anthropology comparison

Running Head : ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF MONTAIGNE

Michel Montaigne and Anthropology

Name

Course

University

Tutor

Date

In his essay Of Cannibals , Michel Montaigne compares the culture he has been brought up in to that of the native North Americans . He also looks at how the Greeks view non-Greeks and criticizes it very much . He starts off by noting how different people in history have always assumed that their culture is the best and all the rest are inferior . He notes the astonishment that King Pyrrhus had when he arrived

in Italy to conquer it and found that they were actually civilized . The Greeks always assumed that all non-Greeks were barbarians . The king was therefore very surprised to find that the Italians had a well-organized army (http : www .victorianweb .org

The Greeks regarded what Flamnius introduced to them as barbaric before understanding it . Philip thought that the Romans were primitive and other people saw the Greeks as being primitive . By elaborating this point , he shows that people are usually wrong when it comes to comparing other people 's cultures because each thinks theirs is the best . In his research on the North America Natives , he notes that they capture their prisoners and after keeping them for some time they kill , roast and then go ahead to enjoy the roasted human flesh . They do not eat the prisoners for the sake of nourishment but because it is necessary to teach others a lesson and also to strengthen the ties of the people who partake in it as they even preserve some for the absent friends

He further notes that they have many wives and the more wives one has the greater honor and respect one is accorded . He then compares this to what happens in his culture where women are jealous and do not allow their husbands to have other wives . He then reminds the reader that although they claim to be Christians , they ignore the fact that even in the Bible there are many instances of marriage of two wives like Jacob who married both Leah and Rachael . In Greek history there are also many instances of men having more than one wife . He then exhorts the natives as being true to their nature

He then compares what is termed as virtuous in his culture and what it means to the culture of the native Northern Americans and sees a vast difference . Even though they are cannibals , they only kill and eat prisoners of war . Though the so-called civilized cultures ' do not condone the consumption of human flesh , they practice worse tortures for their prisoners . They torture them mentally and physically . In the long run , both prisoners will die but the one in the native North American land will die a less painful death as they are roasted after death . In the civilized world , they are tortured while still alive through burning bits of their flesh and cutting them up . Montaigne finds this to be more barbaric than the practice of the...