Scholarly Excess and Journalistic Restraint in the Popular Treatment of Cannibalism

Author(s): J. S. Kidd
Source: Social Studies of Science , Nov., 1988, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Nov., 1988), pp. 749-754
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/284969

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 NOTES AND LETTERS

* ABSTRACT

Extensive coverage by the popular media, from 1977 to 1979, of a sharp

controversy among anthropologists about the topic of cannibalism was
followed by renewal of analytical treatment of the topic among scholars
and, in contrast, a relatively long period of virtual neglect by popularizers.
This gap in popular coverage ended abruptly in late 1986. This pattern of
discourse in the print media can be interpreted as a reaction to concerns
about credibility on the part of both scholars and journalists. The possibility
is considered that journalists may have over-reacted to the attempt in 1979
to delegitimate the topic.

Scholarly Excess and Journalistic

Restraint in the Popular Treatment
of Cannibalism

J. S. Kidd

Over the past twenty years, and particularly during the last decade, a consensual ideal
image of the role of a science journalist has gradually emerged. The wording varies amo
different commentators, but the role specification boils down to a balance between two
primary functions: explanation and evaluation. Evaluation in this context is interpreted
to mean a projection of the sociopolitical implications of scientific findings. i In a sense,
the journalist specializing in coverage of scientific and technical matters is expected to
combine the capabilities of a dedicated science teacher and those of a professional futurist.
Given a host of editorial and economic constraints, such a role prescription is likely
to be very difficult to achieve. Consequently, the possibility arises that efforts at role
fulfilment could be diverted in the direction of relatively superficial, cosmetic practices.
This Note is an attempt to explore such a possibility by examining a recent case involving
journalistic coverage of research on cannibalism.

Background & Preliminary Events

Cannibalism is a topic of study within the general discipline of anthropology. It was n

however, a major research topic during the period from the 1940s to the mid- 1970s.

Social Studies of Science (SAGE, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi), Vol. 18
(1988), 749-54

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 750 Social Studies of Science

During this time, the phenomenon of cannibalism served mainly as a minor component
in the construction of some general theories of human behaviour.2 The one exception is
contained in the series of investigations related to the aetiology of kuru, a disease confin-
ed to the Fore linguistic group in the New Guinea highlands that provided the first clearly
understood instance of the working of a slow virus in human hosts.3 The peculiar pattern
of contagion led to strong hypotheses that the mechanism of transmission was based either
on cannibalism or particular funerary practices among the Fore.4 The main focus of the
research on kuru, however, was the demonstration of the presence of a slow-acting infectious
agent in the brain tissue of victims by means of serial elicitation of the disease in
chimpanzees.5 The human behavioural aspect served mainly to demonstrate that an
anthropological perspective could provide a useful contribution to solving a variety of
epidemiological problems.6
The relative quietude among anthropologists regarding cannibalism was disrupted in
the mid-1970s by Michael Harner, when he asserted the proposition that the Aztecs had
not only performed periodic ritualistic human sacrifices in the period prior to the Spanish
conquest, but had engaged in cannibalism in a systematic way and at a massive level as
a means of providing a high protein diet for members of the ruling class.7 He also alleged
that the evidence in support of this proposition had been suppressed by anthropologists
and others in the interests of maintaining cordial relations with the present-day descen-
dants of the Aztecs. These views were promptly reported in the New York Times. About
two weeks later, the Times carried a counter-attack on the question of suppression of
evidence.8 After about a two-month lapse, Harner carried his argument to a broader
audience via an article in Natural History.9 At about the same time, the theme of massive
cannibalism by the Aztecs was also the basis of an editorial in the Smithsonian magazine. 10
More scholarly reactions were not much delayed. The first to appear was not a rebuttal
but rather an attempt by a sympathetic colleague to buttress and clarify the ideological
aspects of Harner's position.11 The next reaction was from a collateral field, nutrition
research. 12 The main argument of this study was that Harner's figures were inflated. This
argument was based on a flat contradiction of the 'dietary need' argument used by Harner.
The case was meticulously made - to the degree that the editor of the Smithsonian magazine
apparently felt obliged to recant on his original concurrence.13
In the meantime, a book entitled Cannibals and Kings had been published under
the authorship of Marvin Harris, who had been Harner's faculty advisor at Columbia
University. This book, intended for a non-specialist audience, is mainly about the overall
evolution of human societies, and only very secondarily concerns cannibalism. 14 However,
Harris did take the opportunity to endorse the position of his former student, and to
incorporate the propositions of extensive dietary cannibalism into his own conceptual
structure.
The next phase hinged on a review of Cannibals and Kings by Marshall Sahlins, a
prominent anthropologist, that was printed in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) in
the autumn of 1978. The review was generally negative, and particularly critical of the
fact that the author of Cannibals and Kings had endorsed the extraordinarily high estimate
of the number of victims of the Aztecs. This review precipitated a response from a different
quarter with a totally different perspective. In a letter to the Editor of the NYRB in March
of 1979, William Arens asserted that it was not that the estimates were inflated but that
there was no real evidence that any of the victims of ritual sacrifice had even been eaten
at all. He said, in effect, that the whole case for cannibalism on the part of the Aztecs
was based on suspect data and that, furthermore, there were no credible data to support
the notion of routine cannibalism on the part of any human society at any place or at any

