On Cannibalism 9/29

#9/29/11: In Michel de Montaigne's 16th century work, "Of Cannibals" he discuses the popular Enlightenment era literary trope of cannibalism from a very interesting perspective. As is typical of Montaigne, and most French Philosophs of this period, Montaigne procures a critique of his own society by virtue of dissecting the culture and practices of another. Montaigne is not quite at the height of the Enlightenment when he writes; in fact, around 1580, when this work is said to have been published, many of the heroes of the Enlightenment were barely a thought in the minds of their ancestors. However, Montaigne's representation of cannibals in this work, as well as his novel approach to self-critique via an examination of an exotic culture, is surely one of the building blocks of Enlightenment thought, and can be seen clearly in both Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, written many years later. Montaigne gives his account of what his French countryman Jean Jacques Rousseau would later coin as the "noble savage" in order to romanticize the crude practice of cannibalism, and in doing so, position it opposite the barbaric practices of torture and execution being used in Europe at the time. Montaigne admits that cannibalism is certainly a practice to be frowned upon, and that it is indicative of a savage culture, but he is clever in his subtle insinuation that the European continent is far more savage than these people in many ways. Montaigne lures the reader into agreeing that a culture that eats others must be savage and barbaric, but he immediately continues by pointing out that, savage as killing a man and roasting his corpse for consumption in a spiritual ceremonial fashion is, when we take a look at the practices being performed by Europeans, and he claims, being adopted by these savages themselves, we as Europeans are in no condition to pass judgment. Montaigne tells the reader of the conditions the victims live in after their capture as being very pleasant. According to Montaigne, during their captivity, the prisoners in these cannibalistic cultures are treated with a great deal of care, and during this time they take their own revenge on their captors, hurling insults and even singing insulting songs. He cites this level of creativity and inventiveness spurred by cannibalism, as well as the relatively humane way the captives are killed quickly before being cooked as savage acts. However, he then makes the comparison to Europe, where captives are tortured, mutilated, and treated inhumanely. He also decries the barbaric way in which prisoners are executed, even mentioning that in some European cultures, prisoners are cooked alive. Having made these comparisons, he very cleverly concludes that, while he can see no fault in calling these cannibals savages, if we are willing to do that, we must also be willing to conclude that, if we use our treatment of condemned prisoners as a guide, we as Europeans are a far, far more savage people.

Cannibalism: Then and Now

As we’ve discussed in class the past week or so, the story of Robinson Crusoe is more than one simply of a man struggling for survival in the face of solitude. The novel also largely deals with and is driven by many economic and political ideals. For example, we first come into contact with Crusoe’s economic logic with his evil/good list on page 102. Later, we see the ideas of colonialism and imperialism take place in that of Crusoe’s interaction with the character “Friday.” At first, Crusoe sees Friday as just another savage beast, but then decides that he has the ability to save him from his savagery. This is simply a minor example of the colonialism that is described in the novel through character representation. As noted in the Appendix to the Cannibalism section of readings, “Defoe was just one of many writers who featured cannibals in their representations of New World encounters” (397). Essentially cannibals were the representation for those less civilized beings that were colonized by the wealthier, smarter, and more resourceful Europeans.

However, what struck me as interesting is that some of the writers (especially Montaigne) had views on cannibalism that certainly would not be accepted in our current society. Today cannibalism is beyond illegal, it is seen as morally wrong and unforgivable. It is so out of the realm of possible that it is never even discussed in popular culture (except in the very rarest cases) where one has had to eat another human in order to survive, or in movies such as The Silence of the Lambs. Yet, in this movie the cannibal known as Hannibal Lecter is a psychopath and in turn is the farthest representation of what is culturally acceptable.

Thus, for Montaigne to write about cannibalism as if it is something that friends experience together and enjoy is greatly different from our current perceptions of cannibalism. In addition, although it may seem that Montaigne and Rochefort’s writings are not completely serious (as they refer to the act as entertainment), to even describe cannibalism as an act of rage or revenge, or to mention to one that you have eaten their ancestors (401) would be seen today as completely barbarous.

