I had bought one of their tame pigs, and asked the headman of the village, a young warrior by the name of Momakowa, to kill it for me.
It was difficult to imagine that these people were cannibals but one day I was given a sudden revelation of their blood-lust. The boys roared with laughter at my unskilful efforts to compete with them with bow and arrow. The children would come to clutch my arm if they wanted to show me something. They had an attractive, spontaneous sense of humour, and there was something very touching in the pleasure they evidently felt at meeting strangers who manifestly intended them no mischief. I gave them various presents in exchange for the specimens I gathered for the National Museum of Denmark I joked with them, showed them photographs of other natives and let them listen to the tape recorder. They maintained a constant distrust of their neighbours but towards us, who were complete strangers, their attitude was different.
They were always ready either for defence or attack. When I learned that cannibalism was part of the story, and that my research would put me in contact with ex-cannibals, let's just say it whetted my appetite (I lied).Whenever the men left the huts, either to go hunting or to go to the fields, they always took their weapons with them. I came to this topic through a book I was writing about two cultures, one modern, one prehistoric, that stumbled on each other in the most remote part of New Guinea. When we move beyond the one-liners, though, nonfiction accounts of cannibalism provide a window into the farthest reaches of human nature, from desperate bids for survival to significant - and yes, disturbing - practices of lost cultures. The fact is, the gags (really the last one, I promise) that pop up when discussions turn to the consumption of human flesh are defense mechanisms against the train-wreck fascination we have for the subject.
That means cracks about giving an arm and a leg (sorry) for a good book on the subject, or similar tasteless (sorry again) attempts to make the subject more palatable (last one). For starters, let's dispense with the cheap jokes about cannibalism.
0 kommentar(er)
