“Even i am eatable. And that my dear children is called cannibalism which is frowned upon in most societies.” -Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka

So… you want to be a cannibal?

Or, eh, you’d like to hear more about cannibalism? This post won’t be a story about “primitive man” and a “barbaric” instinct for human meat. This will, rather, be a more serious post about the nature of cannibalism among the Maori in New Zealand. And, since European sailors were the ones who originally wrote about their observations in New Zealand, this post will also be about a sailor’s morbid fascination with cannibalism.

For sailors, at least, there was always a fear that a shipwreck would force them into cannibalism. You may have heard stories about starving sailors, drawing straws to pick out the one among them who would die so that the rest could live….

These stories were foremost on the minds of the European sailors who first arrived in New Zealand. Captain Cook (the New Zealand version of Columbus) and his men first encountered cannibalism at Queen Charlotte Sound… and, since then, there has been a lot of writing on the issue. Cook, unlike others of his time, strangely insisted in his journals, “They eat their enemies slain in battle - this seems to come from custom and not from a Savage disposition - this they cannot be charged with.”

Based on my elementary understanding of Maori customs - keeping in mind that these customs varied from tribe to tribe and region to region - I’ll try to explain the basic principles of cannibalism in New Zealand.

The Maori have a concept called mana. Mana, explained simply, is the authority and respect that a person has. Though a person is born with a certain amount of mana (based on bloodlines), any person’s mana can increase and decrease based on his or her actions. Someone who kills many people in battle gains more mana while those who are cowardly lose mana. People can also gain and lose mana based on reciprocity.

Here, we have the basic anthropological ideas of reciprocity: there is some social obligation to fulfill after someone has given a gift to another person. Gift exchanges build relationships, and gift exchanges are, thus, an important part of social life. Anyone who does not return a gift in some shape or form loses mana and those who give more gain mana.

In addition to gift exchanges, insults are also a part of the concept of reciprocity for the Maori. If a person insults you, your mana will be horribly damaged unless you reciprocate that insult.

With that in mind, cannibalism in Maori society is not the practice of hunting down and eating others. Rather, cannibalism involves raising one’s mana, decreasing the mana of one’s enemies, and reciprocating insults. Oftentimes, cannibalism was only practiced after someone from another group has greatly insulted your group. In such cases, there may be no other way for you to regain your mana.

Cannibalism is the greatest insult one tribe can give another tribe, especially if the person eaten is a chief. Because the chiefs and their ancestors are extremely, extremely sacred (the Maori term would be tapu), then the simple act of changing these sacred men into profane, everyday food (profane would be noa) would be very damaging to the tribe’s mana and its reputation.

And thus ends my attempt at describing a complicated cultural practice in a short, simple post.