Cannibalism in Oceania

History of human cannibalism in Oceania

A cannibal feast on Tanna, Vanuatu, c. 1885–1889

Cannibalism in Oceania is well documented for many parts of this region, with reports ranging from the early modern period to, in a few cases, the 21st century. Some archaeological evidence has also been found. Human cannibalism in Melanesia and Polynesia was primarily associated with war, with victors eating the vanquished, while in Australia it was confined to a minority of Aboriginal groups and was mostly associated with mortuary rites or as a contingency for hardship to avoid starvation.

Cannibalism used to be widespread in parts of Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"),[1] among the Māori people of New Zealand, and in the Marquesas Islands.[2] It was also practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands. According to some reports, cannibalism was still practised in Papua New Guinea around 2012, for cultural reasons.[3][4]

## Australia

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While scholars generally accept that some forms of cannibalism were practised by Aboriginal Australians, such acts were largely limited to certain regions such as the north-east of Queensland, the coast of Arnhem Land, and parts of Victoria,[5][6] and were most often associated with mortuary rites.[7] Cannibalism was also sometimes practised in times of famine.[8][9][10] Reliable accounts of cannibalism mostly involve close kin eating specific parts of the dead in socially controlled rituals as a means of perpetuating the existence and attributes of the deceased.[11][8] While there are accounts of some Aboriginal groups eating the flesh of very young infants,[12] other close family members,[13] and slain warriors and enemies,[14] these groups generally did not kill others only in order to eat them.[15]

It is likely that most Aboriginal groups did not practice any form of cannibalism.[16][11] According to archaeologist Josephine Flood, "Aborigines generally abhorred cannibalism. Often an Aboriginal group would call their enemies cannibals and many myths were told of evil spirits that killed enemies for food."[6] Nevertheless, funerary cannibalism of members of the Aboriginal group (known as endocannibalism) is frequently attested in some regions. Anthropologists Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt state, "it seems clear that burial cannibalism was fairly widespread, [though] in most cases ... only parts of the body were eaten."[8]

Cannibalism was sometimes associated with infanticide.[17] Berndt and Berndt state that infanticide was mainly practised during bad seasons in the desert and to restrict the number of young children. Killed infants were not always eaten, but when they were, it was often to strengthen a sibling or in the belief that the infant would be reborn. They note that the prevalence of cannibalism after infanticide was "grossly exaggerated" by some authors (such as Daisy Bates), but "underestimated" by others.[8] In 1929, anthropologist Géza Róheim reported that in the past some Aboriginal groups of central Australia killed every second infant younger than about one as a means of population control. In times of drought and hunger children might be killed and eaten by their mothers and fed to older siblings to give them strength. Some of Róheim's female informants admitted having eaten the flesh of their siblings when young. Men sometimes killed older children in times of famine but did not eat the flesh of children and sometimes punished women for doing so.[9] Reports of cannibalism of infants exist for other regions including central Queensland and Victoria.[18][19]

Cannibalism of people outside the social group (exocannibalism) is also recorded. For example, the Kurnai and Ngarigo of south-eastern Australia were reported to only eat their enemies.[13][14]

Since the 1980s, scholars have been more critical of 19th century and early 20th century accounts of cannibalism. Anthropologist Michael Pickering surveyed the ethnographic literature in 1985 and concluded that 72% of accounts were unsourced or second hand and that there were no reliable eyewitness accounts of actual acts of cannibalism. Many accounts based on Aboriginal informants were of alleged acts of cannibalism by their enemies.[20] He argues that language barriers and the belief of traditional Aboriginal groups in the reality of the Dreaming and of sorcerers and spirits who eat human flesh may have caused some European observers to misinterpret symbolic stories and metaphorical language as accounts of real acts of cannibalism.[21] Pickering and Howie-Willis argue that mortuary rituals involving the cremation, smoking and drying of bodies, the stripping of flesh and bones, and the carrying of body parts as mementos and charms were likely assumed by some observers to be evidence of cannibalism.[22][11] Pickering concludes that there is no reliable evidence of institutionalized cannibalism in Aboriginal culture, although some groups might have resorted to cannibalism in times of stress.[10]

Pickering,[23] Howie-Willis,[11] Behrendt[24] and others argue that allegations of cannibalism were a means of demonizing Aboriginal people to justify the expropriation of their land, denial of their legal rights, and destruction of their culture. Behrendt states that accounts describing Aboriginal cannibalism are "sketchy at best", adding that the most reliably documented cases of cannibalism in colonial Australia were the acts of the European convicts Alexander Pearce, Edward Broughton, and Matthew Maccavoy.[25]

