Cannibalism main course of new book
Evidence of cannibalism in any culture was unreliable yet claims of the practice had often been used to denigrate indigenous people, according to a new book edited by a University of Queensland academic.
Anthropology and Sociology Department Associate Professor Laurence Goldman said the book entitled The Anthropology of Cannibalism (1999 Bergin and Garvey) also touched on the fact that myths and folklore about cannibalism were common tools used to entertain and control people, especially children.
"There is a Papua New Guinean group which has a one-eyed, cave-dwelling monster with a penchant for human flesh in its folklore which is almost an exact replica of the Greek character, Cyclops," he said.
"Cannibalism and incest are universal ?no-nos' with no evidence existing either in the forms of bones or oral history about it ever being a systematic part of any culture. However, it has been used by society to define what is non-civilised and dangerous and as an excuse to oppress others. For example, the One Nation Party made claims about Aborigines formerly being cannibals which had the effect of denigrating them."
Such claims are examined and dismissed in a paper by the head curator for the Indigenous Cultures Program at the Museum of Victoria, Michael Pickering, included in the new book. Dr Goldman's paper entitled "From Pot to Polemic" reviews all the literature on cannibalism. "There are very few cultures which do not have an absolute abhorrence of cannibalism and this horror is etched in their folklore. Our western fairy tales include stories about flesh-eating giants (Jack and the Beanstalk) and witches living in lolly houses with a taste for young children (Hansel and Gretel)," Dr Goldman said.
"Cannibalism has been a central theme for anthropologists with early researchers making outlandish claims about finding bones with a black sheen (from the cooking pot) or even attributing a shaking, senility-inducing disease among Papua New Guineans (Kuru) to eating human brains.
"A paper in the book by Australian National University Department of Anthropology fellow Alan Rumsey suggests that on the contrary, some Papua New Guinean people believed the first white settlers in the area to be cannibals as they resembled certain folkloric spirits."
Dr Goldman said cannibalism captured the public imagination because it was so easy to play with. "Some of the puns I found in headlines included ?Why man has been left off the menu' and ?Is cannibalism too much to swallow?'," he said.
For more information, contact Dr Laurence Goldman (telephone 07 3365 3178).
