Originally posted by Bastian_Bux
Well, now a more friendly answer to this:
"our american history teacher told us red indians have been barbarians" guy.
Lets start with "they eat children":
Yeah, I like this sentence. Its perfect to push your population into a war: "the enemy eats humans/children".
It worked for the israelites vs. the kanaanites, for the greek vs. the persians, christians vs. muslims, germans vs. russians and so on.
One of the first stories told by the arawaks to Christobal Colon was: "the caribbeas (our enemies) eat humans. Hence our term cannibal comes from this very stories.
So which american native nations did eat human flesh?
Aztecs: yeh, they might have had ritual human sacrifice, and even ritualistic cannibalism. Though only the highest priests where allowed to take part in the meal of their bloody gods. Oh, and usually the heart was the only organ eaten.
Other south american cultures: followed a similar path if they used cannibalism at all. Only the Kazique, and maybe as an honor some warriors, where allowed to eat the heart of a fallen enemy. Oh, and only the most worthy enemies where honored by "incorporating" them into the spiritual power of such tribes. So keep an eye on your valuable conquistadors.
To put it plainly: even for a major culture as the Aztecs, the ritual meal of a human heart was an event that took place only every few years or even decades.
Oh, and interesstingly, all stories we know away from this very specific ritualistic cannibalism, where told by europeans with an heavy interest in blaming the NA natives for everything.
The spanish royal decree allowed slavery only for cannibals. Interesstingly many Arawak islands very soon transformed into cannibal islands.
Every single description is usually second hand: explorers or missionaries moving in a region where the natives *just* stopped to practice cannibalism, or more often, where the enemies *still* practice cannibalism.
As a conclusion: in the long history of the american cultures we find hints for only a few cultures using cannibalism. How many european ship crews had to ressort to this "last chance"?
Whilst the points you make are valid they don't exclude the possibility that the Amerindians did practice cannabalism. certainly ritual murder was an integral part of some Mesoamerican cultures.
If we can't get the truth right first time from our 21st century news networks - what chance in the 15th century.
My real point is that although there was obviously some biased reporting of history from the Europeans, the possibility that ritual or traditional cannabalism existed in Amerindian culture should not be excluded. Some tribes today in New Guinea STILL practice this - it led to a nasty outbreak of a disease similar to CJD due to the tradition of eating the brains of other (family I think) people