Today, society and the media are largely in agreement that torturing our enemies and prisoners of war (two groups mentioned by the writers) is one of the most inhumane things one can do. What about if we ate them, as described by Montaigne, Rochefort, Dampier, and Defoe? I’m sure the response would be immensely different.

Expansion Justified

As Cary and Vann mentioned in their posts, one of the major reasons that stories of cannibalism existed despite little to no real evidence there were actually any cannibals, is because these stories were used by western Europeans to justify their conquest and ‘civilization’ of indigenous peoples of the New World. Stories of cannibalism demonized the indigenous people and made people think they were barbarous, savage people who needed to see the light of Christianity and civilization. Thus European expansion was justified, because the Europeans were inherently better than the natives and had a duty to improve them.

With Robinson Crusoe, Defoe continues the tradition of condemning native people as barbarous, despite his defense of their cannibalistic practices. Crusoe realizes that the terrible things the cannibals of his island do are no worse than many things that Christian Europeans do in battle: “these People were not Murtherers … any more than those Christians were Murtherers, who often put to Death the Prisoners taken in Battle” (191). Crusoe goes on to mention the terrible thing that the Spanish had done when they “destroyed Millions of these People” (191), which Crusoe describes as “a bloody and unnatural Piece of Cruelty, unjustifiable either to God or Man” (191). Crusoe posits that even if the people killed were “Idolaters and Barbarians” the Spanish had no right to do what they did.

Despite these revelations that Crusoe realizes about how the native people are not as bad as the Europeans liked to portray them as, and his condemnation of needless killing of native people. Robinson Crusoe is still a book that justifies European expansion. The savages aren’t as savage as people would have you believe, but they are nevertheless still savage and therefore need to be civilized. In the excerpt from Defoe’s Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures in Robinson Crusoe, he tells that other than their cannibalism the savages on the island with Crusoe are “as human, as mild, and gentle, as most I have met with in the World, and as easily civiliz’d” (403). The most important part of that sentence is the end, in which Defoe assumes they need to be civilized by Europeans. The events of the story also support the idea that Europeans are inherently better than natives, because of the way that Friday immediately becomes subservient to Crusoe as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The implication here is that natives should be subservient to white Europeans so they can be civilized.

So although Defoe is a step above many writers of his time who portrayed native people as completely barbarous, he is still using his work of fiction to justify the conquest of native peoples, as long as this conquest is not unnecessarily bloody.

For Their Own Good

Reading Montaigne’s and Rochefort’s accounts of Cannibalism among native populations gives the reader a sense that these graphic depictions serve not just to inform, but also to entertain in a twisted way. In the same way that modern audiences flock to theatres to see every severed limb fly in Saw 14 or 15, the gruesome cannibalistic details of these narratives seem to play to a desire in the European audience for gory entertainment. Montaigne describes natives “roast”ing a captive and then “Eat[ing] (the captive) amongst them, and send[ing] some Chops to their absent friends” (397). He letter outlines a process of cooking a man that involves “teraing a Body Limb from Limb, by Racks and Torments, that is yet in perfect Sense, in roasting it by degrees, causing it to be bit and worried by Dogs and Swine” (398). Rochefort explains that the natives think “the French are the most delicate, and the Spaniards of the hardest digestion” (399). He goes on to describe how “as soon as (an) unfortunate person is laid dead upon this place, the young men take the body, and having wash’d it cut it in pieces, and then boyl some part, and broil some upon wooden Frames” (401). This gratuitous detail seems to serve some function other than sheer relaying of information.

William Dampier further complicates the issue when he asserts that in all his travels he has “never (met) with any such People: All Nations or Families in the World…having some sort of Food to live on…and would scarce kill a Man purposely to eat him” (402). With this conflicting account, one must ask what purpose it serves for Montaigne, Rochefort, and their contemporaries to paint native peoples as terrifying savages in the most vivid detail.

One possible explanation is that Montaigne and Rochefort use such depictions to rationalize an imperial system that grows increasingly brutal. One common justification of colonization was that Europeans were bringing civility to uncivilized people. The ultimate example of lack of civility is Cannibalism. The more vivid these images become, the easier it is to justify Imperialism. In Robinson Crusoe, Robinson states surprisingly, “I See little difference between that (Cannibalism) and our Way, which in War is frequent in Heat of Action” (403). In this passage, Robinson seems to acknowledge the occasional savageness with which his own people behave. Perhaps Montaigne, Rochefort, and their readers saw something similar and their wild characterizations of Cannibalistic native peoples helped them assure themselves that the West was colonizing for the good of those colonized.

