
However, upon further studying of
Crusoe,
I have stumbled upon the idea of cannibalism multiple times, and now have become
intent upon answering this question: who exactly were Crusoe’s cannibals, and
did they ever exist in the first place?
Upon beginning my research, I
was under the impression that a great deal of Caribbean tribes, if not the
majority of them, were cannibalistic in nature at one point, at least to some
small degree.
However, once I began to explore the topic, it became more
and more apparent that historians and researchers found the opposite to be true.
The debunking of Caribbean cannibalism is discussed
by Basil Reid, who concludes that “no evidence, either archaeological or from
firsthand observations by Europeans, conclusively proves that Island-Caribs ever
consumed human flesh" (Reid 88).
Cannibalism is a persistent topic, one that has
permeated the fabric of both historical perception as well as the entertainment
world, through mediums such as literature and films.
In popular culture, cannibalism is still thought to
be happening in the Caribbean, as was (falsely) depicted within the film
Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and it is still
commonly thought that the indigenous peoples that lived in the vicinity of
Crusoe’s island partook as well.
So, while undergoing my research I found that I
have been asking the wrong question all along: not “who are the cannibals,” but
rather, “why does the myth of cannibalism in the Caribbean persist?”
The cannibalism myth is based on
Columbus’s original mistranslation of the Caribbean Taino tribe’s word “caribal”
or “caniba,” which simply meant “person” (or the equivalent) in their dialect,
but was translated to mean “warlike and cannibalistic” (Clauzel 5).
This is ironic because most of these tribes were
very peaceful.
Though there were isolated incidents of what is considered
to be cannibalism as a means to enshrine loved ones (for example, Kalingo tribes
were known for saving bone fragments), indigenous Caribs were by no means
“ferocious creatures who delight[ed] in habitually feasting upon other members
of their species” (Moore 117), either during times of war or not.
There was no definitive proof that cannibalism, as
we think of it, was a common or natural occurrence amongst Caribbean tribes,
something that completely goes against what most people, myself included, think
of as an obvious truth.
While
historians have discovered this translational issue later down the line, the
cannibalism myth persists into the “present decade due as much to unhesitating
acceptance of that tradition, and to naive interpretation of linguistic and
ethnocentric evidence . . . and archeological data” (Davis 46).
This myth of cannibalism is simply an unfounded and
ethnocentric perception of an indigenous people, one that Europeans had yet to
encounter before, and therefore had no qualms about stereotyping and
stigmatizing based on rumors, second-hand accounts, and fear mongering.
It was also quite useful for Europeans in assuaging
their consciences (Moore 139).
This is because it allowed for the progression of
westward expansion, colonialism, and imperialism, as it was considered more
acceptable to conquer savages that ate each other rather than complex indigenous
societies that coexisted relatively peacefully.
When I chose to research about
cannibalistic tribes in the Caribbean that could be the basis of Crusoe’s
cannibals, I did not imagine that I would at first be going on a wild goose
chase.
I had begun with an Americanized and ethnocentric view
that cannibals did indeed exist in the Caribbean, but I was unaware of the fact
that what I had grown up believing was all a myth based on miscommunication and
mistranslation.
The question I had set out to answer, “who were Crusoe’s
cannibals?”, is not relevant because they simply do not exist.
They are myths and figments based on
misunderstandings and the fact that it still exists as common knowledge is
shocking, and should be the real question I should attempt to answer (and I plan
to do so in the next research post).
Works Cited
Arens, William.
The
Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
Print.
Barker, Francis, Peter Hulme, and
Margaret Iverson, eds.
Cannibalism
in the Colonial World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Print.
Clauzel, Sylvester H.
“The Myth of Cannibalism and Warlike Caribs of the
Lesser Antilles.”
Indigenous Peoples
of St. Lucia.
Minority Rights Groups International, 2007.
Web.
14 October 2013.
http://www.refworld.org/docid/4954ce1023.html
Davis, Dave D. and Goodwin, Christopher
R.
“Island Carib Origins: Evidence and Non-Evidence.”
American
Antiquity 55.1 (1990): 37-49.
Print.
Moore, Richard B.
“Carib ‘Cannibalism’: A Study in Anthropological
Stereotyping.”
Caribbean Studies
13.2 (1973): 135-173.
Print.
Reid, Basil A.
Myths and
Realities of Caribbean History.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009.
Print.
