Mystical Union & Captive Cannibalism

[Terrance Flaherty]

Journal of World History, Spring 2001 v12 i1 p210 
Cannibals: The Discovery and Representation of the Cannibal from
Columbus to Jules Verne.
FERNANDEZ, RAMONA. Book review
Cannibals: The Discovery and Representation of the Cannibal from
Columbus to Jules Verne. By FRANK LESTRINGANT.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Pp. vi + 247

Chapter 6 chronicles the experiences of Jean de Lery in Brazil as
recounted in his own history of the voyage. Lery's allegorization of
cannibalism emphasized the relation of cannibalism to Christian ritual: 

     Adept at rhetorical readings of the Bible: in the language of the
time, he
     was a `tropist,' a lover of tropes, who understood the process by
which
     meaning is transferred from the thing signified--the body, the
blood--to
     the thing signifying--the bread and the wine.

In the end, Lery manages to use tropism to attack Catholicism. They are
the victims of illusion, and therefore, idolaters. Later, he connects
usury to anthropophagy, and without mentioning Jews, manages to conjure
the anti-Semitic cliche Shakespeare
reiterates in Shylock, a usurer who demands a pound of flesh. Thus,
"cannibalism represents something other than itself. It is a moveable
sign, a signifier which can cover the most varied signifieds." 



For Lestringant, the core of the cannibal question is its imaginative
relationship to the Eucharist; however, he confesses "it would take many
more books to explain [this]." The result of our imperfect understanding
of this connection is that we are left
with "an inferior and distorting mirror of the Chief Sacrament of the
Christian religion." 

Concentrating on French historical and literary sources, the analysis
traces the cannibal tropology of artists from Rabelais to Verne. He
knits his chronology together with a series of musings gleaned from
anthropology, art, literature, and the historical
record. We learn Amerigo Vespucci's voyage to Brazil resulted in the
equation of Brazilian Indian civilization with a Golden Age, a paradise,
but an anonymous French reviser reverses Vespucci's representation and
attributes every evil to the
Brazilians, including atheism, anarchy, and incest. Lestringant pursues
his subject through the Enlightenment and reports on incidents of
cannibalism in Europe. He asks: Is anthropophagy figurative or literal?
What is specific about anthropophagy? Is
cannibalism a diabolical version of communion? Is it a rite of vengeance
or simply a hunger? 

In his conclusion, Lestringant returns to the horrors of twentieth
century Europe: 

     The horror of reality always threatened to creep back from under
the
     metaphor. Once it was no longer sublimated, cannibalism reappeared
under
     the most dreadful guises; ... [in] the Gulag ... inmates sometimes
cut of
     pieces of their bodies and ate their own living flesh.

In the end, the trope embodies and eats itself. We should all eat this
book, however indigestible it may seem. 

RAMONA FERNANDEZ Michigan State University

For the M-D connection See In The Heart Of The Sea by Nathaniel
Philbrick