The history and scope of cannibalism in the Americas is complex, involving ritual or cultural practices connected with human sacrifice and warfare as well as instances motivated by famine and criminal cases. The modern term "cannibal" is derived from the name of the Island Caribs (Kalinago), who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in The Bahamas. While numerous cultures in the Americas were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism, some of these claims may be unreliable since the Spanish Empire used them to justify conquest.
At least some cultures have been archeologically proven beyond any doubt to have undertaken institutionalized cannibalism. This includes human bones uncovered in a cave hamlet confirming accounts of the Xiximes undertaking ritualized raids as part of their agricultural cycle after every harvest. Also proven are the Aztec ritual ceremonies during the Spanish conquest at Tecoaque. The Anasazi in the 12th century have also been demonstrated to have undertaken cannibalism, possibly due to drought, as shown by proteins from human flesh found in recovered feces.
There is near universal agreement that some Mesoamericans practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent. Anthropologist Marvin Harris, author of Cannibals and Kings, has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to Harris, the Aztec economy would not support feeding enslaved people (the captured in war), and the columns of prisoners were "marching meat." Conversely, Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano has proposed that Aztec cannibalism coincided with harvest times and should be considered more of a Thanksgiving. Montellano rejects the theories of Harner and Harris, saying that with evidence of so many tributes and intensive chinampa agriculture, the Aztecs did not need any other food sources. William Arens' 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth claimed that "there is no firm, substantiable evidence for the socially accepted practice of cannibalism anywhere in the world, at any time in history", but his views have been largely rejected as irreconcilable with the actual evidence.
In later times, cannibalism has occasionally been practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine. Well-known examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–1847) and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which the survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Albert Fish and Jeffrey Dahmer.
South America
Brazil
In early Brazil, there was the occurrence of cannibalism among the Tupinamba. In an analysis, Anne B. McGinness argues that the way different Christian missionaries reacted to cannibalism influenced the success or failure of their attempts to convert the Tupinamba to Christianity. Missionaries sometimes received threats of cannibalism, including from Tupinamba women, but some missionaries continued their conversion efforts.
Survival cannibalism
16th century
At times European explorers resorted to survival cannibalism when running out of other provisions. European members of a 1530 expedition led by Ambrosius Ehinger murdered and consumed at least three Indigenous people, among them a woman whom some Europeans had taken with them, "a friendly Pacabuey boy who was with the expedition", and one of a group of friendly Indigenous people who had promised to guide them. Body parts not eaten immediately were roasted and taken along as provisions.
A few years later, members of another expedition ate "vermin such as snakes" as well as horses and dogs. Several of them ate human meat, in one case "cooking a quarter of a child together with some greens". Philipp von Hutten, who participated in the expedition and reported this, commented: "It is horrible [to consider what] the poor Christians ate on that expedition".
20th century
When Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed on a glacier in the Andes on October 13, 1972, the survivors resorted to eating the deceased during their 72 days in the mountains. Their experiences and memories became the source of several books and films. Survivor Roberto Canessa described how they "agonized" for days in the knowledge that "the bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it?" Ultimately he and the other 15 people who were rescued months later decided they could, realizing there was no other way to stave off starvation.
Caribbean
Caribbean Sea in the 15th and 16th centuries
European explorers and colonizers brought home many stories of cannibalism practiced by the native peoples they encountered. In Spain's overseas expansion to the New World, the practice of cannibalism was reported by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean islands, attributed to the Island Caribs (Kalinago), who were greatly feared warriors. Queen Isabella I of Castile later forbade the Spaniards to enslave Indigenous people unless they were "Cannibals", which at that time was a variant of the word "Caribs".Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race, and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492–1700. New York: Cambridge University Press 2012, p. 123.
Despite their fierce reputation, some writers of the first accounts of alleged Carib cannibalism did not condemn them for their acts, instead referring to the Kalinago in largely positive terms. While they are described as eaters as human flesh in a number of historical accounts, the credibility of these descriptions is debated. Archaeologist William Keegan concludes that the tales of cannibalism may have a factual basis, with enemies being eaten to "frighten" the survivors. Regardless of the historical truth behind them, accusation of cannibalism quickly became a pretext for attacks on Indigenous groups and justification for the Spanish conquest.
