Having Lunch with a Cannibal

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, one of my students asked, "Why do people eat other people ?"

The class opinion seemed to be that they were lacking other food, a notion I quickly dispelled.

Because of my crazy and varied background, I was able to tell them the story of how I once had lunch with a cannibal. When I announced to them that I had once had lunch with a cannibal, the stunned silence and attention in the room were almost palpable.

So here is the story, and the explanation of why most cannibals are -- or used to be -- cannibals.

This happened in a village in the interior of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fiji islands, where I had business. To reach this island had taken a full day of travel from Suva, the capital. First, I had had to take a bus for an hour or two out of Suva to a landing on the Rewa River. Then I had had to take a motor launch for about three hours up the Rewa. The shores of the river, which ran through the center of a wide valley, were flat a green, like pastureland, except that here and there huge, giant, green stands of feathery bamboo 100 feet tall cut into the
horizon of the hot, cloudless, blue sky.

Once near the village, it was necessary to climb a steep, slippery bank of mud, and continue up a hillside to a cluster of Fijian bure nestled amidst breadfruit trees and coconut palms. The bure were of the old traditional kind, with thatching enclosing the house on all sides, and with the black trunk of a giant fern extending outwards at each end. To visit this village was like returning to a time centuries ago when traditional Fijian culture was the only culture present, and where men had long lived listening to drums other than the drums of money.

I had business in that village. I needed some favors from the chief, and to obtain these favors I had brought with me a whale's tooth to present. I knew the chief quite well. I had visited and stayed in the village at least a half dozen times. I had often shared yaquona with him and others in his entourage.

A whale's tooth is a sacred treasure, a ceremonial gift to be given when the giver wishes an important favor. In Fijian custom, the recipient who accepts it is obligated to do a favor for the presenter, whether that favor is requested when the tooth is presented or even many years later. One does not accept a whale's tooth from someone one does not know and trust. In old Fiji, the request made through a whale's tooth might have been that the recipient kill someone for the presenter, or perhaps give the preenter one of his daughters.

In my case, I was presenting a whale's tooth for something much less important -- simply the participation of his village in a tourism project.

After the presentation, the acceptance, and my request, the chief and I had lunch. We sat on mats of woven pandanus leaves while the women in his family brought our food. The chief seemed to me to know a great deal about the outside world, and I commented about this. As his wife set bowls of chicken stewed in coconut cream, cooked fern shoots, breadfruit, and oven-baked taro root before us, he explained how he had come to know something of the world outside Fiji.

He explained that at a time when Britain ruled Malaya and communist rebels were trying to take over that country, he had volunteered to join the British army and go to Malaya to fight.

"Do you see that lime tree over there?" he asked, pointing to a magnificent, old lime tree just at the edge of the village.

"Yes," I replied.

"When I left this village, I made a vow. I went over to that lime tree -- which was much smaller in those days -- and picked two limes. I put the limes in my shirt pocket, and I made a vow."

I listened attentively.

"When we got to Malaya, we were sent up-country into the jungle. We were attacked by the rebels, but we outnumbered them by many men. When I shot and killed my first enemy soldier, I fulfilled my vow. I went up to his body, and with my thumbs I dug out his eyes. I squeezed the juice from my limes onto them, and then I ate those eyeballs, because I knew that when I had done this I would be a stronger warrior. And I was. I had his mana. I killed many, many rebels in that war before I came back several years later to this village."

And so years later this story was my answer to my student's question about why people eat other people. It is not for food, I explain. This is usually done -- in those few places on earth that still practice cannibalism -- for "mana" or whatever name the locals give to the essence of the warrior. The belief is that if you eat a part of a great warrior, you will gain a bit of warrior greatness yourself.