"We assume that cannibalism is always an aggressive, barbaric and degrading act," objects Beth A. Conklin, an associate professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University. "But that is a serious over-simplification, one that has kept us from realizing that cannibalism can have positive meanings and motives that are not that far from our own experience."...

..."When I decided to study the Wari' I was a vegetarian and the last thing I was interested in studying was cannibalism," Conklin recalls. Her attitude changed as she talked to Wari' about their experiences with the deaths of family members...

"I hope that this book will make people think more deeply about the meanings that the body has in human relationships, and to consider that other cultures may have understood those in ways that made the destruction and transformation of the body through cannibalism seem to be the best, most respectful, most loving way to deal with the death of someone you care about."

At the same time that Europeans were condemning various native peoples as cannibals, however, they were practicing a form of cannibalism themselves. Use of medicines made from blood and other human body parts was widespread in Europe through the 17th century...

...Conklin sees irony in the fact that scholars who insist that all accounts of cannibalism must be false are actually perpetuating the negative stereotypes of it. "They seem to assume that cannibalism is by definition a terrible act-so terrible, in fact, that could only have been invented by outsiders who wanted to denigrate or exoticize native peoples. A healthier, more realistic approach would be to recognize that various peoples, including western Europeans, have consumed human body substances for different reasons in different times and places. Let's try to recognize the positive, not just negative meanings of these practices," ..she says.

Historically, charges of cannibalism were used by European nations to help justify their colonization efforts.

"Cannibalism is a difficult topic for an anthropologist to write about, for it pushes the limits of cultural relativism, challenging one to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior,"

...Wari' ethnography highlights the fact that different groups of people had a variety of motives for practicing cannibalism, ranging from love and respect to hate and anger. "If we listen to what indigenous people like the Wari' say about how they experienced funerary cannibalism," Conklin notes, "we begin to see the narrowness and ethnocentrism of our own views."...

...In 1999, Christy Turner of Arizona State University published a book presenting extensive evidence for prehistoric cannibalism at Anasazi sites. White and Turner's research has been highly praised within the field and strongly criticized by scholars who maintain that it is impossible to determine the motives of the people who appear to have cut up the bodies of a number of people, stripped off the flesh and cooked the bones in a clay pot.

If cannibalism did take place at Anasazi sites, it was associated with torture, murder and mutilation. That's the kind of thing that gives cannibalism a bad name," Conklin says. "To my mind, the killing and torture is more abhorrent than the alleged consumption of human flesh. And it's worlds away from the funerary practices I've studied, in which consuming the body honored the person who was eaten."

...Another area of debate regarding cannibalism is whether it may spread infectious diseases. Animal studies have suggested that cannibals may be at greater risk for being infected by parasites and diseases from members of their own species than from other prey...