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Notes & Letters: Kidd: Popular Treatment of Cannibalism 751

time in history. There ensued a round of dispute in NYRB and elsewhere that carried ov
until the autumn of 1979. 16
The point of all this is that between February 1977 and September 1979, there was a
rather active (not to say heated) discourse about the topic of human cannibalism among
anthropologists and that this discourse took place, in part, at the popular level represented
by Natural History, the New York Times, the Smithsonian magazine and the New York
Review of Books. It was a much more active topic both inside and outside professional
anthropology than it had been over the preceding 20 years.

The Main Case

Just after the discourse in the pages of the New York Review of Books had died down,
William Arens had his own book in print, The Man-Eating Myth. 17 This book recapitulated
at length the position Arens had taken in the letter to the NYRB. The immediate response
to Arens's book was a rash of reviews (at least seven accounted for) in the media that
typically aim for large, upscale lay audiences: The New Yorker is an example. 18 By and
large, these reviews were favourable. 19 The book was also reviewed by members of the
scholarly community for the professional media. These reviews appeared intermittently
over the next several years, with at least eight published between 1980 and 1982.
Characteristically, those written by anthropologists were negative while those written
specialists in adjacent or collateral dhciplines were relatively favourable.20
From 1981-86, there was also a scattering of substantive articles in the professional
literature that cited Arens's book. There were three such citations in 1981, none in 1982,
four in 1983, two in 1984, three in 1985 and six in 1986. Most of the authors of these
articles followed conventional practice in the sense of using Arens's approach or conclusions
to bolster their own arguments.21 In short, there was nothing particularly unusual about
the general scholarly response to Arens's work in the professional periodical literature.
What is exceedingly peculiar about the pattern of publication between late 1979 and
1987 was the appearance of three major professional monographs on the subject of
cannibalism in this interval,22 together with an almost complete blank in popular coverage
for the seven-year period. The blank period was then followed by an outburst of seven
popular pieces within the span of a few months from late 1986 to early 1987.23
The driving force behind the production of the scholarly works is fairly well articulated
by their author/editors. All three explicitly mention Arens's work. The point they make
is that Arens's view is extreme. They tend to concede that much scholarly discourse in
the past has been based on hearsay evidence and that it is a commonplace for informants
to assert that others (for example, other tribes), particularly enemy groups, practise all
manner of evil behaviours of which cannibalism is but one. They insist, however, that
valid instances have existed and that even if the evidence is short of perfection, it is never-
theless the responsibility of anthropologists to deal with the concept of cannibalism as it
appears in the lore or mythology of various peoples. In one instance, Arens is designated
as a sort of provocateur - being controversial just to arouse interest.
The gap in popular coverage is more difficult to encompass. First, the gap is not quite
perfect: there was one article in New Scientist and one article in Science Digest in the
interval.24 However, the New Scientist article was written by Arens himself, and the
Science Digest article was based on an Arens interview. Thus it can be said that no anti-
Arens or substantive cannibalism pieces appeared in the gap period. What would appear
to clinch the point is that not one single review of the three scholarly monographs