The Novel's Power

In reading Robinson Crusoe and the different appendices of the book, one thing that sticks out is between the many documents and the book in how they present similar arguments. One of the easiest places to see this is in the different views on cannibalism the different documents present their argument in a sort of matter of fact way, while in Robinson Crusoe Defoe presents essentially the same points through the development of Crusoe's character. In the many different excerpts detailing cannibalism from Montaigne, Rochefort, and Dampier we get the overwhelming sense that cannibalism is something that belongs only to barbarians, that it makes men into monsters. Then we have Defoe telling us that, true it is wrong, but how is it so different from the practices of so-called civilized people? Do we not do things that are wrong and monstrous in the heat of the moment, even more so when war is involved? However, in Robinson Crusoe, we get something much more touching. We are forced to live through Robinson's fear as he continues to think about the footprint he found in the sand, signaling that he is not the only inhabitant on the island. We are with Crusoe as he realizes his luck in not being placed on the other side of the island where the cannibals are but rather on the side where they never come, leavig him in relative safety. We see Crusoe call the island's inhabitants savages, and then take his thought back as he realizes the inhabitants of this isaldn are not that much different from the European Christians who in the heat of battle kill other men. Crusoe puts it simply:

"...these people were not murtherers, in the sense that I had once condemned them in my thoughts, anymore than those Christians were murtherers, who often put to death the prisoners taken in battle, or more frequently, upon many occasions, put whole troops of men to the sword, without giving quarter, though they threw down their arms and surrendered." (Defoe 191)

In Robinson Crusoe, we get a much more interesting portrayal of the different ideas found in the separate passages on cannibalism. For me this goes back to teh change in mediation the Enligthenment deals with. Essentially, it comes down to the point Johnson made in the Rambler, in that the novel allows readers to become more emotionally attached while reading. Whereas the points in the readings on cannibalism do paint their own grotesque (and somewhat sympathetic on Defoe's part) we are not as involved with those as we are with Crusoe at this point in his journey, and so they simply do not have the same effect.

The Purpose of Cannibalism

The 16^th and 17^th century expansion from Europe to the New World in the Americas provided the substance for fantastic adventure tales. Such exotic and exciting stories, including those surrounding the practice of cannibalism, are now generally perceived as a combination of anecdotal evidence, exaggeration and creative imagination. In fact there is little firm evidence to verify that cannibalism was ever practiced. There invention of such tales provided the Europeans with propaganda to legitimize their brutal conquest of indigenous colonies under the pretext of civilizing barbarous cultures and instilling their perceived cultural superiority upon societies with beliefs they did not understand and feared.

The only first hand account of cannibalism provided in Robinson Crusoe comes from the French Protestant missionary Charles de Rochefort, yet it differs from that of Michel de Montaigne. The treatment of prisoners in either’s tale differs, as Montaigne depicts the captors as “having a long time treated the Prisoners very well, and giving them all the Regalia’s they can think of” before their ritualistic cannibalism. Contrarily, Rochefort’s captor “ties [his prisoner] in an Amac, which he hangs up almost at the roof of his dwelling” and only “after he has kept him fasting four or five days” does the torture and feast occur. If the motivator behind cannibalism was revenge as both claim, why would the conduct vary of captives disagree so markedly? Indeed Dampier, who interacted significantly with indigenous Carribees claimed to “know some of these Cannibal Stories to be false”, and goes so far as to describe their civil nature. Their only violent attack came in what he acknowledges “was to preserve their own right” and property. There is a notable lack of eye-witness accounts as to any eating of other humans outside those who stood to benefit from a negative portrayal of the native populations.

Both Montaigne and Rochefort depict the ferocity of local tribes in battle and sacrifice, practically glorifying the determination and fortitude of warring nations. The song of defiance Montaigne relays and indomitable attitude of Rochefort’s sacrificial prisoner through his torture serves only to reinforce the necessity of enlightening what they viewed as savage beasts.