Cannibals and Kings by Marvin Harris.

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject:

Curiouser and Curiouser!! Confused

It seems that we'll have to wait for the return of Mr President so that he can tell us what he sees.
Though now that I am back to reading "Rituals of Blood", returning from, hm... barbecues in America might not be as certain as one would wish.

Thanks for your encouragement Smile

.

Thomas Hood · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 7:01 pm Post subject:

[COPY TO CLIPBOARD] is just below the lower right corner of the
Post a Reply window.

President Camacho · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject:

I'm with you Ophelia. I don't see a copy to clipboard button. I see bold, italics, underline, quote, code, list, img, url, s, youtube, hr, spoiler, font color which is new to me font size and alignment. Then I see the Highlight Text box, the preview, and submit buttons. Thas all Shocked

Thomas Hood · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject:

President Camacho · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject:

yup, see that too Rolling Eyes

That book sounds extremely graphic Ophelia!

The BBQ was pretty good. We cooked up some burgers and had a keg. The weather is super hot here so everyone was downing the cold beer. I had a pretty good time. There was this one girl there in a blue tube top that was out of control gorgeous. If anyone knows what "motor boating" is... that was what I had on my mind the entire time. Anyway, I'm back home safe, with a full belly, and looking forward to doing some reading tomorrow! Smile

Thomas Hood · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 9:59 pm Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:04 am Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:40 am Post subject:

Camacho,

The sentences I quoted from Rituals of Blood are some of the worst.
It was really a shock to read this chapter a few years ago and I felt very sad that this had happened in the west and not so long ago, it seemed to me that as a collective ritual human beings couldn't sink any further than this.
I wouldn't want you to get the impression that this book is a catalogue of horrific details. This and Patterson's other book on the subject The Ordeal of Integration made a great impression on me, in terms of the depth of thinking and humanity of the author. A lot of other books have beeen written on the subject, but I cannot recommend those two too highly.

Yet, when I tried Freedom, I was disappointed. Here the author studies freedom and slavery in Antiquity and then in medieval Europe, but the style is very different, it is dry and very difficult, so I gave up.

http://www.amazon.com/Rituals-Blood-Consequences-Centuries-Frontiers/d p/158243039X

President Camacho · Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 7:57 pm Post subject:

Chapter 12

It only makes sense that a person would favor something that was beneficial and spurn something that wasn't. This is the argument Harris has adopted to show his readers why India and China has preferential treatment of very specific animals.

The ecology of a region plays a salient role in deciding which animals receive this preferential treatment and why during times of population explosion and limited food supply (largely due to unsustainable farming practices).

India has more farm-able land than China, making an animal able to help with farming a beneficial thing to have around, much like cars today for the average American. We pay to feed our cars gasoline. Even though we could sell our cars and make money, we won't sell because then we couldn't get to work the following day and make more money. This is what the Hindus were trying to teach their followers. The brilliant thing is that Harris relays that this probably happened naturally without much help from the religion. Farmers, during times of drought (sometimes lasting 12 years) that gave into the temptation of eating their cattle were unable to continue farming when the rains returned.

I can imagine a farmer at the dinner table discussing who ate their cattle that day. It must have been like watching a sailor drink salt water because they were thirsty. The ones that don't drink salt-water or eat their own means of producing food (cattle) survive. There just isn't enough protein to go around. I think this goes back to population density as the root problem in all of this - everywhere.

Pigs and China was also interesting. I think Harris has made a confusing argument here. Milk protein being substituted for pig protein because of the lack of available grazing land? What? I know there wasn't need for female cattle but a need could have been realized if they only let them graze and then tried to force milk into their diet. The lactase argument was a good one to counter this.

Also he doesn't go to the trouble I wish he had to tie in why cannibalism was so prevalent in Mesoamerica and in India it died out quickly.

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:07 am Post subject:

I see that you also found much that is of interest in chapter 12.

Before I come to this I'm going to write about animal sacrifices in chapter 10: The Lamb of Mercy.

I had sometimes wondered what happened to the food (animal or vegetarian) that was given as a religious offrand in temples.
I imagine that this is the kind of question nobody else asks, because everybody knows that the food is either eaten by the priests or the faithful

The only time I heard a very partial answer before Cannibal and Kings is in a book by Shashi Tharoor about modern India. The author, who is a Hindu, mentioned the offering of (vegetarian) food in Hindu temples and said in passing (not as criticism) that this food was the main income of the priests.
Anyway Cannibals and Kings is most clear about this: the supplicants always have a feast in which they eat the meat they brought to the gods.

