>Last night, the final (I think) of a TV series on cannibalism was
>shown in the UK, showing how cannibalism was considered perfectly
>acceptable until relatively recently in some cultures (only 130 years
>ago in Fiji). One theory given was that cannibalism as a way of
>ritually destroying and literally consuming your enemies was only made
>abhorrent by Christianity (which declared only the body and blood of
>Christ to be - ritually - acceptable for consumption).
It's a lot more complicated than that. The Maori were quite keen to embrace Christianity because it forbade cannibalism - with the advent of muskets, wars had become a lot more frequent and successful with the resulting misery and dishonor of having relatives that had been eaten. Incidentally the Maori were so fearsome that the Church of England trained its missionaries in cultural sensitivity by sending them out to practice conversion of the Catholic Irish in London. There's also a Maori Prophet who combined Christianity and cannibalism leading a fairly successful rebellion - he also managed to have some trans-cultural appeal for there's mention of a confederate war deserter in his ranks
Even though the person to be eaten is an enemy might not mean that he is badly treated. I've seen a description of a South American tribe in which the captives were well-fed, did nothing, and had the daughter or the wife of the captor to sleep with until they were eaten (which could be fair bit of time). If there were any kids, they were eaten too as they were the enemy.
There's also funerary cannibalism in which your dead are eaten. The Fore in Papua New Guinea used to practice it but they've had to modify or drop the custom after an equivalent of Mad Cow Disease got into the system. Herodotus mentions a tribe of Indians that ate their dead yet found burning them to be most offensive.
>Without entering any RW debates on the subject, I rather like the
>idea, it makes life more diverse, and have been wondering where, in
>Glorantha, cannibalism might be practised. Not the real nasty sort of
>people, like the Cannibal Cult, but more ritual forms of the practice,
>among more 'likeable' people.
The Saliligori of Homago (in the East Isles) are friendly cannibals as they only eat their kin in friendship and kinship bonding rituals. However they are surrounded by neighbours who look as though they are kin but do not practice the rituals. Feeling somewhat miffed, the Saliligori raid their neighbours and force them to partake in the kinship rituals. Outsiders are pretty much exempt from this as they don't look like kin and so can get along with the Saliligori pretty well.
Sandy once said that the Morocanth from time to time eat humans (as opposed to their herds of Gern) without bothering with the fix intellect spell first. Dragonewts also eat humans. D'oh! They are different species so they are not really cannibals but anthropophagi (fine shakespearan word that!)
The Ignorants practice funerary cannibalism and they might also eat the sacrifices to the Blood Sun. I don't think the Lunars do the same in their HonEel corn rites.
The only other people might be the Trowjangi Amazons...
>I can, for example, see Hsunchen accepting it.
I think only those with carnivorous totems would actually eat humans. And then they would only eat non-hsunchen (they are not beast-folk so they are not us).
>I can't remember the latest word on the
>Holy Country, whether it's Aztec-influenced or not, but there were
>some central American peoples (pre-Aztec I think) who practised
>cannibalism.
The Aztec nobility practiced cannibalism but the Holy Country is not Aztec Mexico. The Caladralanders do have Flower Wars, but their captives are tipped into a volcano rather than eaten.
--Peter Metcalfe
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