“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel deMontaigne’s Essay,‘On the Cannibals’”

A Masters Project Presented to

Dr. David Tracy Universityof Chicago

In Partial Fulfillment ofThe Requirements for the Degree

Master of Liberal Arts In the Graham School of General Studies

University of Chicago

By

Clinton E. Stockwell Spring, 2002

Abstract

Cannibals all? This essay explores Michel de

Montaigne’s (1533-1592) sixteenth century essay, “On the

Cannibals.” The first view of the “other” was that all

non-Europeans were savages, cannibals, less than human, and

therefore were to be feared, not respected or trusted.

This was the view that permeated much of Western

civilization at the time. The second view was that “the

others,” the primitive tribal peoples of the new world, were

really “noble savages,” whose life abounded in an ideal

“state of nature.”

1

Montaigne’s view might be called a critical realist

view. In this perspective, all humans, Europeans and

others, have both savage and noble characteristics.

Montaigne influenced the development of the Noble Savage

view, which was later adopted by other writers, including

Jean Jacques Rousseau. Montaigne noted the many ways that

tribal cultures were superior to the culture of Western

Europe. Yet, Montaigne neither sanctioned cannibalism nor

did he approve of killing of prisoners of war. Rather, he

argued that Europeans were guilty of practicing cruelty and

murder so that the assumption that European civilization was

superior to tribal cultures was dubious. For Montaigne, all

humans were subject to the same foibles, savagery and

miscalculation.

Montaigne was enamored with the emerging scientific

view of the world-- that knowledge is to be found in

observation via experience, rather than through reason

alone. His critical realism was tinged with a skeptical

humanism, and it was his skepticism that provided his

interpretive framework.

2

While the first purpose in this paper is to spell out

Montaigne’s critical realism with regard to human nature, a

second is to explore themes in Montaigne’s essay that might

help humans of all ages appreciate the diversity and the

multicultural reality of the human species, in Montaigne’s

world and in ours.

3

“Cannibals All? A Discourse on Michel deMontaigne’s Essay,‘On the Cannibals’”

Chapter One

Introduction:

Cannibals all? This essay is an exploration of Michel

de Montaigne’s (1533-1592) “On the Cannibals.” It will

assess Montaigne’s reaction to several views of “the other”

in the sixteenth century. The first view is that all non-

Europeans were savages, cannibals, less than human and not

4

to be respected or trusted. This was the view that

permeated much of Western civilization at the time.

Following the era of exploration and conquest of the new

world, European royal officials and explorers were forced to

reckon with the place of new world cultures in an expanding

globe. For some, the new world cultures seemed more

primitive than the culture of Europeans. The result was a

fear or rejection of what seemed to “civilized” Europeans as

a savage society. For many, a negative characterization was

an excuse to exploit the resources of the new world to

enrich old world nations. Such exploration and colonization

was the outgrowth of the European economic system called

mercantilism.

The second view is that “the others,” the primitive

tribal peoples that were “discovered,” were really “noble

savages,” whose life was found in an idyllic state of

nature, reflecting the original ideal of human community.

In the sixteenth century, nature was often contrasted with

art, as a symbol of human invention and artifice, a

contrived and even distortion of humanity. For Montaigne,

5

the appeal to nature was a way to critique the corruption

and pretension of European, specifically French

civilization.

Montaigne’s view is actually a third, a synthesis of

the two views mentioned above. We might call Montaigne’s

view of human nature a critical realist view. In this

perspective, all humans, Europeans and others, have both

savage and noble characteristics. Montaigne influenced the

development of the noble savage theory, which was later

adopted by other writers including Jean Jacques Rousseau.

While Montaigne notes the many ways that tribal cultures

were superior to the culture of Western Europe at the time

of his writing, his idealization is a bit chastened.

Montaigne neither sanctions cannibalism, nor the killing of

prisoners of war. Yet, he notes that Europeans were also

guilty of practicing cruelty and murder, so that the notion

that European civilization was superior was a dubious claim.

For Montaigne, all humans are subject to the same foibles,

savagery and miscalculation.

6

Montaigne was enamored with the emerging scientific

view of the world, that knowledge is to be found in

observation and through experience, rather than through

reason alone. Montaigne’s realism was tinged with a

skeptical humanism, and it was this skepticism that provided

an interpretive framework. Yet, Montaigne’s actual

experience or first hand encounter with tribal peoples was

minimal. He was forced to rely upon and accept the opinions

of other writers and travelers of his era as a substitute

for first hand knowledge.

While the first purpose in this paper is to describe

Montaigne’s critical realism with regard to human nature, a

second is to explore themes in Montaigne’s essay that might

help humans better appreciate the diversity and the

multicultural reality of the human species, in Montaigne’s

world and in ours. We can find in Montaigne not only a

critique of sixteenth century globalization, but we may also

find guidelines that will help us to better appreciate the

significant differences between cultures.

7

This essay seeks, therefore, to understand Montaigne’s

view of the other, and why he held such a view. It will

explore the possibilities of Montaigne’s critical realist

perspective as a resource for those of us who are exploring

how to navigate a multicultural reality in the early 21st

century. Montaigne argued that there was enough barbarism

and injustice to be found in all cultures. On the other

hand, his perspective was influenced by prevailing

uncritical romantic views. Montaigne’s view is therefore

not original with him. Hence, this essay will explore the

extent that Montaigne’s view of the other reflects

prevailing views, and the extent that his view reflects an

objective factual analysis, or at least someone’s objective

factual analysis.

Also, this paper seeks to apply Montaigne’s perspective

“on the other” more generally to the difference we see

around us. In this respect, Montaigne’s “On the Cannibals”

begs the question of universal applicability. Are the

people of the new world really cannibals, savages, pagans,

infidels, or primitives; or are they noble savages, victims

8

of malign European powers (imperialism)? In Montaigne, can

we find a more balanced and thoughtful approach? Can we

document that “the other” shares characteristics of nobility

and cruelty, and that this confliction of characteristics is

to be found in all human cultures? In Montaigne’s, “On the

Cannibals,” the “savages” are “like us” in many ways, even

as they are also quite different. For Montaigne, the

distinction between the barbarism of Brazilian cannibals and

the cruelty of European conquerors is really very small.

