Compassionate Cannibalism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Yoshie said:
>
>>While Conklin takes the Wari' stories of "the old days when the
>>others ate the body" at their face value, i.e., as reliable evidence
>>of former practice voluntarily provided by native informants, I think
>>that it is very likely that the stories of ritual cannibalism are a
>>mix of:
>
>>(A) a symbolic way of saying that what existed before "three out of
>>every five" Wari' died of infectious diseases brought by soldiers,
>>missionaries, civil servants, & (very likely) anthropologists was
>>better than what they have now;
>
>>and (B) a performance that the Wari' -- now dependent upon "aid
>>provided by Protestant missionaries, employees of the government
>>Indian agency, and Catholic priests," as well as upon a never-ending
>>stream of anthropologists who come with grant monies to study them --
>>(consciously or unconsciously) put on, exchanging stories of ritual
>>cannibalism for means of survival, basically giving outsiders what
>>they want.
>
>What makes you suspect the Wari' are BSing the author?
>
>Todd

Check out the work of Alessandro Portelli (a review of his work is 
available at <http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0103/0882.html>).

Yoshie