ABSTRACT
I seek to reconsider the trope and Tupi practice of anthropophagy by examining early modern European accounts of the practice with skepticism and vigilance and assessing the sweeping cultural and intellectual repercussions of what Isabelle Combès names the “cannibal tragedy.” Acknowledging the pride of place occupied by “Brazilian cannibals” in the intellectual history of modern Europe, I explore the fraught relationship between the metaphoric cannibalism posited by Brazil’s short-lived yet influential 1928 antropofagia movement and the conception and practice of cannibalism among the Tupi. Ultimately, I relate my analysis to the problem of engaging with indigenous thought from local perspectives.