Perhaps, for us in the modern age, it is also less clear

which culture can claim exclusivity to the possession of

either the blessing of “god” or to a particular claim to a

universal moral force that respects difference as it really

exists in the world.

9

Chapter

Two

Biography

10

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born February 28, 1533

in the Chateau de Montaigne in the Perigord region East of

Bordeaux. The Chateau was purchased by Michel’s great-

grandfather, Raymond Eyquem, in 1477, and was later enlarged

by Michel’s father, Pierre de Eyquem.1 Montaigne was

Pierre’s third son. Pierre was a wealthy merchant, having

become successful selling fish and wine. His mother,

Antoinette of the Loupes (Lopez) family, was from a wealthy

Spanish-Portuguese Jewish family that fled to Toulouse from

Spain.

Montaigne was raised a Roman Catholic, and some

scholars believe him to be emblematic of the counter

Reformation that challenged the use of reason in religion,

arguing for a fideism as a resolution to skepticism.

Montaigne’s family was divided, as he, a sister and three

brothers remained Catholic, while another brother and two

sisters became Protestant. In such an atmosphere, it was

natural that Montaigne’s family would be tolerant in matters

of religion. Before Montaigne was thirty years of age, the

1 Donald M. Frame, Montaigne: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), 29.

11

wars of religion in France broke out between Catholics and

Protestant Huguenots, and Montaigne assumed the role of

mediator and peacemaker. In his oldest surviving letter,

Montaigne railed to the Provost of Paris that many in the

Protestant town of Nerac, seventy miles southeast of

Bordeaux, had been brutally murdered by the Catholic armies

of Blaise de Monluc (1500-1577). Motaigne protested the

“cruelty and violence” that claimed several individuals of

high character who were known to both Montaigne and to the

Provost.2

Montaigne’s father immersed his son in Latin. His

tutor refused to speak with him in any other language until

Montaigne was about six years of age, thus assuring the

son’s lifelong attachment to classical literature. While

he maintained his devotion to literature, Montaigne would

publish several editions of his Essays in the French

vernacular. At seven years of age, Montaigne was sent to

the College du Guyenne at Bordeaux. Afterwards, Montaigne

2 Michel de Montainge, “To Antoine Duprat, August 24, 1562,” in The Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters, edited and translated by Donald M. Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press,1971), 1045.

12

studied law at the University of Toulouse, a center of

renaissance humanism. At 21 years of age, Montaigne’s

father became Mayor of Bordeaux, and appointed his son to

continue his work as counselor in the town Parlement.3 For

13 years, Montaigne was a member of the Parlement of

Bordeaux, even as he traveled on occasion to Paris to seek a

more lucrative employment.

In Paris, Montaigne befriended Etienne de la Boetie, a

stoic humanist and poet in the late 1550s. However, after

the latter’s passing, Montaigne’s first essay was published

as an obituary to the life of his friend after he died of a

fever and dysentery from a plague in Bordeaux on August 9,

1563.4

In 1565, he married Francoise de la Chassaigne, the

daughter of another member of the Bordeaux Parlement. He

had six daughters by this marriage, but only one of them

survived infancy. There appears to be not much romantic in

the marriage. Montaigne scarcely mentions her at all in

over 1500 pages of writings. Still, he claims to have been

3 Ibid., viii.4 Frame, Montaigne: A Biography, 77.

13

totally faithful to her. While traveling or writing,

Francoise handled the household accounts, the lands and the

general business of the estate.5

In 1568, Montaigne endured another tragedy, the death

of his father. He embarked on one of the last requests of

his father by translating and publishing in French a work of

the Spanish theologian, Raymond Sebond. Sebond was a

fifteenth century Spanish theologian who taught at Toulouse.

In 1568, Montaigne published a French translation of

Theologia Naturalis sive Liber Creaturarum, translated as “Natural

Theology” or “Book of the Creatures” by Raymond Sebond.

In 1571, Montaigne published the works of La Boetie,

and then retired from public life. He had inherited the

family estate from his father, including the Chateau de

Montaigne. Although he spent much of the remainder of his

life living as a country gentleman, he was involved in

numerous activities as a governor, diplomat, traveler and

essayist.

5 Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol VII: The Age ofReason Begins (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 402.

14

In 1572, Montaigne began writing the Essais, a new

literary genre. Montaigne’s essays were “a series of

rambling, erudite, witty discussions on a variety of topics

serving as a self-portrait.”6 For Montaigne, the essay

was a new kind of autobiography, written to overcome the

writer’s own melancholia. Montaigne stated early in the

first book of essays that the main subject of study was the

self. As such, the essay is a relatively short literary

composition designed to discuss a particular topic, and

persuade readers of the writer’s point of view. For

Montaigne, the main subject of his Essays was the subjective

study of the individual human person, of which he was

representative.

Montaigne presumed that the study of the self was in

essence a study of the human condition in microcosm. Upon

his early retirement at 38 years of age, Montaigne did not

believe that he would live very long. Like his father, he

was given to kidney stones, and the various plagues of the

time claimed many a victim, including his beloved friend Le

6 Richard H. Popkin, “Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy V (New York: MacMillan, 1972): 366.

15

Boetie, as well as members of his own family. His

preoccupation with the self led him to wonder how long his

physical body would hold out. Yet, scholars have detected

an emerging worldview in the essays. Montaigne was

fascinated by the classics, and his essays appear to have

developed in stages.

For Holyoke, Montaigne’s essays represent an evolution

in three stages: from stoicism to skepticism and finally to

a form of hedonism or Epicureanism. In the first stage,

Montaigne was preoccupied with his mortality, as he believed

that one could only greet death as inevitable. To his

apparent surprise, a few years later he was still alive, and

his preoccupation with death seemed to move to a

preoccupation with the extent that knowledge was possible.