## Melanesia

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In parts of Melanesia, cannibalism was still practised in the early 20th century, for a variety of reasons – including retaliation, to insult an enemy people, or to absorb the dead person's qualities.[26]

### New Guinea

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Korowai people of New Guinea practised cannibalism until very recent times

As in some other New Guinean societies, the Urapmin people engaged in cannibalism in war. Notably, the Urapmin also had a system of food taboos wherein dogs could not be eaten and they had to be kept from breathing on food, unlike humans who could be eaten and with whom food could be shared.[27]

The Korowai tribe of south-eastern Papua could be one of the last surviving tribes in the world engaging in cannibalism.[4]

A local cannibal cult killed and ate victims as late as 2012.[3]

### Fiji

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Scene from outside a Fijian bure kalou (temple) with a victim about to be consumed – drawing by Alexandre de Bar (c. 1860)

One tribal chief, Ratu Udre Udre in Rakiraki, Fiji, is said to have consumed 872 people and to have made a pile of stones to record his achievement.[28] Fiji was nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles" by European sailors, who avoided disembarking there.

## Polynesia

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### New Zealand

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The first encounter between Europeans and Māori may have involved cannibalism of a Dutch sailor.[29] In June 1772, the French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and 26 members of his crew were killed and eaten in the Bay of Islands.[30] In an 1809 incident known as the Boyd massacre, about 66 passengers and crew of the Boyd were killed and eaten in Whangaroa, Northland.

Cannibalism was a regular practice in Māori wars.[31] In one instance, on 11 July 1821, warriors from the Ngāpuhi tribe killed 2,000 enemies and remained on the battlefield "eating the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of decaying bodies".[32] Māori warriors fighting the New Zealand government in Tītokowaru's War on the North Island in 1868–1869 revived ancient rites of cannibalism as part of a radical interpretation of the Pai Mārire religion.[33]

According to the historian Paul Moon, the corpses of enemies were eaten out of rage and in order to humiliate them.[34] Moon has criticized other historians for ignoring Māori cannibalism or even claiming that it never happened, despite an "overwhelming" amount of evidence to the contrary. Margaret Mutu, professor of Māori studies at the University of Auckland, agrees that "cannibalism was widespread throughout New Zealand" and that "it was part of our [Māori] culture", but warns that it can be hard for non-Māori to correctly understand and interpret such customs due to a lack of contextual knowledge, though she did not elaborate on what knowledge they might lack.[35]

Australian cultural anthropologist Russ Bowden wrote that:

> Apart from the passing European, however, Maori cannibalism, like its Aztec counterpart, was practised exclusively on traditional enemies – i.e., on members of other tribes and hapuu. To use the jargon, the Maori were exo- rather than endocannibals. By their own account, they did it for purposes of revenge: to kill and eat a man was the most vengeful and degrading thing one person could do to another."[36]

> In addition to eating the bodies of enemies slain in battle, one way in which an injury could be avenged was by digging up a corpse belonging to the offender's group and eating it. Stafford in his history of the Te Arawa tribe describes how the Ngati Whakaue chief Manawa revenged the killing, by some Ngati Raukawa tribesmen, of people who had been staying with him as guests. Manawa went to a Ngati Rau burial ground and dug up the corpse of a man who he knew had been recently buried there; he took the body home, cooked and ate it. Afterwards, Stafford writes he made the bones into "utensils".[37]

### Marquesas Islands

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The dense population of the Marquesas Islands, in what is now French Polynesia, was concentrated in narrow valleys, and consisted of warring tribes, who sometimes practised cannibalism on their enemies. Human flesh was called "long pig".[38][39] Rubinstein writes:

> It was considered a great triumph among the Marquesans to eat the body of a dead man. They treated their captives with great cruelty. They broke their legs to prevent them from attempting to escape before being eaten, but kept them alive so that they could brood over their impending fate ... With this tribe, as with many others, the bodies of women were in great demand.[40]

## See also

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Cannibalism in Oceania.

