Cannibal Holocaust
Bibliography
(1:19:22) Cannibal Holocaust, Dir. Ruggero Deodato, Italy, 1980
P.71 WHITEHEAD, Neil L. “CARIB CANNIBALISM. THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE.” Journal De La Société Des Américanistes
P.76 WHITEHEAD, Neil L. “CARIB CANNIBALISM. THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE.” Journal De La Société Des Américanistes
P.81 WHITEHEAD, Neil L. “CARIB CANNIBALISM. THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE.” Journal De La Société Des Américanistes.
CW: sexual assault, slavery, cannibalism
The film for this article is pretty much exactly how it sounds. It is a 1980s exploitation film, in every sense of the word. To put it plainly, the film is not pleasant, it is problematic in both content and production. I do not recommend you watching it, and this is not some kind of reverse psychology, overall the film is just bad. Upon release it was banned in multiple countries for various obscenity reasons. The director was charged with murder after it was believed the actors had been killed on camera. Charges that were later dropped as the actors were still alive, they were just staying out of the public eye for ‘authenticity’. However, the film’s production did involve abuses of native extras and the actors, as well as animal cruelty with the slaughter of various live animals.
The film began what we would now call the ‘found footage’ genre, and is about a group of documentary makers who go missing in the amazon jungle. Their film reels are recovered after a tv network sends an anthropologist to look for the crew. It is revealed that the missing filmmakers were pretty awful people. A network executive discloses that the missing documentary director was known to manufacture scenarios, to produce the outcomes he wished to present of a violent, brutal global south. His documentation of indigenous amazonian tribes are no different.
They burn down parts of a village to portray an attack by a rival tribe, in which the actual native extras were forced to stand in a burning hut by the real director. They gang rape a woman so she will be executed, due to a “profoud respect these primitives have for virginity” (Cannibal Holocaust, Dir. Deodato, 1980). They go on to murder and torture many of the natives until the tribe eventually kills them. The documentary filmmakers serve as a metaphor of western chauvinism, and are a commentary on the media’s propensity to sensationalise the events they report on; often moulding the narrative to serve their own interests. However, in doing so the film ends up being the very kind of exploitative content it wishes to critique, i.e. abusing the actors.
The film attempts some artistic value, but, in my opinion it falls short in every sense. It feigns integrity, after just over an hour and a half of clumsy vulgarity. ‘So, why are you even writing about it?’ I hear you cry, well, the film is a good example of what I wish to share with you; which is the history of the indigenous cannibal stereotype, and the glaring hypocrisy that lies within the western perspective.
In 1492 Christopher Columbus, as we all know, landed in what he thought was India. He had actually stumbled across what we still call the West Indies. This is where he met the friendly Arawak tribe; they tell Columbus of a dangerous tribe of man-eaters: the Caribs. In this first meeting, we can see the dichotomy that would go on to dominate the western perspective of indigenous peoples. The Arawaks serve as the foundation of the ‘noble savage,’ in contrast with the bloodthirsty Caribs. Binary categorisations, like the one just described, are often used to excuse mistreatment of a ‘harmful’ side of such dichotomies i.e. today in discussions of immigration, images of a perfect immigrant are used to justify the harsh treatment of illegal immigrants or in the suppression of female sexuality we get the madonna-whore complex.
Nevertheless, somewhere in Columbus’ journey back to Spain, the name Carib became canibe which became cannibal. However, as you might have guessed, the name Carib is also where we get the name ‘Caribbean’ in 1750, indicating how synonymous this stereotype became with the region.
Trips to the new world were expensive, and Columbus thus far had failed to find any gold. Yet, there was a further issue. In 1493 Queen Isabella of Spain thought that slavery was un-Christian and therefore, the enslavement of the native people he came across was frowned upon. But, (you knew there was a but coming) in 1503, Queen Isabella gave the following declaration:
“If such cannibals continue to resist and do not wish to admit and receive my Captains and men ... to be taught our Sacred Catholic Faith and to be in my service and obedience, they may be captured and are to be taken to these my Kingdoms and Domain and to other ... places to be sold”
Bare in mind Catholics, at this point, also believed in transubstantiation. The belief that during Eucharist, the wafer and wine became the actual body and blood of Christ (just food for thought, before I further outline the hypocrisy of all of this).
From this declaration, there was now a material incentive to declaring tribes as cannibals. It was essentially a loophole for Spanish colonists to capture and use natives for labour, as well as sell them across the New World and Europe. This became a very lucrative alternative for the lack of gold found so far.
