[Sca-cooks] Fw: Response to Crusades and cannibalism

[david friedman]

>More from Paul Buell, after I forwarded over Ana's response....
>
>Phlip
>
>
>>  Also, you audience should be aware that cannibalism is a HUGE area of PC
>  > conflict in anthropology.

Years a good I read and enjoyed _The Man-Eating Myth_. At that point,
judging by the book, the orthodoxy among anthropologists was that
(non-starvation) cannibalism did exist or had existed in a wide
variety of cultures. The book was an attempt to debunk that belief,
and argued that there was no good evidence for it anywhere.

I thought the author probably overstated his claim, since there was
one substantial body of evidence (Fiji, I think--somewhere in the
Pacific) that he mentioned but made no serious effort to explain
away. But he persuasively argued that most reports of cannibalism
were evidence of the credulity of anthropologists (and others). I
didn't realize that his position was now accepted by many, and a
center of controversy, as Paul seems to be implying.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/