LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

perhaps accusations of such a horrific crime as cannibalism rendered the privileges of Roman citizenship null and void.

      Ultimately fear of unknown religious practices led to rumor and conjecture, resulting in the accusation of cannibalism, for why would a group want to keep their meal practices secret if not for some nefarious purpose? Toward the end of his letter to Trajan, Pliny the Younger refers to the growth of Christianity as a contagion that is spreading quickly.24 The danger inherent in not knowing becomes even more frightening if the mystery appears to be growing. As Christian adherents spread throughout the Roman world, their hidden and mysterious rites took on a new and terrifying face. Centuries later, men like Columbus and Vespucci would write of their fears of the contagious nature of practices like cannibalism and sodomy.

      Classical Cannibal Discourse

      Taken together all of these accusations of cannibalism in the classical world help us to better understand a number of important precedents that would profoundly shape the minds of early modern explorers, conquerors, evangelists, and settlers as well as those back in Europe reading of the American experience. While ancient Western writers accused a variety of peoples of cannibalism, the Scythians stand out as the most notorious group.25 Their alleged anthropophagy was prevalent in the literature, as was their supposed uncouthness and stupidity. Herodotus was careful to distinguish between the Scythians and the Androphagi, for example, underscoring the fact that although some Scythian practices might be savage and cannibalistic, they were not solely defined by their supposed anthropophagus ways. In spite of Herodotus’s contradictory and complicated depiction of Scythian peoples, it is the negative aspects of their culture that proliferated in popular discourse.26 The first-century Jewish chronicler Josephus, for example, described the Scythians as “reveling in the murder of humans, and only slightly better than wild beasts.”27

      The proliferation of the myth of Scythian cannibals across time and space demonstrates the staying power of such accusations. But even more important, these accusations of anthropophagy against the groups collectively called the Scythians not only created the trope of cannibalism in the Central Asian steppes but helped to establish precedents regarding who cannibals were, what they were like, and where they lived. These accusations also constrained ways of thinking about cannibalism in the ancient Mediterranean world, for if Scythians were cannibals, then one knew what a cannibal was: a Scythian. This kind of circular logic will be repeated throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Those who were believed to be cannibals because of their geographic location (or other defining characteristics, such as cultural practices or appearance) become themselves the very definition of “cannibals.” Thus the definition of cannibal is more complicated than merely one human who consumes another, encompassing a web of assumptions about Otherness as well.

      The endurance of the Scythian reputation for cannibalism also reveals how whole groups of people were conflated into artificial categories and how the differences between them were minimized. The category of Scythian encompassed a rather poorly defined group of people inhabiting a region whose boundary was equally vague. Discursively, however, these differences and vagaries mattered little. The Scythians were cannibals, whoever they were and wherever they lived. Again this pattern will be repeated often in the following millennia.

      The anthropophagus accusations lodged at other groups, like Celts and Christians and even starving soldiers, reveal another important discursive legacy of the ancient world. If one were reading Herodotus, Pliny, or Strabo in a Mediterranean metropole like Athens or Rome, it might seem that the vast majority of cannibals live on the edges of civilization, places whose landscapes mirrored the savagery of their people. In other words, the overall impression from these works is that the cannibal always lives elsewhere. Yet these authors also described acts of human consumption that supposedly occurred a lot closer to home. In each of these examples, however, the act of cannibalism was an act of desperation or revenge, not a defining cultural practice. While the unfortunate Harpagus might have unknowingly consumed his own son, this act is presented as an isolated incident that arose from the intertwining of prophecy, vengeance, and overzealous passion. In this case cannibalism occurred under extreme circumstances rather than as a habitual act. The driving force of bloodlust is undeniable in such tales, but the object of rage and hatred is pointed in a specific direction rather than indiscriminately at all human beings; the paradigmatic cannibal society was presumably one in which the bonds of shared humanity were weak and all human beings were potential food sources. Even when Cambyses’ troops were driven to cannibalism in the desert, it was out of desperation, not desire.

      In the case of the Christians in the Roman Empire, however, a complicated situation developed in which a group a people who inhabited “civilization” were accused of ritualized, institutionalized cannibalism. The Christians were not an undifferentiated Other living somewhere on the fringes of civilization; they were not people who had been raised as savages, yet they chose to abandon their traditions and follow a path leading to inhumanity. Living among civilized people did not automatically make them part of civilization. In contrast to Pliny’s lurid descriptions of cannibalistic monsters in the far reaches of the world, the Christians who were accused of cannibalism in the second century seemed to have chosen rather than inherited the practice of anthropophagy. This presents a challenge to the simplistic assertion that cannibals are always fundamentally Other. If there are people living in Rome or Antioch who are secretly cannibals, then the threat of savagery and consumption is much closer at hand. One need not travel to distant lands to be exposed to threats to one’s body and spirit. These accusations highlight the distinction between the internal and external Other. Not only is this important in furthering our understanding of the concept of the Other, but it will be important in tracing the discourse of cannibalism through medieval Europe and the early modern Americas, for the strategies necessary to combat the threat of savage man-eaters need to change if the cannibals are literally among us.

      Underscoring many of the descriptions of man-eaters in the classical world was the symbolic linkage of people who consumed other human beings with monsters and the monstrous. In the case of Pliny the Elder, the two were often conflated; he describes cannibals as both humans and monsters in the Natural History. Some of his richest descriptions of monsters appear in the chapter devoted to man, whom he considers the highest of all animals. Given this, it seems clear that for Pliny, the human race came in many forms with a large number of variations. Alongside Scythian cannibals he includes a description of Cyclopes, people whose feet are turned backward, Androgyni, individuals whose saliva can cure snakebites, and others who possess body parts with a variety of magical abilities.28 What, then, are the parameters for defining humanity? It is not size, skin color or texture, sexual dimorphism, number of extremities, possession of certain sensory organs, nor sociality, language, or culture. Rather the reader is left with a confused understanding of humanity. What is clear, however, is that not all humans were equal in Pliny’s mind.

      The line between human and inhuman, or perhaps more precisely human and monster, was (and continues to be) a site of negotiation. Can one become a monster? When does a human become a monster? Is it achieved through acts or physical appearance? For modern-day readers, the designation monster when used in reference to human beings tends to be awarded based on actions. For example, one might come across the following sentence: “Adolf Hitler was a monster.” This usage of the term feels familiar as it is not referring to Hitler as physically monstrous but rather that his horrific actions were the root of his monstrousness. At least in polite conversation, we tend not to use monster as a descriptor for people whose bodies deviate from the norm. Furthermore modern readers tend not to believe that the Cyclopes, mermaids, or Blemmyes are or ever were real. Since the Enlightenment there has been a clear shift away from the belief that humanity is widely diverse in form and an increased skepticism about the existence of seemingly monstrous or magical beings. But for much of the first two millennia of the Common Era, belief in such creatures was widespread. Yet while the other monstrous creatures described by Pliny have been rejected as mere fantasy, the man-eater who dwells on the fringes of civilization has not been rejected so readily. The figure of the cannibal is a central site through which the very definition of human is negotiated. As we move forward in time, it is important to take note of whether or not cannibals were perceived as monstrous humans or humanoid monsters.

      Finally, before moving on to a discussion of the discourse

Скачать книгу