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In this radical reexamination of the notion of cannibalism, Gananath Obeyesekere offers a fascinating and convincing argument that cannibalism is mostly "cannibal talk," a discourse on the Other engaged in by both indigenous peoples and colonial intruders that results in sometimes funny and sometimes deadly cultural misunderstandings. Turning his keen intelligence to Polynesian societies in the early periods of European contact and colonization, Obeyesekere deconstructs Western eyewitness accounts, carefully examining their origins and treating them as a species of fiction writing and seamen's yarns. Cannibalism is less a social or cultural fact than a mythic representation of European writing that reflects much more the realities of European societies and their fascination with the practice of cannibalism, he argues. And while very limited forms of cannibalism might have occurred in Polynesian societies, they were largely in connection with human sacrifice and carried out by a select community in well-defined sacramental rituals. Cannibal Talk considers how the colonial intrusion produced a complex self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the fantasy of cannibalism became a reality as natives on occasion began to eat both Europeans and their own enemies in acts of "conspicuous anthropophagy."
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CANNIBAL TALK
19 S
18 S
17 S
0
ROTUMA
177 E 12 30'S
20
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60 km 178 E
VITI LEVU
178E 178 E
Rewa
Verata
Bua Bay
Galoa
Levuka
Macuata
VATOA
KORO
the fiji islands
179 E
Kaba Point
BAU
Viwa
Dreketi
Vunirara
VANUA LEVU
OVALAU
Bua
Wailea (Naurore) Bay
179 E
Udu Point
180
TAVEUNI
Somosomo
180
179 W
LAKEBA
OGEA LEVU
KOMO
L AU G RO U P
179 W
19 S
18 S
17 S
0 AUSTRALIA
500
1000 km
Norfolk Is.
TASMANIA
North Cape MURIMOTU TOKERAU (Doubtless Bay)
Chatham Is.
WHANGAROA
Bay of Islands Kerikeri Waitangi HOKIANGA WHANGAREI
Hauraki Gulf
Kaipara Harbour
WHITIANGA (Mercury Bay)
Auckland
Coromandel Peninsula
Thame
sR
ik Wa
oR
at
Kawhia
TAURANGA
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Bay of Plenty MAKETU
r ive ANAURA
NORTH ISLAND
UAWA (Tolaga Bay) WHANGARA
TURANGA-NUI (Poverty Bay)
TARANAKI (Mount Egmont)
TE MATAU-A-MAUI (Hawke’s Bay)
Port Nicholson (Wellington) Kapiti Island
Hutt River C oo
TERAWHITI
kS
t trai
Pallíser Bay Cape Pallíser
0
new zealand: north island
50
100
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200 km
Te Rarawa Nga Puhi
N
Ngati Whatua
Waikato
NORTH ISLAND
Murderers Bay
Queen Charlotte Sound (Totaranui)
SOUTH ISLAND Akaroa
W a it
a ki
R iv e r
Dusky Sound
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South Cape
new zealand
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Gananath Obeyesekere
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CANNIBAL TALK The Man-Eating Myth and Human Sacrifice in the South Seas
University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2005 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Obeyesekere, Gananath. Cannibal talk : the man-eating myth and