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 752 Social Studies of Science

appeared in the popular media during the

reviews of the Harris monograph and th
The burst of articles in the period from
and explain - and , in fact, throws some
articles refer to Arens's work in the firs
all refer to the work of White,25 or to t
of the White and Villa works rests on th
the form of the disposition of human bo
observation of distinctive microscopic cut m
from a prehistoric site in Ethiopia and th
southeastern France. In particular, the V
effect of saying (in paraphrase) 'here is t

Discussion

Most scholars would probably rather not get tangled in any side-taking between the positio
represented by Harner/Harris and Arens. The middle ground staked out by Sahlins, in
first instance, had more appeal. The fact that this ground was cultivated so assiduously in t
aftermath of the confrontation episode suggests that there may have been a fairly widespr
sense among members of the scholarly community that the fundamentals of a useful conce
were being obscured by extremists, and that some sober reclarification of the topic w
needed to sustain a generally high level of credibility for the discipline at large.27
As suggested above, the journalist/popularizer response is less transparent. It is o
speculation, but an idea that seems to fit is that the journalist/popularizers were abreact
to the notion that they might be accused of an excess of hyperbole. The condition cou
be designated as the 'No-More-Bigfoot' syndrome. When the Arens book appeared,
message was that cannibalism - an exotic topic to begin with - had become scientifical
suspect as well. As such, it entered the same set as Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle
Flying Saucers - not a fit topic for serious popularizers who were steadily moving
the direction of emulating their sources.28 When the White and Villa papers appeared
the inhibitions for journalists that were generated by the drive toward scientific respe
bility were removed. Cannibalism was once more a legitimate topic, and the basic journalist
values having to do with newsworthiness and the quick and extensive dissemination
important findings to the widest possible audience could find renewed expression.
From the perspective of those who study the popularization process. it does not matt
much who was right and who was wrong about human cannibalism. Among the is
that are crucial are the relationships between sources and reporters and the overall sco
and quality of coverage. From this perspective, any form of cooptation, whether intention
or not, is a potential problem. Deferential neglect of a topic can be just as much of a distort
of science as oversell and hyperbole.

* NOTES

1. D. Spurgeon, 'Editorial', Impact of Science on Society, Vol. 36 (198

2. E. Sagan, Cannibalism: Human Aggression and Cultural Form (New Yo

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Notes & Letters: Kidd: Popular Treatment of Cannibalism 753

