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In 1979, William Arens published The Man-Eating Myth, in which he presented his finding that there is no good evidence that cannibalism was socially accepted by anybody, ever, and an hypothesis that such accounts are constructed by society as a way of galvanizing opposition to other societies.

Arens must not have spoken with Michael D. Coe, who wrote that "it is incontrovertible that some of these victims ended up being eaten ritually."

Bernard R. Ortiz de Monetellano writes that only the upper class (in Tenochtitlan, at least), about 25% of the city's population, partook in cannibalism. But with so much else to doubt, I doubt this as well.

Did more than just priests and the upper class eat people in the Aztec Empire? Or is William Arens right that there was never social acceptance of cannibalism in the Aztec Empire?

Avery
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elliot svensson
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    If you're doubting Arens' claim, then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) is a relevant article. – Andrew Grimm Nov 14 '18 at 23:39
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    Should [tag:nutrition] be added to this question? – Andrew Grimm Nov 14 '18 at 23:40
  • @AndrewGrimm, I'm not really addressing that claim that cannibalism was the Aztecs' response to famine or scarcity. – elliot svensson Nov 15 '18 at 00:05
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    I suppose it depends on whether you think "ritual" cannibalism is the same as "socially acceptable" cannibalism. I don't think anyone claims people were part of the everyday Aztec diet. – pboss3010 Nov 15 '18 at 13:32
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    @pboss3010, rituals can be every meal, once a day, seasonal, annual, once-in-a-lifetime, and rituals can be done by everybody, by specific classes (i.e. by women, by men, by children), by specific people (i.e. by parishioners, by the ordained, by priests, by the high priest only); they can be on an annual basis or they can be triggered by events such as a military victory or loss, or a variation in harvests, or by natural disasters, or any other thing... Stating that something happened as part of a ritual says nothing about how frequent and widespread it was. – elliot svensson Nov 15 '18 at 14:55
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    The claims and questions in this question don't seem to align quite as well as I would expect. Specifically, the claim in the first paragraph is "cannibalism was never socially acceptable" while the main question at the end is "more than just priests and the upper class". I would say that cannibalism as part of a religious ritual would count as "socially acceptable" and thus contradict the first claim, but that seems to be excluded by the actual question. Is that intentional? – Kamil Drakari Nov 15 '18 at 15:46
  • @KamilDrakari, we are working on the best way to express the skeptical core of this question. I was hoping that the last sentence would work to align the "priests and upper class" claim with the claim by William Arens, but I see you have a point. – elliot svensson Nov 15 '18 at 16:00
  • @KamilDrakari, I modified that last sentence somewhat... is this better? – elliot svensson Nov 15 '18 at 16:01
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    @elliotsvensson I think it's a bit better, but maybe I can clarify my concern. A reasonable form for a Skeptics question is "Here are two seemingly contradictory, but otherwise believable claims. Which one is right?" This question seems to take that form, one claim of "no cannibalism ever" and one claim of "some cannibalism among priests", but the actual question at the end asks about groups *not* mentioned by the counter-claims. I think it's better for the question to face the contradiction head-on rather than try to reconcile them. – Kamil Drakari Nov 15 '18 at 16:10
  • @KamilDrakari, again, I see your point. There are indeed two sets of claims that I have presented here. I don't have any counter-claim for the second, that only 25%-or-so of the Aztecs participated in cannibalism, other than that _I_ haven't seen any evidence of this limit to the practice's widespreadness. – elliot svensson Nov 15 '18 at 16:17
  • Gananath Obeyesekere (a Princeton professor emeritus) [holds this opinion](https://www.amazon.com/Cannibal-Talk-Man-Eating-Human-Sacrifice/dp/0520243080) about Western stories of cannibalism in Polynesian societies, where before extensive Western contact it occurred (if at all) only in special ceremonial contexts (i.e., human sacrifice), infrequent and restricted to a small number of participants. Instead, _Western_ fascination with cannibalism in extraordinary situations such as shipwreck was projected onto "primitive" societies, who responded by _adopting_ the expectations of Westerners. – Andrew Lazarus Nov 19 '18 at 23:17
  • @AndrewLazarus, Obeyeskere specifically connects his work to the work of Arens, beginning at page 1 of his book. It seems that Arens' and Obeyeskere's main theme is that "anthropophagy" should not deceive the anthropologist into thinking it's OK to isolate the anthropophagist as an "Other" or alien, and to restrain antianthropophagistically-minded folks from "'Indian hating'" and at worst, extermination of the Other. But he doesn't deny the practice, and I don't see that he exactly disputes the accounts of (for instance), Bernal Diaz del Castillo. – elliot svensson Nov 26 '18 at 15:23
  • @AndrewLazarus, I have other quibbles with Arens and (now) Obeyeskere, but I think they may be fully summarized by a reference to the 16th-century work of Bartolomé de Las Casas called "Apologetic History of the Indies" ( http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/lascasas.htm ), which traces "otherness" not to an origin with the New World but to the classic notion of barbarism, which he defines and explores... and which he emphatically denies regarding "the Indians". – elliot svensson Nov 26 '18 at 15:40
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    I don't see that it would be necessary for more than the elites to engage in (ritual related) cannibalism in order for the practice to count as "socially acceptable". From what little I know of them, the cannibalistic practices of some people in New Guinea belies Dr. Arens' global claim; though that has little relevance in relation to the Aztecs. – Dave May 23 '22 at 15:21

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