In Yucatán, a shipwrecked Spaniard Jerónimo de Aguilar, who later became a translator for Hernán Cortés, reported to have witnessed fellow Spaniards sacrificed and eaten but escaped from captivity where he was being fattened for sacrifice himself.Kay A. Read, "Cannibalism" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerica, New York: Oxford University Press 2001, vol. 1 p. 138. The Florentine Codex (1576), compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún from information provided by indigenous eyewitnesses, includes depictions of Mexica (Aztec) cannibalism. Franciscan friar Diego de Landa reported on further Yucatán instances.
Haiti in the 19th century
In February 1864, eight Haitians – four men and four women – were sentenced to death and executed for having murdered and cannibalized a girl in a Vodou ritual held in a village near Port-au-Prince. Accounts of the trial vary regarding the girl's age – reported to range from seven to twelve – but are otherwise largely in agreement. The niece of one of the men was kidnapped while her mother was away, and a few days later, "strangled, flayed, decapitated and dismembered" in a sacrificial ritual allegedly held to make her uncle wealthy. Her remains were then cooked and eaten, with some evidence indicating that more than the eight people found guilty might have eaten her flesh. There are two other accounts of cannibalistic Vodou ceremonies by self-claimed eyewitnesses from the 1870s and 1880s, but their reliability is disputed.
Various European visitors and inhabitants of the country thought that cannibalism was reasonably common and was practiced not only in the context of human sacrifices but also for gastronomic reasons. Sir Spenser St. John, the British chargé d'affaires in Haiti in the 1860s, collected many such accounts in a controversial book first published in 1884. While allowing that only a minority of Vodou worshippers engaged in or approved of human sacrifice, St. John recorded several cases where children were sacrificed and eaten in Vodou ceremonies, reported by people who said to have witnessed them in person. He also referred to records of a case where the police supposedly found "packages of salted human flesh", but for fear of causing a scandal, chose not to investigate further.
Not all reports of cannibalism collected by St. John related to religious ceremonies. A French merchant told him he had once seen a group of soldiers beating a man; when he inquired about the reason, they ordered the man "to open his basket, and there he saw the body of a child cut up into regular joints." St. John spoke with a woman who had seen how "human flesh was openly sold in the market" in the countryside, and other witnesses stated the same. There are also newspaper reports of quartered children sold as food in the Christmas season, of the remains of partially eaten children being found, and of a man who accidentally ate some of "the leg of a child served to him as part of his dinner."
St. John's Spanish colleague told him that many children disappeared during certain seasons without a trace; while nothing more was known with certainty, people generally assumed most of them had been eaten. Similarly, the British captain William Kennedy heard from an Anglican clergyman that children were "stolen, butchered, and their flesh sold" in markets throughout the country. The clergyman's wife had once nearly purchased a chunk of human flesh, "believing it to be pork". Kennedy also heard of a family feast where a little boy had been consumed and spoke with a man who had seen barrels filled with human flesh offered for sale in western Haiti.
Mike Dash notes that evidence for the claims made by St. John and other observers that cannibalism was "a normal feature" of Haitian life is nevertheless thin. While the custom does not seem to have been unknown or universally shunned, estimates made by some Europeans, according to which "forty Haitians were eaten" every day and "almost every citizen of the country had tasted human flesh", were presumably widely exaggerated, reflecting prejudices more than reality.
Middle America
Aztecs
There is near-universal agreement that some Mesoamerican people practiced human sacrifice followed by cannibalism. Still, there is a lack of scholarly consensus on how widespread the latter practice was, with some scholars suggesting that it may not have occurred at all. At the other extreme, the anthropologist Marvin Harris, author of Cannibals and Kings, has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. While most historians of the pre-Columbian era accept that there was ritual cannibalism related to human sacrifices, they often reject suggestions that human flesh could have been a significant portion of the Aztec diet. Cannibalism was also associated with acts of warfare, and has been interpreted as an element of blood revenge in war.
The Mexica of the Aztec period are perhaps the most widely studied of the ancient Mesoamerican peoples. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet. Michael D. Coe states that while "it is incontrovertible that some of these victims ended up by being eaten ritually […], the practice was more like a form of communion than a cannibal feast".