His essay, “In defense of Raymond Sebond,” was an attack on

the certainty of knowledge. By the time he was compiling

book three of his essays, Montaigne appears to be more at

home with the self, and more prone to write essays that

celebrate life’s pleasures. In his final essay, “Of

Experience,” Montaigne considers the importance of the

16

pursuit of pleasure, “and readily resign[s] to the body the

concern and enjoyment of sensual and temporal fodder.” 7

Yet, perhaps what was most important about Montaigne’s

essays was his style. Donald M. Frame describes it as

“free, oral, informal, personal, concrete, luxuriant in

images, organic and spontaneous in order….”8 The essay was

first developed in this format by Montaigne in the 1570s and

later by Francis Bacon in 1597. The word, Essay, is a

derivative of the Latin word, exagium, which means “a

weighing.” The essays reflect a “balancing… of opposites

along the whole gamut of philosophical and existential

problems from life to death.”9 Montaigne believed his

essays were in fact a commentary on the human condition, and

he was the great example of such an inquiry. Montaigne’s

essays reflect his critical consciousness. Yet, it is

impossible to detect a growth or an evolution, except as

stages from a preoccupation with death, the ultimate

philosophical question, to a celebration of life. Yet, 7 John Holyoke, Montaigne Essays (London: Grand and Cutler, Ltd., 1983), 53.8 Donald M. Frame, The Complete Works of Montaigne, vi.9 Marcel Tetel, Montaigne. Updated Edition. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990), 1.

17

the essays really have no beginning or end, but reflect

rather a synthesis of his thought: a “multidimensional

kaleidescope,” an unfinished critical inquiry about the

problem of being human.10

Montaigne’s informality was a striking contrast to

other forms of essay writing.

For example, Francis Bacon’s essay style was more formal.

The informal essay was not only more personal an intimate,

but was also more conversational and often humorous. Other

writers who wrote in this manner included Jonathan Swift,

Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, Mark Twain and James Thurber.

Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Stuart Mill and

Henry David Thoreau represent the more formal tradition of

essay writing.

The longest of the essays was his “Apology for Raymond

Sebond,” written in 1576: “the most destructive of

Montaigne’s compositions, perhaps the most thoroughgoing

10 Ibid., 99. See also the following works: Donald M. Frame, Montaigne’s Discovery of Man: The Humanization of a Humanist (New York:Columbia University Press, 1955); Philip P. Hallie, The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay in Personal Philosophy (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966); and, Frederick Rider, The Dialectic of Selfhoodin Montaigne, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973).

18

exposition of skepticism in modern literature.”11

Montaigne’s skepticism is based on his acknowledgement of

the relativity of customs and laws throughout history, the

problem of cultural relativism.

The Apology was included in the publication of the

first two volumes of his Essays in 1580. Montaigne went to

Paris to present a copy of his book to King Henri III (a

Catholic). Montaigne’s passion for tolerance influenced the

diplomatic efforts to curb the violence between Protestants

and Catholics in a France preoccupied with civil strife and

wars of religion.

In 1581, Montaigne traveled to Germany, Switzerland and

finally to Italy. These travels are recorded in his Journal

de Voyage.12 Montaigne recommended travel as a moral

education. He counseled that the traveler keep one’s eyes

open, for the world can function as a great textbook.13

While traveling, Montaigne encountered “so many humours,

sects, judgements, opinions, laws and customs [which] teach 11 Durant and Durant, The Age of Reason Now Begins, 407.12 Michel de Montaigne, Montaigne’s Travel Journal, translated and with an introduction by Donald M. Frame (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983).13 Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins, 400.

19

us to judge sensibly of our own.”14 Montaigne’s travels

were attempts to learn of other customs. He encountered

Martinists (Lutherans), Calvinists, and Zwinglians in

Switzerland and Germany, and Jews in Verona. “The Travel

Journal reveals Montaigne as a dutiful Catholic with great

curiosity about religious theory and practice and fondness

for theological discussion, especially with Protestants.”15

Montaigne eschewed a dogmatic theology. In fact, he

was rather skeptical of any religious practice that deemed

itself superior or absolute. His religious beliefs were

closer to a deistic faith than an instrumental one. As a

“tolerant but firm Catholic loyalist,”16 he was deeply

suspicious of the Protestant claim that God could be known

in a personal way. Rather, God seemed to be “unapproachable

and incomprehensible” to Montaigne. God, for Montaigne,

seemed to be best found and was most identifiable with

nature. Writes Holyoake: “Montaigne’s mistrust of the

supernatural, his abhorrence of cruelty or fanaticism and 14 Cited in Peter Burke, “Montaigne,” Renaissance Thinkers (New York: Oxford, 1993), 353.15 Donald M. Frame, Montaigne’s Essais : A Study (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969), 67.16 Ibid., 68.

20

his tolerance in a period in which this was seen as a

weakness, mark him out from any of his religious

contemporaries.”17

Montaigne quoted extensively from classical authors,

but hardly ever appealed to the Bible. His fideism was much

broader than the faith of Protestant reformers or orthodox

Catholic clerics who thought Christianity to be the

exclusive way to truth. Some authors question whether

Montaigne can be called Christian, as he seems to have as

much reverence for pagan religions as he does for

Christianity.18 Yet, religiously and politically, he was

troubled by any threat to the established order. He was

more pious than doctrinaire, and his theology seemed to

blend with a romanticism and naturalism more characteristic

of poets and writers of literature than of theologians. His

fideism and confidence in God’s grace was more important to

him than any of the orthodox confessions. Montaigne was

much too aware of his own scars and limitations, and he was 17 Holyoke, Montaigne Essays, 77.18 Patel, Montaigne, 30 ff. See also discussion of Christian sources in Hugo Friederich, Montaigne (Berkeley: University of California, 1991), 81-82. Friederich believes that Montaigne was pious, but essentially non-Christian.

21

thus unable to trump others with a universal theology. As

Frame puts it: “his skepticism is intended to set faith,

and the authority of the church, beyond the reach of man’s

presumptuous and fallible reason.”19

Yet, Montaigne was neither heretic nor anarchist.

Despite his unbridled criticism of the monarchy, he was

worried that civil strife would destroy France. He may

have preferred a republican form of government over the

monarchy, but he was no supporter of revolution or violent

conflict.20

As a practical skeptic, Montaigne found it beneficial

to walk the streets and to investigate everything for

himself. His purpose was “to experience to the full the

diversity of matters and customs.”21 Montaigne believed

that customs changed from era to era, so it was impossible

to presume that ones laws were universal, when they were but

“municipal.”22

19 Frame, Montaigne’s Essais , 69.20 David L. Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 176.21 Burke, “Montaigne,” 354.22 Michel de Montaigne, “Of custom, and not easily changing an accepted law,” in The Complete Works of Montaigne, 77 ff.

