Cannibalism in the Americas has been practiced in many places throughout much of the history of North America and South America. The origin of the term " cannibal" comes from the Island Caribs, who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in the Bahamas. Numerous cultures in North America were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism, however these claims are not always reliable since the Spanish used them as part of their justifications for conquest. [1]
At least some cultures have been physically and archeologically proven beyond any doubt whatsoever to have undertaken institutionalized cannibalism. This includes human bones uncovered in a cave hamlet confirming accounts of the Xiximes undertaking ritualized raids as part of their agricultural cycle after every harvest. Also proven are the Aztec ritual ceremonies during the Spanish conquest at Tecoaque. The Anasazi in the 12th century have also been demonstrated to have undertaken cannibalism, possibly due to a drought, as shown by proteins from human flesh found in recovered feces.
There is near universal agreement that some Mesoamericans practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent. Anthropologist Marvin Harris, author of Cannibals and Kings, has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to Harris, the Aztec economy would not support feeding slaves (the captured in war) and the columns of prisoners were "marching meat." [2] Conversely, Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano has proposed that Aztec cannibalism coincided with times of harvest and should be thought of as more of a Thanksgiving. Montellano rejects the theories of Harner and Harris saying that with evidence of so many tributes and intensive chinampa agriculture, the Aztecs did not need any other food sources. [3] William Arens' 1978 book The Man-Eating Myth claimed that "there is no firm, substantiable evidence for the socially accepted practice of cannibalism anywhere in the world, at any time in history", but his views have been largely rejected as irreconcilable with the actual evidence. [4] [5]
In later times, cannibalism has occasionally been practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine. Well-known examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–1847) and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which the survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Albert Fish and Jeffrey Dahmer.
There is universal agreement that some Mesoamerican people practiced human sacrifice, but there is a lack of scholarly consensus as to whether cannibalism in pre-Columbian America was widespread. At one extreme, the anthropologist Marvin Harris, author of Cannibals and Kings, has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. While most historians of the pre-Columbian era accept that there was ritual cannibalism related to human sacrifices, they often reject suggestions that human flesh could have been a significant portion of the Aztec diet. [6] [3] Cannibalism was also associated with acts of warfare, and has been interpreted as an element of blood revenge in war. [7]
The Mexica of the Aztec period are perhaps the most widely studied of the ancient Mesoamerican peoples. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet. Michael D. Coe states that while "it is incontrovertible that some of these victims ended up by being eaten ritually […], the practice was more like a form of communion than a cannibal feast". [8]
Documentation of Aztec cannibalism mainly dates from the period after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-1521). For instance, a convoy ordered by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was cannibalized by the Aztecs in Zultépec-Tecoaque in 1520. In the Nahuatl language, the name "Tecoaque" translates into "the place where they ate them." Over the span of eight months, the convoy was ritually sacrificed and their heads put up on skull racks. Both men and women were sacrificed, including pregnant women. At least one 3-or-4 year old child was also sacrificed during the ritual, and the town's population swelled to 5,000 as people arrived for the ceremonies. In 1521, Hernán Cortés and his forces arrived and in an act of revenge massacred the town's inhabitants, who were mostly women and children. [9]
Conversely, in his widely-criticized book, The Man-Eating Myth, Arens writes, "The gradual transformation of what little evidence is available for Aztec cannibalism is also an indication of the continual need to legitimize the Conquest". [10] The following claims could have been exaggerated.
Bernal Díaz's The Conquest of New Spain (written by 1568, published 1632) contains several accounts of cannibalism among the people the conquistadors encountered during their warring expedition to Tenochtitlan.
Díaz's testimony is corroborated by other Spanish historians who wrote about the conquest. In History of Tlaxcala (written by 1585), Diego Muñoz Camargo (c. 1529 – 1599) states that: "Thus there were public butcher's shops of human flesh, as if it were of cow or sheep." [18]
Accounts of the Aztec Empire as a "Cannibal Kingdom", Marvin Harris's expression, have been commonplace from Bernal Díaz to Harris, William H. Prescott and Michael Harner. Harner has accused his colleagues, especially those in Mexico, of downplaying the evidence of Aztec cannibalism. Ortiz de Montellano argues that the Aztec diet was balanced and that the dietary contribution of cannibalism would not have been very effective as a reward. [3]
As recently as 2008, Mexico's National Institute of Archaeology and History (INAH) derided as a "myth" historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries reporting ritual cannibalism among the Xiximes people of northern Mexico. [19] But in 2011, archaeologist José Luis Punzo, director of INAH, reported evidence confirming that the Xiximes did indeed practice cannibalism. Remains of more than three dozen bones were uncovered inside a cave hamlet that show distinct signs of butchering and defleshing, confirming contemporary European accounts of the Ximimes. Typically lone men from other tribes would be targeted, and their bodies broken apart at the joints and then cooked. The meat was then mixed with beans and corn into a soup. Tribes of the Xiximes practiced cannibalism in the belief that eating the souls of their enemies and hanging their bones from trees would bring about good crop yields next year, and thus conducted cannibalistic raids as part of their agricultural cycle after every harvest. [20]
European explorers and colonizers brought home many stories of cannibalism practiced by the native peoples they encountered. In Spain's overseas expansion to the New World, the practice of cannibalism was reported by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean islands, and the Caribs were greatly feared because of their supposed practice of it. Queen Isabel of Castile had forbidden the Spaniards to enslave the indigenous, unless they were "guilty" of cannibalism. [21] The accusation of cannibalism became a pretext for attacks on indigenous groups and justification for the Spanish conquest. [22] In Yucatán, shipwrecked Spaniard Jerónimo de Aguilar, who later became a translator for Hernán Cortés, reported to have witnessed fellow Spaniards sacrificed and eaten, but escaped from captivity where he was being fattened for sacrifice himself. [23] In the Florentine Codex (1576) compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún from information provided by indigenous eyewitnesses has questionable evidence of Mexica (Aztec) cannibalism. Franciscan friar Diego de Landa reported on Yucatán instances. [24]
In early Brazil, there is reportage of cannibalism among the Tupinamba. [25] It is recorded about the natives of the captaincy of Sergipe in Brazil: "They eat human flesh when they can get it, and if a woman miscarries devour the abortive immediately. If she goes her time out, she herself cuts the navel-string with a shell, which she boils along with the secondine [i.e. placenta], and eats them both." [26] (see human placentophagy).
