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Did cannibalism exist on the Pacific Northwest Coast? |
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| In a
comprehensive, interdisciplinary investigation, historian Jim McDowell takes a
fresh look at all the evidence. Beginning with the early explorers and traders,
McDowell analyzes the reliability of their man-eating accounts, and shows how
their observations were often clouded by a "cannibal complex." But McDowell
also finds convincing evidence of the importance of ritual cannibalism among
Pacific Northwest Coast Natives. In a detailed study of the hamatsa ceremony (the most
secret and profound of all the winter ceremonies) McDowell reveals how native spirituality was rooted in ritual cannibalism.The
volume concludes by discussing the relevance of the hamatsa ritual in today's
world for a society that appears to be losing its moral and ethical
bearings. |
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| "A controversial yet strangely compelling topic...After careful re-evaluation of the historical and anthropological sources, Jim McDowell has concluded that ritual consumption of human flesh and corpse-eating (particularly as Franz Boas reported among the Kwakiutl hamatsa societies) persisted into our era." Christen Archer, Professor of History, Calgary |
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