22

While away in Italy, he received a message on September

7, 1581 that he had been unanimously elected Mayor of

Bordeaux, a position that he held for two terms, often in

absentia. He initially refused, but King Henry III begged

him to accept. Montaigne managed to maintain the favor of

rival monarchs in the struggle for a more tolerant France.

In 1584, Montaigne was visited by Henry III’s rival, Henri

of Navarre and his entourage. The latter Henry became

King Henri IV (1553-1610). Navarre was Protestant, his

mother was an ardent Calvinist, but he later converted to

Catholicism in 1593, mostly for pragmatic political reasons.

In matters of religion, Navarre was indifferent, and in 1593

he passed the Treaty of Nantes, which protected the rights

of French Huguenots. Henry IV thus put an end to 40 years

of religious wars in France.

In 1587, Montaigne adopted a twenty-year old young

woman as his daughter. Her name was Marie de Gournay, who

later became a reader and compiler of Montaigne’s final

drafts of his writings. By 1588, Montaigne had completed

the third volume of his Essays, and a final completed volume

23

with additions and revisions was published after his death

in 1595, edited by Marie de Gournay. The first English

edition of his Essayes, translated by John Florio, was

published in London in 1603.

Central to Montaigne’s thought in the Essays was his

philosophical skepticism. He held that all reasoning was

unsound, and that our understanding of truth was only

possible by the grace of God. Religious knowledge was

therefore available by faith alone. Perceptions of truth

vary from age to age, as what one regards as scientific

truth in one age is quickly superseded in the next. One

can only judge what is true by one’s experience, and what

seems to be true in fact may only be the appearance of the

truth. For Montaigne, nothing could be known conclusively.

Montaigne held that men are vain, stupid, and immoral, and he pointed out that they and their achievements do not appear very impressive when compared with animals and their abilities. The “noble savage” of the New World seemed to possess an admirable simplicity and ignorance that did not involve him in the intellectual,legal, political and religious problems of the civilized European.23

23 Popkin, op cit, 367.

24

Montaigne’s skepticism thus allowed him to consider the

merits of other cultures, including the culture of the so-

called savages of the New World.

Chapter Three

Perceptions of the Other

Throughout human history, European writers, among

others, have written with great curiosity about “the other”.

This fascination with cultural difference among so-called

primitive tribal groups was fueled by contacts with other

cultures in the era known as the Renaissance, or the “Age of

Discovery.” Many writers in ancient times, such as

Herodotus or Virgil, were concerned with self-definition as

they sought to compare their cultures with rival

civilizations. However, with the age of exploration and the

25

conquest of the new world following Columbus’s travels in

1492, a renewed curiosity emerged. Writers sought to

understand, not only the other, but also their place among

the others in an expanding world.

There are many examples of this exploration that were

read in the Sixteenth Century. These writers included Sir

John of Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (1499);

Bartoleme De Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

(1552); and several plays of William Shakespeare, including

The Tempest, Hamlet and Othello, were influenced by Montaigne.24

Montaigne is not explicit about his sources, and does a

better job at citing ancient sources such as Aristotle,

Plato or Seneca, but not so his contemporary sources.

Montaigne’s obliteration of his sources means that he adopts the “manner” of certain narratives he rejects (like Lery), which claim to speak only in the name of experience, while other narratives explicitly combine data received from the tradition with direct observation.25

24 George Coffin Taylor, Shakespere’s Debt to Montaigne (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925), 32.25Michel de Certeau, “”Montaigne’s ‘Of Cannibals’: The Savage I.’” In:Harold Bloom, editor, Michel de Montaigne’s Essays (New York: Chelsea House, 1987), 127.

26

However, Montaigne does appear to use several works in

French and Spanish that explored the relationship between

European conquerors and subject peoples in the new world.

These included Frencesco Lopez de Gomara, General History of

the Indies (1552); Girolamo Benzoni, Historia del Mondo Novo (A

History of the New World, Venice, 1565); and N.B.

(anonymous), Lettres sur la navigation de chevalier de Villegaignon es terres

de l’Americque (Paris 1557). Montagne’s “On the Cannibals”

was similar to the thrust of these texts, and to travel

memoirs that inspired much curiosity and speculation.

Gomara believed that the Indians were “idolatrous,

cannibals and sodomites.”

He dedicated his book to Emperor Charles V of Spain.

Benzoni spent 14 years in the new world, and condemned the

cruelty of the Spaniards, while giving detailed and

sympathetic descriptions of the Indian way of life.

Montaigne’s more tolerant views were closer to Benzoni than

to Gomara.26 There were numerous other travelogs written

at about the time of “Of Cannibals.” Hans Staden, a German,

26 Burke, “Montaigne,” 351.

27

wrote details of his captivity by the Brazilians in 1557.

He escaped, but insisted nonetheless that he was treated

humanely by his captors.

On the other hand, there were interpretations of New

World cultures that derided the savagery and paganism of the

“cannibals.” Andre Thevet wrote, for example, Singularities of

Antarctic France, in 1558. Thevet thought that Brazilians lived

like beasts. Yet, he compared Brazilians to Western

Europeans and found that the primitive idolators were no

better than the “damnable atheists” of Europe.

Jean de Lery, a French Protestant, published his Histoire

d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brezil, the Story of a Voyage to Brazil

(1578).27 Lery called the Brazilians “barbarians” who

illustrated corruption and the problem of ‘original sin’

“after the fall.” Yet, he praised the Brazilians for their

practice of “peace, harmony and charity” which put

Christians to shame, especially following the massacre of

innocent people during France’s religious wars. Lery, like

Montaigne, condemned the St. Bartholomew’s massacre. Like

27 Michel de Certeau, “”Montaigne’s ‘Of Cannibals,’” 121.

28

Lery and the French writer Ronsard, Montaigne thought the

Brazilians to be “savages,” although they acknowleged the

superiority of new world tribes who seemed to live

harmoniously and happily with nature.28 In his essay, “On

Coaches,” Montaigne denounced the cruelty of Spanish

Conquistadores.

