Sacred Hunger: Cannibalism as a Cultural System

Author: Sandy
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Cannibalism is resisted in some cultures due to its evil, while in others, it plays a significant role in ritualistic rules. Regarding the existence of cannibalism, although anthropologists have proposed various explanations, P.R. Sandy believes that none are sufficient. In this book, she proposes a new approach to understanding cannibalism. Through an in-depth examination of ritualistic cannibalism in selected tribal societies and comparative analysis of cases without cannibalism, she demonstrates that cannibalism is closely linked to certain fundamental tendencies toward the material and spiritual worlds and serves as a specific means of distinguishing the "cultural self" from the "natural other."
Drawing on ideas from the works of Ricoeur, Freud, Hegel, Jung, and symbolic anthropology, the author synthesizes these perspectives, arguing that ritualistic cannibalism expresses the ontological structure of human existence in the world based on humanity's understanding of life and death, and employs this understanding to control life force, which is considered essential for social reproduction. Whether cannibalism exists in a culture depends on people's fundamental attitudes toward life and death, and it is intertwined with the reality of the material world.
This book not only makes original contributions to the understanding of cannibalism and the broader anthropological issues it entails but also proposes several insightful theoretical perspectives on conventional anthropological analysis.