I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.
—Friedrich August von Hayek, Austrian economist (1899–1992)
Peter Martyr (1457–1526) was an Italian cleric who never set foot in the New World. Nevertheless, De Orbe Novo (On the New World), which was published in 1530, was an epic depiction of the first eight decades of Spanish rule in the West Indies. It became one of the most influential and popular works ever written on the subject. Without the benefit of firsthand knowledge, Martyr obtained the information for his book from interviews conducted with sailors, clergymen, and others returning from overseas. In Book One, which detailed the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the author included a section on the notorious cannibal hut described by Dr. Chanca during Columbus’s second voyage (and whose quote opened the previous chapter). Martyr, however, appears to have taken a bit of creative license with the physician’s account, expanding the incident and giving it a truly horrific tone. Instead of the single hut described by Chanca, there were multiple dwellings, each outfitted with a kitchen in which
birds were boiling in their pots, also geese mixed with bits of human flesh, while other parts of human bodies were fixed on spits, ready for roasting. Upon searching another house the Spaniards found arm and leg bones, which the cannibals carefully preserve for pointing their arrows; for they have no iron. All other bones, after the flesh is eaten, they throw aside. The Spaniards discovered the recently decapitated head of a young man still wet with blood.
Clearly, Martyr was instrumental in dehumanizing the Caribs, describing them as savages who treated their fellow islanders in the much the same way Europeans might treat sheep or cattle. Additionally, in keeping with his pro-Columbus stance, Martyr also used the threat of cannibals (now described as having nearly supernatural powers) as a thinly veiled justification for the overt military theme of Columbus’s third voyage, an expedition that became, in effect, a New World troop surge:
The inhabitants of these islands (which, from now on we may consider ours), women and men have no other means of escaping capture by the cannibals, than by flight. Although they use wooden arrows with sharpened points, they are aware that these arms are of little use against the fury and violence of their enemies, and they all admit that ten cannibals could easily overcome a hundred of their own men in a pitched battle.
So was there any real cannibalism going on in the Caribbean when Columbus arrived? Oxford-trained anthropologist Neil Whitehead suggests that while many reports of the behavior are examples of “imperial propaganda,” there are several reasons to think that the Caribs and other Amerindian groups did practice forms of ritualized cannibalism. Whitehead’s rationale is that, in addition to the self-serving allegations of man-eating from Columbus and his men, reports from other Spaniards placed Amerindian cannibalism into social contexts—as funerary rites or rituals related to the treatment of enemies slain during battle. For example, in the 17th century, Jacinto de Caravajal wrote, “The ordinary food of the Caribs is cassava, fish or game . . . they eat human flesh when they are at war and do so as a sign of victory, not as food.”
According to anthropologists, ritualized cannibalism can be differentiated into two forms: exocannibalism and endocannibalism. Exocannibalism (from the Greek exo—“from the outside”) refers to the consumption of individuals from outside one’s own community or social group, while endocannibalism (from the Greek endo—“from the inside”) is defined as the ritual consumption of deceased members of one’s own family, community, or social group.
With regard to exocannibalism, a number of historical accounts claim that the Caribs consumed their enemies—those killed in battle, taken prisoner, or captured during raids. The belief was that this form of ritual cannibalism was a way to transfer desired traits, like strength or courage, from the deceased enemy to themselves.