So many cities razed to the ground; so many nations exterminated, so many

millions of people put to the sword, and the richest and the fairest part of the world turned upside down for the sake of trade in pearls and pepper. Base and mechanical victories.29

While perceptions of the other are found most pointedly

in the essay, “On the Cannibals,” there were other essays

that point to his curiosity with respect to difference,

including the essay “Of a Monstrous Child.” In this essay,

Montaigne gives a description of a deformed child, but then

adds:

What we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of the work of the infinity of forms thathe has comprised in it; and it is for us to believe that this figure that astonishes us is related and

28 Burke, 352.29 Michel de Montaigne, “Of Coaches,” in: Complete Works of Montaigne, 695.

29

linked to some other figure of the same kind unknown toman…. We call to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to nature, whatever it may be. Let this universal and natural reason drive out the error and astonishment that novelty brings us.30

In “Of Cannibals,” there appear to be two conflicting

interpretations that Montaigne debates in his essay. The

first is that “the others” found among tribal peoples of the

New World and Old, were all subhuman savages, who lacked not

only proper religious sentiment (Christianity), but also

lacked the basics of human culture and cultivation. The

second view is a romantic, uncritical view of native

peoples. This view holds that native peoples were really

closer to nature than the inhabitants of the so-called

civilized world. In essence, civilization cuts us off from

our roots and connections with the natural world, while

native peoples live in a “state of nature”.

Montaigne seems to move back and forth between these

two views, but then he argues for a third view; that all

30Michel de Montaigne, “Of a Monstrous Child,” in Philip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present (New York: Doubleday/Anchor, 1994): 58.

30

humans, civilized or not, have both barbaric and noble

characteristics. This may be called a critical realist

view. Europeans can be “cannibals” in the way they treat

the other, including the treatment of the poor. Europeans,

for Montaigne, were worse than the cannibals that they

worried about, especially in the ways they preyed upon their

fellows.

On the other hand, native peoples showed their nobility

in the ways they treated their neighbors and tribal members,

as well as in the crafts, buildings, and tools they created.

Yet, Montaigne knew that even noble savages had their cruel

side, as evidenced by the manner that they treated their

enemies. Yet, Montaigne reserved his venom for Europeans

who tortured people while they were still alive. With a

touch of satire, Montaigne noted that the “cannibals” at

least waited until their enemies were dead before they ate

them. The “third view” that Montaigne argues for in this

essay, a critical realism, has a great deal to say about how

we may be able to approach the challenges of diversity in

our own world. Terrorism and violence against humans and

31

nature is not solely found among those deemed “the other” by

our culture.

There are several key points that Montaigne makes that

have emerged in Western culture, particularly during the

period of the Renaissance, an era noted for its humanism and

commitment to reason and scientific methodology, however

primitive by our standards. For Montaigne, Europeans could

be very provincial. Like native peoples, Europeans could

also assume that “their” world was the only superior world,

and therefore the most normative. Yet, writers like

Montaigne opted for another perspective, one that included

romantic or idealistic sentiments, similar to what one would

find in later writers such as Rousseau, especially the

belief that native peoples were “noble savages”: those who

lived in an ideal world called “the state of nature.” The

newly discovered cultures of the globe were evaluated on how

well they compared with existing European cultural

traditions.

Montaigne’s understanding of nature is important. He

believed that being in a state of nature was preferable to

32

living in a “civilized” society, for he rejected the

pretension, superficiality and vanity that went with

civilized society’s adornments. John Holyoake believes that

Montaigne’s understanding of nature is key to understanding

the essays. Yet, he argues, that nature in Montaigne has a

number of possible meanings.

Montaigne uses the word ‘nature’ to mean the creator and controller of the universe, sometimes it means the universe itself. He also uses it to denote the essence of people, things, actions and events. Sometimes it seems to refer merely to what is normal and is hardly to be differentiated from ‘general’, ‘commun’ (sic) or ‘universel’ (sic).31

For Donald M. Frame, Montaigne provides us with a vivid

contrast of nature to art, culture, custom, civilization and

anything else manmade, including institutions, governments,

and churches. “We belong to nature, but we will not admit

it…. We have been fools to abandon a guide who led us so

happily and so surely.”32

31 John Holyoake, Contextual and Thematic Interference in Montaigne’s Essais (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1986), 24.32 Donald M. Frame, “The Whole Man, 1586-1592,” in Michel de Montaigne: Modern Critical Views, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 38.

33

For Peter Burke, Montaigne was “not unlike a

functionalist sociologist or anthropologist.”33 Montaigne

was more enamored with the function of culture, than to its

pretended universality. Yet, he was not a thorough-going

cultural relativist, because he upheld the authority and

apparent universality of classical civilizations. Still,

he believed that cultures and civilizations were in a

constant state of flux, and that it was folly to lift up any

culture or civilization at any time as normative.

Rather, he believed that the diversity of laws and

customs arose for different purposes and were influenced by

a diversity of regions and historical time periods. In the

essay, “Of Custom,” Montaigne argues that one’s custom

biases and prejudices a person’s ability to judge the

customs of others. Rather, it permits one culture to assume

that its parochial vision is both universal, applying to all

cultures elsewhere; and natural, implicitly right and even

ordained of God.34

33 Burke, “Montaigne” in Renaissance Thinkers, 354.34 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 77 ff; Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 178.

34

Today, scholarly opinions of Montaigne vary. Pierre

Villey thought Montaigne to be an empiricist, a precursor of

Auguste Comte’s positivism.35 Montaigne was perhaps the

first writer of the Renaissance period to move away from the

dictates of reason or religious authority, and to move in

the very different direction of a critical realism based on

the goal of personal observation based on empirical data,

including the testimony of travel documents.

Unfortunately, Montaigne failed to live up to his own

standards, even while he articulates it clearly as a

scientific goal.

According to David L. Schaeffer, Montaigne’s use of

empirical data may not have been his main purpose. As a

general principle, Montaigne writes that one should only

comment about what one really knows, what one has

experienced personally. However, Montaigne ignored his own

advice in his own modus operandi. “On the Cannibals” is not

based on what Montaigne knows. Nor is based on his

personal knowledge, except from an apparent serendipitous

35 Cited in Burke, Ibid, 379.

35

conversation with one of three tribal visitors to France as

depicted in the last part of the essay. As Schaeffer

notes, what Montaigne does is the exact opposite of his

ideal. In fact, he speculates by describing “a people he

has never seen, inhabiting a territory he has never visited,

merely on the basis of his employee’s testimony.”36

However, for Schaeffer, getting it right historically

is not really the point. In fact, it may be that his

description of the culture of the cannibals is largely

fabricated, and is not an empirically accurate account.