Are the gods pleased by an offrand that also feeds the supplicants? Apparently believers had no trouble thinking the food was both given to the gods and eaten by themselves. I read somewhere that people said the gods were pleased by the fumes produced while they were cooking the meat.
I'm always one to be pragmatic, and I would see no point in the meat being left to rot, but I am a little surprised at how undemanding the gods are, and I can't understand why the word "sacrifice" is used. If I bring some food, "sacrifice" it to the gods and then eat it myself, where is the sacrifice? To me if feels like I donated 10 euros for the collection at mass on Sunday and then took the money back to buy my Sunday dinner, and also felt I was a good member of the congregation and had sacrificed something.

It makes more sense if I take the gods out of the equation, and concentrate on the "redistributive feast" aspect.
p 132 "The Israelites (...) animals were sacrificied primarily to be eaten at redistributive feasts sponsored by by "great provider" headmen and chiefs. (...)
The law of feast was open-handed generosity; no sacrifice was complete without guests; and portions were freely distributed to rich and poor within the circle of a man's acquaintance."
This makes more sense to me. In money terms, it's not as if everybody brought 5 euros and then used it to go to the restaurant. Some people would donate a sheep (100 euros?) and some would have nothing to contribute, but they would all share.

Then there are amusing details:
" Levites, who constituted a priestly caste analogous to the Druids, held a monopoly over the slaughter of animals for food (...). they carried out the butchering of the animals and the redistribution of animal flesh, returning the largest share to the owner and his guests while holding back selected morsels for themselves and Jaweh.
(emphasis mine).

One detail that surprised me was in the description of the Norse saga of Hakon the Good: "The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles."

Details like this show a lot about the material evolution of a society and the shift in the emphasis on food in religious rituals.
Perhaps in the days of the Norse kings the temple was convenient because it was larger than other homes and you could both cook and eat large quantities of food on the premises.
Harris then writes that those feasts continued during the first centuries of Christianity: "In AD 363 the holding of love feasts or agape on church premises was forbidden by the Council of Laodicea."
He notes that the only remnant is the eating of the wafer at communion in the Catholic ritual (and he insists that the scientific measuring of the nutritive value of the wafer is zero).

The slow evolution and centuries of traditions would then explain why even to somebody with only a rudimentary knowledge of Christianity like myself, the idea of the Norse people and their cooking pots in the middle of the temple is so surprising.

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:21 am Post subject:

Crickey! I've lost my post (the choice of expletive is because I am reading PG Wodehouse on the side).

Next: the end of animal sacrifices in religious rituals-- which came gradually.

"After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire (...) in AD 363 the holding of love feasts (agapes) on church premises was forbidden at the Council of Laodicea."

Harris sees no particular moral meaning in the evolution from human sacrifices to a ritual with no food, but I think several explanations can be true at onece. Anyway, his is well-worth reading:

"Nineteenth century anthropologists saw in the line of development which led from human sacrifice to human sacrifice to the wafer and the wine of the eucharist a vindication of the doctrine of moral progress and enlightenment."

So he explains the change in terms of an increase in population coupled with inadequate source of animal proteins.

"What the end of animal sacrifice really signified was the end of ecclesiastical redistributive feasting."

Then the next step-- again this is fascinating, if a little irreverent, but it would be nice to have corroborating evidence, to know what other researchers said about this for example.
"When the globe had filled with tens of millions of ragged sweating drudges, the "great providers" were unable to act with the "open-handed generosity" of barbarian chiefs of yore. Under Christianity, buddhism and Islam they became "great believers" and built cathedrals, mosques and temples where nothing at all was served to eat."

I must say that I also admire Harris's use of language. Once more I wonder which readers he had in mind - students, some members of the general public, other academics? I see a sense of enjoyment in the use of phrases like "barbarian chiefs of yore" or "ragged sweating drudges" to make his point and convey criticism.

So here we are. Like many other people, I read about the building of the Cathedrals in the Middle Ages-- the faith of the people, especially ordinary men, is undeniable, but nobody had presented it to me as the continuation of the redistributive tradition of the great feasts... of yore!

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:37 am Post subject:

As I was (re)writing my previous post, it became obvious that a look at how people had reacted to Harris's book was necessary.
Harris's writings are all very well for me, or for you, Mr President since they confirm what you think about population and food, but I can't imagine they would sit well with everybody, especially when they were published over forty years ago.

