The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy

William Arens's The Man-Eating Myth, Anthropology and Anthropophagy, published by Oxford University Press in 1979, argues that anthropology, despite widespread belief to the contrary, has no satisfactory firsthand eyewitness account of institutionalized, socially sanctioned cannibalism anywhere, and that the accusation is characteristically made about a neighboring or subject people rather than directly observed. Its strength is that Arens forces the field to distinguish what was actually witnessed from what was reported secondhand or assumed, a genuinely useful discipline regardless of where the argument ultimately lands. Its limit is that the book was heavily criticized on its own publication, with anthropologists citing specific cases they argued did meet Arens's evidentiary standard, and that criticism is part of the book's own scholarly record rather than a settled refutation on either side, so it should be read as one strong position within a live and unresolved anthropological argument, not as the field's final word.