& Row, 1974). See also P. Shankman, 'Le R6ti et le Bouilli: Levi-Strauss' Theory of
Cannibalism', American Anthropologist, Vol. 71 (1969), 54-69.
3. D. C. Gajdusek, 'Kuru in New Guinea and the Origin of the NINDB Study of Slow,
Latent and Temperate Virus Infections of the Nervous System of Man', in Gajdusek et al.
(eds), Slow, Latent and Temperate Virus Infections (Washington, DC: US GPO, 1964),
3 ff. [NINDB Monograph No. 2; PHS Publication No. 1378].
4. J. Mathews, R. Glasse and S. Lindenbaum, 'Kuru and Cannibalism', Lancet, No.
7565 (24 August 1968), 449-52.
5. D. C. Gajdusek, C. J. Gibbs and M. Alpers, 'Experimental Transmission of a Kuru-
like Syndrome to Chimpanzees', Nature, Vol. 209 (19 February 1966), 794-96.
6. N. A. Scotch, 'Medical Anthropology', in B. J. Siegel (ed.), Biennial Review of
Anthropology: 1963 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963), 30-68.
7. M. Harner, 'The Ethical Basis for Aztec Sacrifice', American Ethnologist, Vol.
4 (February 1977), 117-35.
8. B. Rensberger, 'Aztec Sacrifice Laid to Hunger, Not Just Religion', The New York
Times (19 February 1977), 25; Rensberger, 'Experts on Aztecs Deny Withholding
Cannibalism Facts', ibid. (3 March 1977), 13.
9. M. Harner, 'The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice', Natural History, Vol. 86 (1977), 46-5 1.
10. J. K. Page, Jr, 'The Mexican Connection', The Smithsonian, Vol. 8 (June 1977), 24.
11. B. J. Price, 'Demystification, Enriddlement and Aztec Cannibalism: A Materialist
Rejoinder', American Ethnologist, Vol. 5 (February 1978), 98-115.
12. B. R. Ortez de Montellano, 'Aztec Cannibalism: An Ecological Necessity?', Science,
Vol. 200 (12 May 1978), 611-17.
13. J. K. Page, Jr, 'Aztec Cannibalism Redux', 7he Smithsonian, Vol. 9 (August 1978),
20.
14. M. Harris, Cannibals and Kings (New York: Random House, 1977).
15. M. Sahlins, 'Culture as Protein and Profit', New York Review of Books, Vol. 25
(23 November 1978), 45-53.
16. W. Arens, 'Cannibalism', New York Reviewv of Books, Vol. 26 (22 March 1979),
45-46; M. Sahlins, 'Reply', ibid., 46-47; M. Harris, 'Cannibals and Kings', ibid. (23
June 1979), 51-52; Sahlins, 'Reply', ibid., 52-53. See also Harris, 'The Human Strategy:
Our Pound of Flesh', Natural Histor', Vol. 88 (August-September 1979). 30 ff.
17. W. Arens, 7he Man-Eating Myth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
18. Anon., 'Briefly Noted: Man-Eating Myth', The New Yorker, Vol. 55 (21 May 1979),
146-47.
19. See, in particular, Anon., 'Do People Really Eat People', Time, Vol. 114 (22 October
1979), 106.
20. See, for example, K. Hasan, 'Book Review', Third World Qluarterly, Vol. 2 (October
1979), 812-14.
21. See, for example, M. G. Kenny. 'Mirror in the Forest: The DOROBO Hunter-
Gatherers as an Image of the Other', Africa, Vol. 51 (Winter 1981), 477-95.
22. N. Davies, Human Sacrifice in History and Today (New York: Morrow, 1981);
P. Brown and D. Tuzin, The Ethnography of Cannibalism (Washington, DC: The Society
for Psychological Anthropology, 1983); P. R. Sanday, Divine Hunger: Cannibalism as
a Cultural System (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
23. R. Masello, 'Vanishing Cannibals', Omni, Vol. 8 (February 1986), 24; G. Kolata,
'Anthropologists Suggest Cannibalism is a Myth'. Science, Vol. 232 (20 June 1986),
1497-1500; B. Bower, 'Cave Clues Suggest Stone-Age Cannibalism', Science News,
Vol. 130 (26 July 1986), 52; Anon.. 'Bones of Contention', Scientific American, Vol. 255

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 754 Social Studies of Science

(September 1986), 69; Kolata, 'Are the Horrors of Cannibalism Fact or Fiction?',
Smithsonian, Vol. 17 (March 1987), 151-70; P. Shipman, 'The Myths and Perturbing
Realities of Cannibalism', Discover, Vol. 8 (March 1987), 70-76; S. Bunney, 'Butchered
Bodies: Food or Fad', ANew Scientist (26 March 1987), 29.
24. W. Arens, 'Eating People Isn't Right', New Scientist (20 September 1979), 874-77;
E. Rosenthal, 'Myth of the Maneaters', Science Digest, Vol. 91 (April 1983), 10.
25. T. D. White, 'Cut Marks on the Rodo Cranium - A Case of Prehistoric Defleshing',
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 69 (April 1986), 503-09.
26. P. Villa, C. Bonville, J. Courtin, D. Helver, E. Mahien, P. Shipman, G. Bellciomini
and M. Branca, 'Cannibalism in the Neolithic', Science, Vol. 233 (25 July 1986), 431-37.
27. B. Latour and S. Woolgar, 'The Cycle of Credibility', in B. Barnes and D. Edge
(eds), Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 1982), 35-43.
28. S. M. Friedman, 'The Journalist's World', in Friedman, S. Dunwoody and
C. L. Rogers (eds), Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News (New York:
The Free Press, 1988), 17-41.

J. S. Kidd teaches courses on science communication at the

College of Library & Information Services, University of
Maryland, College Park. Trained as a social psychologist, he
became interested in the popularization of science while
serving briefly as a Program Director at the National Science
Foundation. He is currently conducting studies on the level
of science knowledge among adults who are active in local
community affairs, the use of science trade books in the
schools and the impact of science information on public
policy.
Author's address: College of Library and Information
Science, The University of Maryland, Room 4105, Hornbake
Library Building, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.

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