From: kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson)
Subject: Re: Cannibalism (was Re: Bronze in Native America)
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 22:43:12 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.165138.853@Princeton.EDU>, glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt) writes:
> In article <1992Dec18.171411.1@cubldr.colorado.edu> parson_r@cubldr.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) writes:
> > Incidentally if anyone here will be spending time in Denver during the next
> > couple of months, be sure to catch this exhibit. It is based on recent 
> > excavations from the Templo Mayor in Mexico City, and will not travel - after
> > February, the artifacts go back to Mexico. Yes, plenty of attention is given
> > to the human sacrifices - there is a 1/10 scale model of the Temple which
> > shows the blood stains where the bodies were rolled down the steps, as well 
> > as actual sacrificial knives, etc.  - and to  the rigid social stratification
> > in the society, although there was no mention of cannibalism - is the latter
>                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^
> > established fact, or conjecture?  The organizer of the exhibit  (and leader 
> > of the archeological digs) is Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, a  descendant of 
> > the Emperor who met Cortes.
> 
> That's established fact (or as much as a fact as historians get, I
> guess).  For a good English source, see Inga Clendinnen's big book on
> the Aztecs.  For that matter, it seems that many North American Indians
> practiced cannibalism -- clearly the Algonkians, at least.  Always in
> the context of war, I would add.

I've read some modern histories that doubt that the cannibalism is
really true to the extent claimed.  Informants may have lied to
make their enemies or themselves seem more fierce.  But I have
friends who do believe the stories....  I'd at least like to
maintain that it's open to dispute. 

Plus, sometimes the word cannibalism is stretched a bit.  For
example, one S. American tribe are called cannibals because they
partake of the burnt and ground bones of their revered departed
ones.  I personally wouldn't really consider that cannibalism.

Another story I heard or read is that there was sometimes a ritual
bite taken out of an enemies heart, but that the bite was spat out.
To take a bite at all was apparently to prove one's self-discipline
in being able to do something so disgusting.  Later the warrior
would brag that he ate the other man's heart.

I think some Native women also took a symbolic bite of the placenta
after giving birth.  The umbilical cord, when it dropped off, was
kept by the child as being special.  (But these things could be
unsubstantiated rumors, as I think I read them in _Hanta Yo_ which
is fiction, albeit well-researched.)

The most personalized report of doing something to an enemy I've
read is in _Black Elk Speaks_.  Black Elk was about 13 at the time
of the Battle of Little Big Horn (1876), too young to fight, but
old enough to be expected to scalp a dead 7th cavalryman.  He
managed to complete his task, but not without throwing up a couple
of times.
-- 
Krista Anderson, krista@ihlpf.att.com  or  ihlpf!krista@att.att.com
I don't want to be here; I want to be in an Agatha Christie novel,
or in a musical, like Mary Poppins.
Newsgroups: soc.history