* Alexander Pearce, Irish criminal who confessed to practising cannibalism while on the run in Australia
* Asmat people, a Papuan group with a reputation of cannibalism
* Cannibalism in Africa
* Cannibalism in Asia
* Cannibalism in Europe
* Cannibalism in the Americas
* Child cannibalism
* List of incidents of cannibalism

## References

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1. ^ Sanday, Peggy Reeves (1986). Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 151\. ISBN 978-0-521-31114-4.
2. ^ Rubinstein 2014, pp. 17–18.
3. ^ a b "Cannibal Cult Members Arrested in PNG". The New Zealand Herald. 5 July 2012. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
4. ^ a b Raffaele, Paul (September 2006). "Sleeping with Cannibals". Smithsonian Magazine.
5. ^ Behrendt 2016, p. 131.
6. ^ a b Flood 2006, pp. 118–119.
7. ^ Biber 2005, pp. 625–626.
8. ^ a b c d Berndt & Berndt 1977, p. 470.
9. ^ a b Róheim 1976, pp. 69–73.
10. ^ a b Pickering 1999, pp. 51, 67.
11. ^ a b c d Howie-Willis 1994, pp. 178–179.
12. ^ Róheim 1976, pp. 71–72.
13. ^ a b Berndt & Berndt 1977, p. 469.
14. ^ a b McCarthy 1957, p. 166.
15. ^ Berndt & Berndt 1977, p. 467.
16. ^ Pickering 1999, pp. 53–54.
17. ^ Cowlishaw 1978, p. 265.
18. ^ Berndt & Berndt 1977, p. 468.
19. ^ Rubinstein 2014, pp. 16–17.
20. ^ Pickering 1999, pp. 54–56, 60–62.
21. ^ Pickering 1999, pp. 56–59.
22. ^ Pickering 1999, p. 60.
23. ^ Pickering 1999, pp. 62–65, 67.
24. ^ Behrendt 2016, p. 140.
25. ^ Behrendt 2016, pp. 134–135.
26. ^ "Melanesia Historical and Geographical: the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides". Southern Cross (1). Church Army Press. London: 1950.
27. ^ Robbins, Joel (2006). "Properties of Nature, Properties of Culture: Ownership, Recognition, and the Politics of Nature in a Papua New Guinea Society". In Biersack, Aletta; Greenberg, James (eds.). Reimagining Political Ecology. Duke University Press. pp. 176–177. ISBN 978-0-8223-3672-3.
28. ^ Sanday 1986, p. 166.
29. ^ King, M. (2003). The Penguin History of New Zealand. London. p. 105.
30. ^ "Diary of du Clesmeur" in McNab, Robert (ed.). Historical Records of New Zealand. Vol 11.
31. ^ Masters, Catherine (8 September 2007). "'Battle rage' fed Maori cannibalism". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
32. ^ McLintock, A. H., ed. (1966). "Hongi Hika". An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand.
33. ^ Cowan, James (1956). "Chapter 20: Opening of Titokowaru's Campaign". The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period. Vol. II: The Hauhau Wars, 1864–72\. Wellington: R. E. Owen.
34. ^ "A brief history of human cannibalism". theweek. 18 June 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2024.
35. ^ "Maori cannibalism widespread but ignored, academic says". stuff.co.nz. New Zealand Press Association. 31 January 2009. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
36. ^ Bowden, Ross (1984). "Maori Cannibalism: An Interpretation". Oceania. 55 (2): 82. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1984.tb02924.x - via Wiley.
37. ^ Bowden 1984, p. 96.
38. ^ Alanna King, ed. (1987). Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Seas. Luzac Paragon House. pp. 45–50.
39. ^ "Long pig – Oxford Reference". www.oxfordreference.com. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
40. ^ Rubinstein 2014, p. 18.

## Works cited

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* Behrendt, Larissa (2016). Finding Eliza: Power and Colonial Storytelling. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-7022-5390-4.
* Berndt, Ronald M.; Berndt, Catherine H. (1977). The World of the First Australians (2 ed.). Sydney: Ure Smith. ISBN 978-0-7254-0272-3.
* Biber, Katherine (2005). "Cannibals and Colonialism". Sydney Law Review. 27 (4). Retrieved 7 October 2023.
* Cowlishaw, Gillian (1978). "Infanticide in Aboriginal Australia". Oceania. 48.
* Flood, Josephine (2006). The Original Australians: the Story of the Aboriginal People (1st ed.). Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-74114-872-3.
* Howie-Willis, Ian (1994). "Cannibalism". In Horton, David (ed.). The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. Vol. I. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. ISBN 0-85575-249-1.
* McCarthy, Frederick (1957). Australia's Aborigines: Their Life and Culture. Melbourne: Colorgravure.
* Pickering, Michael (1999). "Consuming Doubts: What Some People Ate? Or What Some People Swallowed?". In Goldman, Laurence R. (ed.). The Anthropology of Cannibalism. Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 0-89789-596-7.
* Róheim, Géza (1976). Children of the Desert: The Western Tribes of Central Australia. Vol. 1\. New York: Harper & Row.
* Rubinstein, William D. (2014). Genocide: A History. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-582-50601-5.

## Further reading

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* Howitt, A. W. [Alfred William] (1904). The Native Tribes of South-East Australia. London: Macmillan.

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