Montaigne’s point is really less about the culture of the

cannibals, and is more about the presumed superiority of

western culture-- especially that which one finds in France.

Montaigne is more concerned about French ethnocentrism, and

the arrogant presumptions about things foreign. In short,

Montaigne’s purpose is not really about being historically

or empirically accurate, but rather to critique the very

culture and civilization that he was a part. As Schaeffer

concludes:

36 Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 179.

36

Montaigne is not, by his own testimony, a “simple” historian: rather than reporting facts at random, he selects those facts, or alleged facts, that he thinks will be most instructive to his readers.37

37 Ibid., 180.

37

Chapter IV

On The Cannibals: An Exposition:

The “cannibals” of Montaigne’s essay lived on the

coasts of Brazil. They were cruel, but so was the

civilized world. Montaigne’s respect for so-called

barbarous people and their conduct reflects a “primitivism,”

an idealization of primitive, indigenous cultures. This

was especially graphic when the writer compared the virtues

of a primitive culture with the cruelty, corruption and

barbarism of Europe.

Like the Greeks, Europeans of Montaigne’s day were

quick to label anything or any person not from their

civilization as barbarous. For the Greeks, all foreigners

were by definition “barbarian,” and the same view seemed to

be popular in mid-sixteenth century France. For Montaigne,

it was important to be aware of “common opinions,” as one

should judge others “by the ways of reason, not by popular

38

vote.” In this respect, Montaigne’s view fits more

consistently with aspects of the Renaissance-Enlightenment

tradition that emphasized the priority of reason, than with

the more irrational tenets of popular culture.

As an example of how a public rumor can bear weight and

influence on “civilized peoples,” Montaigne pointed to the

legend of Atlantis. Atlantis as a myth is mentioned

initially by Plato in the Timaeus. To Plato, Atlantis was

“a great and wonderful empire” larger than Libya and Asia

put together.38 However, there is little evidence that

there was an Atlantis, or that it was once located just off

the coast of Gibraltar. This was just a legend, although

Montaigne admitted that a “large fertile island” was found.

Yet, he doubted whether this island was the Atlantis of

Greek mythology, and certainly an Atlantis probably had

little connection to Brazil or to the New World. Yet, in

Montaigne’s day, such theorizing was commonplace.

38 Plato, The Timaeus, 24-25, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, editedby Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 1159.

39

Montaigne gives us guidance as to how to proceed. The

writer should write “only about what he knows.”39 As an

illustration, Montaigne thinks that one can write about the

knowledge and experience of the nature of one particular

river, but he may not know about all others. Yet, to

assume that one’s knowledge of all rivers can be based on

the experience of one river is a great fallacy. “From this

vice many great inconveniences arise,” he wrote.40

Montaigne observed that an individual could call

barbarous “anything that he is not accustomed to.”

Montaigne believed that here was nothing implicitly savage

or barbarous about indigenous Brazilian tribes. But, since

their culture is different from European culture, and since

it appears that that culture was slightly more primitive, it

was presumed to be barbaric. Montaigne argued that our

criteria for truth must be reason based on experience. It

should not be based on the example and form of the opinions

and customs of one’s own country.

39 Michel de Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” The Essays: A Selection, translated and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 79-92. 40 Ibid., 82.

40

Rather, it is a mistake to base our view of the other precisely on the standard of our own opinions and customs. In our own country, we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything.41

This is an important self-understanding as to how those

of us in an advanced culture judge others. But, Montaigne

calls such solipsism into question. In this respect, we

can say that Montaigne is a multiculturalist, or at least a

cultural pluralist. He does not believe that any one

culture is absolute. Nor did he believe that any one faith

could claim the absolute possession of the truth.

The “savages,” he wrote, were “only wild in the sense

that we call fruits wild when they are produced by Nature in

her ordinary course; whereas it is fruit which we have

artificially perverted and misled from the common order

which we ought to call savage.”42 Here, Montaigne is

turning the European view upside down. He insists that the

culture of “savages” may really be more in tune with nature,

and therefore indigenous cultures maybe more natural. On

the contrary, European culture may not be natural at all,

41 Ibid.42 Ibid.

41

but may be an assault or an artificial misrepresentation of

the natural order. As a specific example, Montaigne noted

that many of the fruits and foods from new world countries

were superior to those in France.

Montaigne cited Plato, who categorized all things as

produced by either nature, fortune or art. The first two

are the greatest, but the last two are the worst.43 Good

fortune may be either natural or the result of caprice.

However, in Plato’s case, the issue was a student’s respect

or disrespect for the gods. For Montaigne, the issue is

whether or not the so-called civilized world respects nature

and the diversity of the cultural manifestations that nature

produces. In the case of the “barbarians,” their culture

was perceived by Montaigne to be clearly the result of a

positive and harmonious communion with nature, unlike the

artificial distortion of nature as found in Western Europe.

The barbarians were “still remaining close neighbors to

their original state of nature.” The barbarians were

43 Plato, Laws, X, 888, A-B, In: Plato: The Collected Dialogues, 1443.

42

governed “by the laws of Nature and are only slightly

bastardized by ours.”44

Montaigne proceeded to describe the superiority of the

Brazilian tribal society as compared with classical and

modern European civilization. His critique anticipates

subsequent discussions of the state of nature in writers

like Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1794). In 1750, Rousseau

wrote his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (ET 1752). There, he

argued that civilization had corrupted humanity’s natural

goodness and decreased its experience of freedom. In 1754,

Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality

Among Men, which attacked inequality, arguing that

humanity’s perfect nature was distorted by society and the

economic practice of private property. To Rousseau, the

vain strivings for objects outside the self “neglect the

true lessons of nature in order to pursue the illusions of

opinion.”45 While Montaigne’s thought was not as developed

as Rousseau, there is a similar appreciation for the purity

44 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 83.45 Ronald Grimsley, “Rousseau, Jean Jacques, (1712-1778),” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol VII (New York: MacMillan, 1967), 219.

43

of nature, and each shared a deep suspicion regarding the

corrupting potential of civilization.

To Montaigne, the “noble savage” was a more natural way

of living than the civilized world of his native France.

