Wari Cannibalism Chapter Summaries
Consuming grief: Compassionate cannibalism in an Amazonian society
By Beth A. Conklin, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2001. 285 pages.
Nothing seems quite so controversial and exotic in anthropology than the topic cannibalism. In the book consuming grief, Conklin studies the indigenous Amazonian group Wari’s mortuary cannibalism before the 1960’s contact. The book itself is a big contribution to anthropology’s perception of cannibalism as it is revealing a culture that uses cannibalism as a form of respect rather than dominance and leaves us pondering about what’s acceptable human behaviour.
Conklin has created an emphatic and nuanced portrait of the Wari’s culture from her two extensive interviews from the timeframe 1988 to 1992. In it she reconstructs many aspects of the Wari’s culture as death, society and grievance interwoven with the culture abundance that came with the ‘contact’ of the outside world. From being socially and cultural isolated from the outside world, the Wari found that endo cannibalism was a form of expressing love and community. Conklin amplifies here that these practices were deeply embedded in the social relations and culture of the Wari, and so they were deeply disturbed by the contact in the 1960’s that ended their funerary cannibalism. She continues that while exo cannibalism also …show more content…
Conklin amplifies here that the practices were often due for a couple of days to make the corpse unappetising and reinforce the cultural meaning of consuming. Here Conklin also addresses the emotionally contradictory challenges that follow of watching a loved one be dismembered and eaten. That Wari answers with conventional truisms as ‘We were sad’ as to a deep explanation of their emotions leaves me with the perceptions that a truthful testimony would contradict the whole meaning of their
By Beth A. Conklin, University of Texas Press, Austin, 2001. 285 pages.
Nothing seems quite so controversial and exotic in anthropology than the topic cannibalism. In the book consuming grief, Conklin studies the indigenous Amazonian group Wari’s mortuary cannibalism before the 1960’s contact. The book itself is a big contribution to anthropology’s perception of cannibalism as it is revealing a culture that uses cannibalism as a form of respect rather than dominance and leaves us pondering about what’s acceptable human behaviour.
Conklin has created an emphatic and nuanced portrait of the Wari’s culture from her two extensive interviews from the timeframe 1988 to 1992. In it she reconstructs many aspects of the Wari’s culture as death, society and grievance interwoven with the culture abundance that came with the ‘contact’ of the outside world. From being socially and cultural isolated from the outside world, the Wari found that endo cannibalism was a form of expressing love and community. Conklin amplifies here that these practices were deeply embedded in the social relations and culture of the Wari, and so they were deeply disturbed by the contact in the 1960’s that ended their funerary cannibalism. She continues that while exo cannibalism also …show more content…
Conklin amplifies here that the practices were often due for a couple of days to make the corpse unappetising and reinforce the cultural meaning of consuming. Here Conklin also addresses the emotionally contradictory challenges that follow of watching a loved one be dismembered and eaten. That Wari answers with conventional truisms as ‘We were sad’ as to a deep explanation of their emotions leaves me with the perceptions that a truthful testimony would contradict the whole meaning of their