The crown appointed a judge, Rodrigo De Figueroa, to classify the native cultures and determine whether they were Carib or not. Yet, somehow, the extent of cannibalism occuring in the Americas was still massively exaggerated. Entire regions began to be accused of widespread cannibalism, “for example Martir de Angleria accused the entire Amerindian population of the Antilles and Venzuelan littoral...Vázquez de Espinosa accused the peoples of Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador without any qualification”.
Populations were classified as cannibals, and then declassified, to meet the labour requirements of the colonists. Take the case of Trinidad, in 1511 it was declared ‘carib’, under pressure of Santo Domingo colonists in need of labour in the Dominican Republic. However, in 1518, they were declassified as ‘carib’, coincidentally after rumours of gold, and thus a need to preserve a labour force in Trinidad for future mining operations. However, when these rumours were found to be untrue, Trinidad was reclassified in 1530.
As the colonial hunger for slaves increased, slave laws around women were relaxed. Bans on the enslavement of native women were ended in 1569, as they were declared to be as culpable as men in the act of cannibalism.
“All these factors...imply that an accusation of cannibalism in the colonial South America functioned much as the epithet ‘terrorist’ does in modern Europe: i.e. to place groups of people beyond the normal political process and in this way be able to justify various forms of extraordinary violence against them”
The accusations of cannibalism gave Spanish colonists the justification they needed to dominate and conquer the New World. However, this trope was popular in other parts of Europe too. As states and governments began to form, and the moral justification for them became necessary, the extreme savagery of the cannibal native became a convenient image to produce fears of the lawless alternative. Writers of the time like Hugo Grotius would claim “if there were no sovereign power, we should swallow up one another alive”.
Now, this is where I should go through the legitimacy of the claims made. Of course, the Spanish reports can all be critiqued heavily and essentially disregarded, due to the material incentive of Queen Isabella’s cannibal loophole. However, what about in other European countries that were less fussy about their slavery? There do seem to be sources that are “remarkably consistent in defining it as a limited, ritual act only associated with victory in battle.” Subsequently, there does appear to be some legitimacy to claims of cannibalism occurring but clearly in no way to the extent described by the Spanish, or in the imaginings of western adventure novels.
However, the fact there may have been some cannibalism in the New World is frankly unsurprising. Pretty much every culture across the globe has engaged in some kind of cannibalistic practice throughout history. And this is where the European hypocrisy really begins to unravel. Accusations of cannibalism have been levied against various groups throughout european history to present the ‘enemy’ as barbaric. Catholics would accuse Protestants and vice versa, women who were thought to be witches supposedly ate children; and Jewish people also faced accusations.
Thus, it was common to label the other as barbaric savages to dehumanise and justify various crimes committed against them. However, forms of cannibalism were commonplace in Europe regardless of group identity. Medical Vampirism was a well documented cure for various ailments, including youth rejuvenation. Drinking human blood was a widespread practice and it was commonly believed that the fresher the blood the better. At executions in Germany, blood was reportedly sold on the spot to those looking to cure various disabilities. In France, people dipped their handkerchief in the blood of Louis XVI, believing royal blood to have curative properties. There was also the use of fungus that grows on the head of corpses to cure hemorrhaging. A practice that Charles II was particularly interested in, reportedly paying £6,000 (roughly £600,000 today) for this “spirit of the skull” recipe.
Another craze that swept Europe predating, continuing throughout, and beyond this period was called Mummia. Supposedly a wonder drug that could cure pretty much anything, as well as being an aphrodisiac. This ‘cure’ came from a misinterpretation of the Persian ‘mumiya’, which was the use of pissasphalt (tar) to remedy broken bones and fractures. It was also a substance that was used by the Egyptians in the mummification process. This mistranslation and the confusion of the black tar with the blackened mummified skin, led to powdered human remains becoming a booming industry in European-Egyptian trade. So much so that the supply could not keep up with Europe's insatiable demand, hence, fraudulent mummies began to be sold. Allowing for trade of the dried flesh to continue well beyond its shipment being banned in Egypt in the 16th Century.
Even with this clear contradiction, cannibalism was used to justify the enslavement and colonisation of indigenous populations. Yet, it also became an extremely popular trope in western adventure novels, most famously appearing in Robinson Crusoe. This trope continues very much into the modern world, perpetuated and reinforced in films like Cannibal Holocaust, amongst others. Europe’s almost obsessive fixation with this stereotype can be seen as yet another attempt to justify the brutality it was committing. Today it may not be the stereotype of the ‘cannibal’ used, but, we can clearly see the same mechanics within the western perspective to justify its continued pursuits of imperialism around the world.
Written by Henry Kidney