Many scientists agree with Travis-Henikoff’s premise in Dinner with a Cannibal. In a Science News article, for example, Bruce Bower highlights the work of geneticist John Collinge of University College London. Collinge and his colleagues’ studies concluded, “Cannibalism among prehistoric humans may have left lasting genetic marks, a team of scientists contends. Their controversial argument hinges on a link between specific DNA mutations and a disease that afflicted South Pacific villagers who practiced cannibalism as late as 1950” (Bower 229). Biologists Volker H. W. Rudolf and Janis Antonovics assert, “in the animal kingdom, cannibalism is generally a one-on-one interaction in which a larger and stronger individual kills and consumes a smaller and weaker conspecific (Polis 1981). Under these conditions, cannibalism is likely to be an ineffective mode of disease transmission” (1207). And Scott A. Wissinger, et al’s Ecology article “suggests that recruitment regulation by cannibalism is most likely when young-of-the year are vulnerable to cannibalism but have low dietary overlap with cannibals” (549).
Most anthropologists also acknowledge the existence of cannibalism in human history, exploring the phenomenon in particular contexts and for specific purposes. Ilka Thiessen analyzes “cannibalism's recounted past, present, or mythical existence in relation to female imagery,” in Papua, New Guinea, and concludes that cannibalism, real or mythic, “becomes a defining characteristic of what it means to be female or male in these societies” (142). Shirley Lindenbaum asserts, “Even among sceptics [sic], cannibalism is acknowledged in several forms. Survival cannibalism and cannibalism as psychopathology are most frequently noted” (477). According to Lindenbaum, constructions of “cannibalism as a sign of strength, self-reliance, and possibly a threat to outsiders” may have “transformed a taboo into a totem and redefined anthropophagie primitivism as a positive value” (493). And Marshall Sahlins declares,
The deconstructive strategy is not to deny the existence of cannibalism altogether. That would invite consideration of the substantial historical record of the practice, whereas the objective rather is to establish doubt about it. Not that there was no cannibalism, then, only that the European reports of it are fabrications (Obeyesekere 1998). Even so, not all such reports need be questioned. (3)
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