Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History(29)

With more than a fleeting resemblance to a race of fictional characters dreamed up by the Ancient Greeks, these warrior women lived on their own island (Martinique) and killed any men they encountered . . . except, that is, for the Caribs, who got a yearly invite to drop by for some feasting and debauchery. Possibly the invitations stemmed from the fact that the Caribs were renowned for their cooking ability—preparing their viands by smoking them slowly on a wooden platform. It was a setup the Spanish began referring to as a barbacoa. After manning the grill and servicing the gals, the Caribs returned home, taking with them any newborn males who had shown up nine months after the previous year’s party. Female babies would, of course, remain behind with their moms to be raised as warriors.

In retrospect, it is difficult to determine where Arawak tall tales ended and Columbus’s vivid and self-serving imagination kicked in. What is known is that European history and folklore were already rich with references to encounters with bizarre monsters and strange human races. Although most of the stories emerging from the New World were greeted with enthusiasm back in Seville, some of Columbus’s patrons expressed skepticism after hearing that the Caribs also hunted with schools of fish. These had been trained to accept tethers and dispatched with instructions to latch on to sea turtles, which could then be reeled in for butchering.14

Easier to accept, perhaps, were Columbus’s claims that some Caribs had doglike faces, reminiscent of the Cynocephali described nearly 1,400 earlier by Pliny the Elder, the Roman author and naturalist. Still other New World locals were said to possess a single, centrally located eye or long tails—appendages that necessitated the digging of holes by their owners so that they might sit down. These creatures were considered anything but a joke, since as late as 1758, Linnaeus’s opus Systema Naturae listed three species of man: Homo sapiens (wise man), Homo troglodyte (cave man), and Homo caudatus (tailed man).

But whether or not these strange savages had tails (and even if they were supported by trained fish and Amazonian girlfriends), plans were soon being formulated to pacify the Caribs, who were now being referred to as Canibs. According to scholars, the transition from Carib to Canib apparently resulted from a mispronunciation, although in light of stories describing locals as having canine faces, I agree with Yale professor Claude Rawson that “Canib” may also be a degenerate form of canis, Latin for “dog.” Eventually canib became the root of “cannibal,” which replaced anthropophagi, the ancient Greek mouthful previously used to describe people-eaters.



But whatever the locals were called, and however the term cannibal may have originated, the first part of Columbus’s grand plan centered on relieving them of the abundant gold he “knew” they had in their possession. One reason for Columbus’s certainty on this point was the commonly held belief that silver formed in cold climates while gold was created in warm or hot regions. And considering the heat and humidity of the New World tropics, this could only mean that there would be plenty of the shiny stuff around.

Unlike his first voyage, which consisted of three ships and 120 men, Columbus’s second visit to the New World had the look of a military occupation force. Accompanying him were 17 ships and nearly 1,500 men, many of them heavily armed. Although he had begun to look at slave raiding as a means to finance his voyages, his prime directive was to find gold—lots of it. To facilitate the collection of what Columbus assumed would be a massive treasure, he levied tribute on those living in regions like El Cibao in what is now the northern part of the Dominican Republic. His orders stated that every male between 14 and 70 years of age was to collect and turn over a substantial measure of gold to his representatives every three months. Those who failed at what quickly became an impossible task had their hands hacked off. Anyone who chose to flee was hunted down—the Spaniards encouraging their vicious war-dogs to tear apart any escapees they could track down.

In the end, very little of the precious metal was turned in. Presumably the island residents, under the very real threat of losing their limbs or being eaten alive by giant dogs, quickly ran through any gold they might have had on hand. Since it played only a small role (or no role at all) in their traditions, in all likelihood the locals just didn’t know where to find it—especially in the quantities demanded by the Spanish invaders.

Deeply disappointed at the meager results, Columbus penned a letter to his royal supporters in Spain in May 1499. In it he wondered “why God Our Lord has concealed the gold from us.” There is no record of a response but Columbus soon refocused his efforts toward the collection of a resource that was available in great supply—humans.

In 1503, this bloodthirsty new take on the exploration of the New World got a significant boost when the self-proclaimed Admiral of the Ocean Sea received a royal proclamation from Queen Isabella. In it she stated that those locals who did not practice cannibalism should be free from slavery and mistreatment. More significantly, though, she also instructed Columbus and his men about what they could do to them if they were determined to be cannibals:

If such cannibals continue to resist and do not wish to admit and receive to their lands the Captains and men who may be on such voyages by my orders nor to hear them in order to be taught our Sacred Catholic Faith and to be in my service and obedience, they may be captured and are taken to these my Kingdoms and Domains and to other parts and places and be sold.

This new position was given even more support by the Catholic Church several years later, when Pope Innocent IV decreed in 1510 that not only was cannibalism a sin, but that Christians were perfectly justified in doling out punishment for cannibalism through force of arms.