The 1913 Handbook of Indians of Canada (reprinting 1907 material from the Bureau of American Ethnology) claims that North American natives practicing cannibalism included
the Montagnais, and some of the tribes of Maine; the Algonkin, Armouchiquois, Iroquois, and Micmac; farther west the Assiniboine, Cree, Foxes, Chippewa, Miami, Ottawa, Kickapoo, Illinois, Sioux, and Winnebago; in the south the people who built the mounds in Florida, and the Tonkawa, Attacapa, Karankawa, Caddo, and Comanche; in the northwest and west, portions of the continent, the Thlingchadinneh and other Athapascan tribes, the Tlingit, Heiltsuk, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, Nootka, Siksika, some of the Californian tribes, and the Ute. There is also a tradition of the practice among the Hopi, and mentions of the custom among other tribes of New Mexico and Arizona. The Mohawk, and the Attacapa, Tonkawa, and other Texas tribes were known to their neighbours as 'man-eaters'. [27]
The forms of cannibalism described included both resorting to human flesh during famines and ritual cannibalism, the latter usually consisting of eating a small portion of an enemy warrior. From another source, according to Hans Egede, when the Inuit killed a woman accused of witchcraft, they ate a portion of her heart. [28]
As with most lurid tales of native cannibalism, these stories are treated with a great deal of scrutiny, as accusations of cannibalism were often used as justifications for the subjugation or destruction of "savages". [29] The historian Patrick Brantlinger suggests that Indigenous peoples that were colonized were being dehumanized as part of the justification for the atrocities. [30]
Human bones dated to the 12th century found at around 40 sites throughout the American Southwest possess clear markings of having been butchered and cooked. The defleshing and dismemberment of some bodies is the same as animals used for food. The episodes were undertaken at Anasazi sites and may have been caused by a drought. At one settlement human feces have been found containing the proteins of human flesh, conclusively showing the occurrence of cannibalism. [31] [32]
There is archaeological and written evidence for English settlers' cannibalism in 1609 in the Jamestown Colony under famine conditions, during a period which became known as Starving Time. [33] [34] [35]
Travelers through sparsely inhabited regions and explorers of unknown areas sometimes ate human flesh after running out of other provisions. In a famous example from the 1840s, the members of Donner Party found themselves stranded by snow in the Donner Pass, a high mountain pass in California, without adequate supplies during the Mexican–American War, leading to several instances of cannibalism, including the murder of two young Native American men for food. [36] [37] Sir John Franklin's lost polar expedition, which took place at approximately the same time, is another example of cannibalism out of desperation. [38]
In frontier situations where there was no strong authority, some individuals got used to killing and eating others even in situations where other food would have been available. One notorious case was the mountain man Boone Helm, who become known as the "Kentucky Cannibal" for eating several of his fellow travelers, from 1850 until his eventual hanging in 1864.
When Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed on a glacier in the Andes on October 13, 1972, the survivors resorted to eating the deceased during their 72 days in the mountains. Their experiences and memories became the source of several books and films. Survivor Roberto Canessa described how they "agonized" for days in the knowledge that "the bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it?" Ultimately he and the other 15 people who were rescued months later decided they could, realizing there was no other way to face off starvation. [39]
In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was arrested after one of his intended victims managed to escape. Found in Dahmer's apartment were two human hearts, an entire torso, a bag full of human organs from his victims, and a portion of arm muscle. He stated that he planned to consume all of the body parts over the next few weeks. [40]
Sinaloa INAH Center archaeologist Alfonso Grave Tirado declared that Spaniard chroniclers' appreciations reflected fear inspired by Xixime, and not a historical reality.
The newfound bones prove that cannibalism, 'was a crucial aspect of their worldview, their identity,' said José Luis Punzo, an archaeologist behind the new research.