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Acknowledgements

Research among the Wari of Rondnia in western Brazil

The study is based on the field research carried out in June 1985 June 1987

Most of the ethnographic information and ideas presented in this book have come from Wari

who saw themselves as my teachers and tried to enlighten me about their understandings p. xi

Photographs of the people among the most respected members of their communities

Books goal according to the author: my hope is that, as outsiders learn more about the Wari as

individuals and as a society, this will contribute to greater public understanding of why it is so

important to protect the future of the Wari and the other indigenous peoples, and what will be

lost if we do not. p. xi

Introduction

Most outsiders know them as Pakka Nova

In the 1950s and early 1960s, they disposed of the body of their dead as their ancestors had done,

by eating the roasted flesh, certain internal organs, and sometimes the ground bones. p. xv

This book examines how Wari understood and experienced this kind of cannibalism and exploreshow this seemingly exotic practice reflects on broad human questions about love and loss,

emotional attachment, and how people cope with death and bereavement. pp. xv-xvi

Cannibalism used to be the normal treatment for all Wari who died of any cause p. xvi

Wari still considered it important to consume at least some of the corpse, even though the body

gets nearly too decayed to stomach p. xvi

They did not eat their dead because they liked the taste of human flesh, nor because they needed

the meat. Rather, they ate out of a sense of respect and compassion for the dead person and for

the dead persons family. p. xvi

The duty of eating the corpse at a funeral was a social obligation among affines (in-laws), one of the

reciprocal services owed to the families with whom ones own kin had intermarried. p. xvii

Wari emphasize that they did not eat for self-gratification p. xviito refuse to consume any of the corpse at all would have been seen as an insul t to the dead

persons family and to the memory of the deceased p. xvii

Wari wanted their own corpses to be eaten or at least cremated p. xvii

The Wari stopped practicing cannibalism after they were contacted by government-sponsored

expeditions p. xvii

Many Wari were deeply unhappy about being forced to give up cannibalism. Burial was a

horrifying substitute, a practice they considered barbaric. *+ To live the loved ones body to rot in

the dirt was disrespectful and degrading to the dead and heart-wrenching for those who mourned

them. p. xviii

Today they dont practice cannibalism anymore

they look back upon the cannibalistic funeral practices of their past with a certain nostalgia forwhat they describe as a better, more loving and compassionate way to deal with death and

bereavement. p. xviii

Understanding the indigenous concept of compassionate cannibalism is the issue at the heart of

this book p. xviii this is on what the author focuses

When one asks older men and women the answer they give most

often is *Thus was our custom+. For Wari before the contact cannibalism was the

norm. It was how their people had disposed of their dead for as long as anyone could remember,

and it was considered the proper, most honorable way to treat a corpse. p. xviii

Reasons: was done out of compassion for the person who was eaten, and that it also was done out

of compassion for bereaved relatives, as a way to lessen their sorrow. p. xviii

Making the corpse disappear by eating it was thought to help family members dwell less on the

memories of the person who had passed away. p. xix


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CONSLUCION: She rigorously demonstrates that Wari cannibalism was a compassionate act that

served to distance the dead from the living and to help the living emotionally cope with loss.

In Part I, Conklin places Wari cannibalism in perspective by discussing relevant aspects of

contemporary Wari society and sketching their pre- and postcontact histories.In Part II, Conklindescribes how Wari remember and explain their funerary practices (both contemporary andhistorical) and relates them to prominent academic explanations of cannibalism. Of particular

note, she distinguishes funerary cannibalism, or endocannibalism, from exocannibalism,

highlighting how Wari perceive the primary significance of the former to have been its role in the

management of grief.Conklin substantiates her acceptance of this thesis in Part III by exploring

Wari notions of kinship, personhood and humanity in relation to the body, and by relating them

to the various roles people played in funerals. Finally, in Part IV, Conklin proposes that Wari

favored funerary cannibalism over other forms of corpse disposal because it tangibly engaged

Wari identity with respect to the afterlife and thereby symbolically facilitated the transformative

process of death.

A potential criticism of Consuming Grief is that it relies substantially on memory ethnography,which is susceptible to the imperfections of human recollection. she is writing only from what

she heard, and never saw an actual funeral being done, so we can be susceptible that some parts

of the information may not be accurate because of this fact. People may have told her a twisted

truth.

Through both internal and external analysis, Conklin meticulously verifies her data, thereby

providing a strong challenge to the prevalent assumption that most (if not all) ethnographic

accounts of cannibalism are false.

Conklins truly personal writing style lends a very human voice to anthropological theory. By staying

close to her data and to her field experience, she guides the reader through many of the complexthemes involved in Amazonian kinship and cosmology without appearing overly abstract. Similarly,

she addresses potentially morbid topics with a tone of concrete humanity that renders them

understandable and inoffensive.

Conklin shows that funerary cannibalism was a main component of a grieving process in which

causing the body of the deceased todisappear helped the family and friends to come to terms

with their loss more easily and more quickly.

The book is divided in four well integrated parts.

Chapter Two, Wari Worlds, presents an in-depth description of Wari social organization andenvironment both as they were before the contact with Europeans (who tried to put a stop to the

cannibalistic tradition) and as they evolved in the post-contact period.

The second part of the book, entitled Motifs and Motives, aims to answer why and how the

Wari practiced endocannibalism. In Chapter Four, Conklin depicts Wari funerals in rich detail, as

they were before and after the contact, and offers accounts of Wari perspectives on illness and

death. In Explanations of Eating, she takes us on an intellectual journey through the various

classical explanations of cannibalism: lack of proteins in the diet, sublimation of aggression,

respect for the ancestors, desire to incorporate the essence of the deceased into ones own body,

etc.


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NOTES - Compasionate Cannibalism