In “the state of nature,” there would be a relative absence

of institutions as would be found in the so-called civilized

world. There was “no trade, no writing or arithmetic, no

juridical or political offices, no servitude or class

division between rich and poor, no business or testamentary

settlements, no kinship relations, no agriculture or

metallurgy.”46 Compared to the Europeans, the cannibals

seemed to lack the self-concept, and did not have the notion

of the autonomous and free individual that has been so

prevalent in Western society. Instead, the cannibals were

part and parcel of a group identity, as their sense of self

was interconnected with the tribal super-identity.

For Montaigne, the “state of nature” was so simple and

so pure,” with “so little artifice, so little in the way of

46 David Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon: ‘Des Cannibales’ in the larger Essais,” in: Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 75.

44

human solder.”47 Montaigne’s assessment of the virtues of

the “barbarian” reflects a strong Romantic idealism.

I would tell Plato that those people have no trade of any kind, no acquaintance with writing, no knowledge ofnumbers, no terms of governor or political superior, nopractice of subordination or of riches or poverty, no contracts, no inheritances, no divided estates, no occupation but leisure, no concern for kinship—except such as is common to them all—no clothing, no agriculture, no metals, no use of wine or corn. Among them you hear of no words for treachery, lying, cheating avarice, envy, backbiting or forgiveness. Howremote from such perfection would Plato find that Republic which he thought up….48

This is a remarkable passage. Not only does Montaigne spell

out via negationis a romantic utopia based in the ideal state

of nature, but he refuted the greatest utopian tract of

classical times in the process. Yet, surely one wonders if

Montaigne contradicted his own version of critical realism.

He wrote that the barbarians “inhabit a land with a most

delightful countryside and temperate climate…. It is rare

to find anyone ill there.”49

To Montaigne, the “cannibals” possessed a pleasant

climate, an abundance of food, the relative absence of

47 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 83-84.48 Ibid., 84.49 Ibid.

45

illness, a preoccupation with dancing and festivity, and the

mutual affection and devotion between the husband and wives.

This was even better than Plato’s Republic! Yet, if one

compares Montaigne’s cannibals with the residents of Plato’s

Republic, there are some striking similarities. Nudity was

tolerated in Plato. Wealth was shared. However, in

Plato’s Republic the diet is mostly vegetarian. There was

little reference to war as a pastime, and there remains an

apparent social and political hierarchy that sanctioned the

practice of slavery.

Montaigne had less regard for the supremacy of

philosophy or the utility of the rule of reason as in Plato.

Montaigne’s utopia was not a rational one, but represented

an affectual and sensual harmony with nature. Still, there

were some “reasonable” qualities in Montaigne’s utopia, even

in an ideal society known for its pleasures. Montaigne

regarded the cannibal’s egalitarian social order as

“inherently more reasonable than that of his own country.”50

50 Schaeffer, The Political Philosophy of Montaigne, 183.

46

He concluded that the way of life for the cannibals was

superior to that of Plato’s Republic.

Montaigne went on to convey that one “never saw a

single man bent with age, toothless, blear-eyed or

tottering.”51 These barbarians “dwell along the seashore,

shut up in landwards by great lofty mountains, or a stretch

of land some hundred leagues in length.”52 This culture

was unspoiled, until Europeans brought with them not only

their military superiority, but their devastating diseases.

Still, one wonders what “evidence” Montaigne had to make

such a broad and sweeping characterization of an indigenous

culture. Montaigne recognized that he had sources, and some

scholars think that he had in mind especially Simone’s

Goulart’s History of Portugal (1587) which was “based on reports

by Bishop Jeronimo Osorio (de Fonseca) and others.”53 Yet,

since Montaigne himself would travel only to Germany,

Switzerland and Italy, it appears that he ascribes a rather

uncritical weight to these reports.

51 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 84.52 Ibid.53 Cited in M.A. Screech, Michel De Montaigne: The Essays: A Selection, 84, n. 14.

47

The reports that influenced Montaigne gave detail about

the indigenous people’s housing conditions, food, military

tactics, beliefs, family relationships, and role of the

religious leadership in the society. Montaigne describes

the dwellings that the people lived in as “immensely long,”

capable of housing 2-3000 souls. This detail reminds one of

the housing conditions in Thomas More’s Utopia. It does

seem to this writer that Montaigne’s estimate of the living

situation of the Brazilian tribes to be a similar ideal

state. He describes their housing “covered with the bark of

tall trees.”54 The wood used to make the dwellings was so

strong as they were able to “use it to cut with, making

their swords from it as well as grills to cook their

meat.”55

Montaigne points out that the beds that the “cannibals”

used was “made from cotton,” and hung from the roofs “like

hammocks on our ships.” Each person had his or her own

hammock, “as wives sleep apart from their husbands.” At

sunrise, they have their only meal for the day. Montaigne

54 Ibid., 84.55 Ibid.

48

stated that the tribal people did not drink anything with

their meals, but they drank throughout the day a “sharp,”

“sweet” and “somewhat insipid” beverage that Montaigne

argued was good for the stomach, although for strangers, it

was experienced more as a laxative.56

Montaigne describes a somewhat traditional family

pattern with respect to gender roles. While most of the

tribal people “spend the whole day dancing,” the young men

went off to hunt with a bow and arrow. Meanwhile, the main

function of the women was to “warm up the drink.”57 Each

morning, an elder walked from one end of the long house to

another, preaching the same thing, exhorting all to show

“bravery before their enemies,” and “love to their wives.”58

Montaigne goes on to describe the crafts of their handiwork:

including the rope work in their beds, wooden swords,

bracelets and open-ended canes that were used to keep rhythm

in the dances. He noticed that the people also shaved off

“all of their hair” with sharp wooden or stone razors.59

56 Ibid., 84-5.57 Ibid., 85.58 Ibid. 59 Ibid.

49

The tribal culture was not without a belief system.

They believed in the immortality of the soul, and held that

good souls would eventually dwell in the sky with the gods.

Accursed souls would dwell in the land where the sun sets.

The priests or prophets live in the mountains, and as a

result, rarely appeared among the people. When they did

appear, each barn, which is also a separate village, held a

great festival. The prophet addressed villages in public,

and exhorted them to be “virtuous and dutiful,” while their

whole system of ethics was based on the two exhortations

that the elders gave: to be courageous in battle, and to

show love to their wives. The prophet’s role was to

foretell what would happen, especially the outcome of a war.

