Abstract
Cannibalism in North-West America. A study of mortuary and sacrificial anthropophagy on the north-west coast of America and its origins has recently been published by Dr. William Christie MacLeod (J. Soc. Américanistes N.S., 25, fasc. 2). Among the Kwakiutl there is a group of dances either cannibalistic or related to the cannibal dance. A youth, who in his quest for a vision meets the great cannibal spirit or any of the cannibal's attendants, acquires the dance, derivable from the spirit. An analysis of the elements of this belief and of the lore connected with cannibalism indicates that the dance was diffused from the northern Kwakixitl as the centre. It is evident, however, that the dance consists of a number of elements which were diffused separately and have been only imperfectly integrated among the Kwakiutl. There are three elements which have a different history and can be traced. Of these, corpse-eating by the relatives of the deceased was an old culture element of the entire west coast of North America and the northern plateau. It was linked with the custom of bone-carrying by the widow and the custom of smearing with exudations of the corpse, or its blood, as an equivalent of eating. Among the Kwakiutl the custom of mortuary antliropophagy probably represents a survival from the culture of a prc-Kwakiutl tribe. The second element, the custom of biting bits of flesh from fellow-tribesmen at ceremonials, is of inner-American introduction and probably is a by-product of hook-swinging. In inner North America the rite is self-sacrifice of bits of skin. Thirdly, non-anthropophagous sacrifice of captives in war was diffused to the west coast from inner America, and afterwards, through the Kwakiutl, anthropophagous practice followed in connexion with the rite of hook-swinging. The strips-of-flesh technique in sacrifice of both Maidu and Kwakiutl is of inner American origin and still survives among the northern Plains and Woodlands Indians.
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Research Items. Nature 133, 987–989 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133987a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133987a0