Defining Cannibalism

While further reading about the Māori people it became even more obvious how little I understood about the practice of cannibalism. Why did they do it? Revenge seemed like the most obvious answer. Inter-tribal warfare had, over the years, instilled the cultural practice of eating one another. What a better way to insult your enemies tribe than eating its members? It's still hard to know whether or not the Europeans' bias is at the root of that explanation. A simple Google search of cannibalism brought to my attention that cannibalism has been studied and is really an umbrella term for all of the different motivations for the practice. Eating people is what ties these practices together.

For example, cannibalism is split up into exocannibalism and endocannibalism. Endocannibalism is the act of eating the corpses of people from your own community, tribe or group. It is almost never done solely for nutritional purposes (as i discussed before) and is usually highly ritualized. I wonder if this is the type of cannibalism the Māori engaged in. Endocannibalism is often done to 'absorb' the good qualities or life-force of the deceased family member (or whatever relation they might have, so long as they are from the same community).

Most of the reports of cannibalistic behavior that European explorers described sounded like exocannibalism—eating people outside of the immediate community. It seemed like a lot of the Europeans were so terrified by the accounts of viscous cannibalism and dismemberment that they never got the chance to witness any endocannibalism and perhaps see the symbolic meaning behind the act. Exocannibalism could be done to absorb the traits of strong enemy warriors slain in battle, or as a testament of complete and utter dominance. All of these ideas seem plausible and would make sense. Perhaps I should look into Māori religion and their cultural beliefs.