Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- The symbols that give rise to a cannibalistic consciousness
- The mythical chartering and transformation of cannibal practice
- 6 The faces of the soul's desires: Iroquoian torture and cannibalism in the seventeenth century
- 7 Raw women and cooked men: Fijian cannibalism in the nineteenth century
- 8 Precious eagle-cactus fruit: Aztec human sacrifice
- 9 The transformation and end of cannibal practice
- 10 Conclusion: Other symbols and ritual modalities
- Notes
- References
- Index
10 - Conclusion: Other symbols and ritual modalities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- The symbols that give rise to a cannibalistic consciousness
- The mythical chartering and transformation of cannibal practice
- 6 The faces of the soul's desires: Iroquoian torture and cannibalism in the seventeenth century
- 7 Raw women and cooked men: Fijian cannibalism in the nineteenth century
- 8 Precious eagle-cactus fruit: Aztec human sacrifice
- 9 The transformation and end of cannibal practice
- 10 Conclusion: Other symbols and ritual modalities
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Man is to be defined neither by his innate capacities alone, as the Enlightenment sought to do, nor by his actual behaviors alone, as much of contemporary social science seeks to do, but rather by the link between them, by the way in which the first is transformed into the second, his generic potentialities focused into his specific performances.
Cannibalism is a complex human image with many meanings. As a practice it may simply be a response to famine or enter into the transformation and social formulation of psychic energy. In many cases, ritual cannibalism physically enacts a cultural theory (of order and chaos, good and evil, death and reproduction) that enables humans to regulate desire, to build and maintain a social order. As a symbol of chaos, cannibalism is equated with all that must be dominated, controlled, or repressed in the establishment of the social order. Evil is projected onto enemies, animals, the cosmos, or harbored as a basic human instinct. In ritual cannibalism, the victim becomes the symbol of evil – the living metaphor for chaos, which must be dominated in the interest of social well-being.
As a life-giving symbol or a symbol of order, ritual cannibalism physically regenerates social categories by transmitting vital essence between the dead and the living or between the human and the divine.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Divine HungerCannibalism as a Cultural System, pp. 214 - 232Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986