So I looked, and... yes, a lot has been written about this book!

I'll start with one reference I find interesting - which in turn gives a second reference... This is entitled "Vitriol and Misinformation". Cool

http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Harris/criticism.htm

So, the reference above shows that Harris generates passionate discussions and criticism:

President Camacho · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:18 am Post subject:

It didn't really strike me as hypocritical that priests should skim something off of the top. By introducing redistributive feasting first, Harris really gets me in the mindset of why sacrificing is done. God really doesn't have anything to do with it. Ecological conditions, population density, and politics have everything to do with it. So why shouldn't there be priests that take their cut too. They're a new cog in a machine that is growing and growing.

What I want to know is how far the Church trails in teaching people about what the right/wrong thing is to do. It would seem like today the church would be all about environmentalism but it isn't. If ecological standards were such that raising pigs would severely curb the growth and prosperity of a small village, then pigs would suffer the same fate that they suffered from the Israelites. The same goes for the veneration of cows in India. The difference, I'm aware, is that these people were constantly fighting off starvation. Still, what the hell is the Church doing to help people today? Emotional hand jobs are about all that is needed from them in America, I guess.

Harris should have talked about the Brahmans being a hereditary priesthood a little bit more. This is a whole group of kings that are able to take their cut from everyone's meat, potentially forever.

I really can't stand redistribution. It takes away freedom. The fact that these groups started out honest and slowly started to coerce people into doing as they wished by changing their contributions into taxes - makes me especially angry. Once these groups get enough power so that they don't have to ask and instead have the ability to order, they do so. People allow it to happen, too. Anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton was doing this. Anyone voting Republican or Democrat is doing this.

People like to stick with what works. It's part survival mechanism and part laziness. Snakes bite; I don't touch (any type of) snakes. Apples taste good; I eat apples. What they receive by voting the same people/groups in power is some piece of mind that they're getting a product that is about the same as the one they voted for before, the one they found most favorable or least harmful.

This is similar to the idea of a fast food restaurant. Although they are hundreds of miles from home, a person can walk into the same fast food restaurant and order their same meal. They're comfortable.

What they don't realize is that they are expanding, solidifying, and entrenching the power of the people/groups they vote for. Now McDonald's is on every corner, cars run on gasoline, and they work at Wal-Mart.

It's as if people want subjugation. It feels so nice....lol

It would be interesting if Harris was able to pinpoint when the mutation from providers to takers occurred.

Your quote about the Levites holding select morsels for themselves is about the same as what the Aztecs did with human sacrifices. It's a tax or a fee and something which helps these people retain power. How do you keep others from knowing your business? You make it exclusive. Hence, the Israelites have the Levites and the Celts have the Druids. Then, if you're really evil - you make priests hereditary like the Brahmans.

Always seeking more power. More power means less people in control of more people. Small select groups in control of meat distribution at times when cows were THE sign of wealth. It would be like a small group being in charge of money, gold, or oil today.
Furious

Ophelia · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:34 am Post subject:

Camacho, we've been writing at the same time, so this is the continuation of my previous reference, not an answer to your post.

"What is Cultural Materialism?

Anthropology is the study of humans. Cultural materialsm is an anthropological school of thought (or "research strategy") that says that the best way to understand human culture is to examine material conditions - climate, food supply, geography, etc.

Marvin Harris explained it this way in his preface to his CULTURAL MATERIALISM - The Struggle for a Science of Culture:

"Cultural Materialism is the strategy I have found to be most effective in my attempt to understand the causes of differences and similarities among societies and cultures. It is based on the simple premise that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence...."

Rival Theories

Today there are two main rivals to the materialist approach: idealism (sometimes called "cultural" in opposition to "materialist") which says that human ideas have a stronger effect on culture than material conditions; and the biological approach - often known by the current most popular school of biological thought, evolutionary psychology, which says that human culture can best be explained through human biological evolution.
Marvin Harris and others

The leading proponent of Cultural Materialism was the late Marvin Harris (1927-2001), who came up with the name, and wrote classroom textbooks, scholarly books, and popular works about cultural materialism throughout his career. His best known general-reader books are Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches and Cannibals and Kings. He was a strong advocate for a scientific view of culture, as reflected in the title of Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture, published in 1979."
[/quote] (reference given in my previous post).
(emphasis mine)


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