«I found other people who ate men: The deformity of their gesture says it»: (re)visiting the cannibal in the Columbian writtings
Main Article Content
Abstract
This essay revisits the descriptions and the references of the cannibal in the writings of Christopher Columbus. It examines the complexities and the contradictions of the colonial discourse as well as the construction of the colonial subject in accordance with Christian and mercantile ideologies. It considers the widely popular discourses of the time, personal and colonial desires as well as the evidence presented by Columbus and others. Faced with second-hand knowledge, lack of physical evidence and miscommunications, the writings reveal the manipulative and often contradictory nature of the enterprise and of Columbus himself. Last but not least, this study reflects on important shifts in the narrative that signal religious and cultural manoeuvres necessary in the appropriation of the Other, cannibal or not, to justify personal and national gains.
Keywords:
Article Details
References
REFERENCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS:
Arens, William (1979): The Man-Eating Myth. New York: Oxford UP.
Boucher, Philip P (1992): Cannibal Encounters. Europeans and Island Caribs 1492-1763. Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP.
Colón, Cristóbal (1982): Textos y documentos completos. Consuelo Varela (ed.). Madrid: Alianza.
Ferdman, Sandra (1994): “Conquering Marvels: The Marvelous Other in the Texts of Christopher Columbus.” Hispanic Review, 62:4, 487-496.
Greenblatt, Stephen (1991): Marvelous Possessions. Chicago: The Chicago UP.
Greenblatt, Stephen (2005): Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hart, Jonathan (1994): “Images of the Native in Renaissance Encounter Narratives.” A Review of International English Literature, 25:4, 55-76.
Hulme, Peter (1986): Colonial Encounters. Europe and the Native Caribbean 1492-1797. London and New York: Metheuem.
Hulme, Peter (1994): “Tales of Distinction: European Ethnography and the Caribbean.” Implicit Understandings. Observing, Reporting, and Reflecting on the Encounters Between Europeans and other Peoples in the Early Modern Era. Stuart B. Schwartz (ed.). Cambridge [England]; New York, NY: Cambridge UP. 157-197.
Hulme, Peter (1998): “Introduction: the Cannibal Scene.” Cannibalism and the Colonial World. Francis Baker, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iversen (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Johar, K. L. (1988): Christopher Marlowe: a Study in the Renaissance Concept of Heroism. Meerut: Shalabh Prakashan.
Phelan, John Leddy (1970): The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U. of California P.
Sale, Kirkpatrick (1990): The Conquest of Paradise. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Simões, Manuel (1985): A Literatura de Viagens nos Séculos XVI e XVII. Lisbon: Comunicação.
Todorov, Tzvetan (1999): The Conquest of America. The Question of the Other. Richard Howard (trad.). Norman: U. of Oklahoma P.
Wey-Gómez, Nicolás (1992): “Cannibalism as Defacement: Columbus’s Account of the Fourth Voyage.” Journal of Hispanic Philology, (16:2), 195-208.
Wey-Gómez, Nicolás (2007): “A Poetics of Dismemberment: the Book of Job and the Cannibals of Cariay in Columbus’s Account of the Fourth Voyage.” Colonial Latin American Review, (16:1), 109-123.
Whitehead, Neil L. (1984): “Carib Cannibalism. The Historical Evidence.” Journal de la Société des Americanistes (70), 69-87.
Zamora, Margarita (1992): “Reading in the Margins of Columbus.” Amerindian Images and the Legacy of Columbus. Eds. René Jara y Nicholas Spadaccini. Minneapolis: U.of Minnesota P. 183-197.
Zamora, Margarita (1993): Reading Columbus. Berkeley: U. of California P.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Maria João Dodman, Notions of Man and Manhood in Seventeenth-century Iberia: the Nobleman of "La margarita del Tajo que dio nombre a Santaren" of Ángela de Avezedo , Moenia: Vol 18 (2012)