Unfortunately, if he got it wrong, he would be “hacked to

pieces,” or, if he attempted escape, was “seen no more.”60

Like the prophets of the Jewish/Christian Old Testament,

there was a way to distinguish between true or false

prophets by the outcome of their prophecies; that is,

whether or not what was predicted came to past.

60 Ibid..

50

Like the office in the Old and New Testaments, prophecy

was held in high esteem as a gift of God. The abuse of

this gift was treated with great seriousness, as the abuser

would be killed. Thus, he would experience a similar fate

as those endured by false prophets among the Scythians of

the ancient world, who were “shackled and laid on ox carts,”

according to Herodotus. Deception by those who were

considered to be the leaders of the people was not

tolerated. Montaigne depicted the warriors in a way that

reminds one of former descriptions of Spartans in Ancient

Greece. They “go forth naked” with only their weapons.

Their steadfastness in battle was “astonishing,” as the

tribal warriors were considered “fearless.”61

Steadfastness in battle is astonishing and always ends up in killing and bloodshed.

They don’t know the meaning of fear or flight…. Each man brings back the head

of the enemy he has slain and sets it as a trophy over the door of the dwelling.62

Yet, on the whole the “cannibals”…“treat their captives

well.” After captivity, glorious thought, they execute

61 Ibid., 86.62 Ibid.

51

them by hacking them to pieces before the whole assembly.

“This done, they roast him and make a common meal of him,

sending chunks of his flesh to absent friends.”63 The

average reader today might very well question if such

execution and dismemberment reflects good treatment of one’s

enemy. It certainly would fail under the modern-day Geneva

Accords, although many nations, civilized or not, ignore

such agreements, even today. Yet, for Montaigne, it

represented an improvement, for it distinquished between

execution, or capital punishment, legitimately conceived,

and the practice of cruelty or torture as a testament of

“man’s inhumanity to man.”

For Montaigne, any torture that goes beyond the simple

act of killing was unnecessary and unwarranted cruelty.

Without dismissing problems connected to cannibalism,

Montaigne was clearly against what we might call terrorism

today. Terrorism is the act of torture whereby one takes

pleasure in dismembering victims while they are still alive.

It was somehow less shocking to Montaigne if one ate the

63 ibid.

52

victims, after they had been killed. In essence, terrorism

is worse than cannibalism because, for Montaigne, the

killing and raping of innocent people is infinitely more

cruel than mere execution. He abhorred the common practice

of terrorism by those embroiled in the wars of religion that

Montaigne despised in his own country.64

Montaigne noted that cannibalism was not limited to the

New World. In Eastern Europe, the Scythians adopted a

similar practice, killing their enemies for food. Yet, what

seemed to be happening in Montaigne’s Europe was much more

cruel than acts of cannibalism. For example, wrote

Montaigne, the Portuguese “bury (their enemies) to the

waist, [only] to shoot arrows at their exposed parts and

then to hang them.”65 Montaigne’s point is that, while

the Brazilian tribal culture may kill their enemies, they

didn’t torture them or kill them for sport as in several of

Europe’s more “civilized” societies.

Montaigne noted that even the Portuguese later modified

their practices, learning from the new world culture,

64 Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon,” 80-81.65 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 86.

53

adopting the “more humane” execution methods of the tribal

society. Yet, he was sure to contrast the two cultures in

vivid fashion.

It does not sadden me that we should note the horrible barbarity in a practice such

as theirs: what does sadden me is that, while judging correctly of their wrong-doings we should be so blind to our own. I think there is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead; more barbarity in lacerating by rack and torture a body still fully able to feel things, in roasting him little by little and having him bruised and bitten by pigs and dogs… than inroasting him and eating him after his death.66

Montaigne, of course, was mostly attacking the barbarity as

practiced by European culture, and more personally, the

barbaric actions of individuals that Montaigne knew, and

upon families to whom he was acquainted. “This is done by

our ‘friends and neighbors’… in the name of duty and

religion.”67

Montaigne’s purpose was to challenge the cruelty and

barbarity as practiced in European civilization. His

motivation and purpose likely transcended his commitment to

historical accuracy. He was critical of the practice of

66 Ibid., 86-87.67 Ibid., 87.

54

torture and barbarism, including war, in any human society,

and seems to use what he knows, or what he portended to know

of the New World culture for this purpose. He assumed that

human nature and the practice of inhumanity, was in a sense,

universal.

Montaigne agreed with ancient authors, Chrisippus and

Zeno, that there was “nothing wrong in using our carcasses

for whatever purpose we needed, even for food….”68 As a

modern illustration, the book Alive, by Piers Paul Read,

written in 1974, chronicles the survival tactics of

survivors of a plane crash. They were forced to eat the

dead carcasses of those who perished in order to survive.

In an apropos quote from the book, one survivor said to

another: “think of it as communion.”

Similarly, Montaigne argued that medical doctors used

corpses in many ways for scientific experiments, just as

today we use body parts and organs for transplant purposes

purportedly to save human lives. Our problem today is the

terrible black market for human organs that is practiced

68 Ibid.

55

worldwide. In Montaigne’s day, mummies from Egypt were

imported for use in medicines. Several “humane” usages of

the human corpse for the betterment of humankind is in the

spirit of what Montaigne understood. Cannibalism in some

circumstances is not only justifiable, but is in a sense

“humane.” Even so, such a practice could never justify

cruelty or the torture of another human being, especially

when still alive.

Yet no opinion has ever been so unruly as to justify treachery, disloyalty, tyranny

and cruelty, which are everyday vices in us. So we canindeed call those folk barbarians by the rules of reason but not in comparison with ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarism.69

Montaigne contrasts the practices of warfare by the

“cannibals” with those of “civilized” nations. Bent with

ironic twists, Montaigne argues that the warfare practices

of the “cannibals” were “entirely noble and magnanimous.”

Impinged with hyperbole, Montaigne argued that primitive

warfare was an expression of “a zealous concern for

courage.” Unlike European conquerors and imperialists, the

69 Ibid.

56

“barbarians” were not “striving to conquer new lands, since

without toil or travail they still enjoy bounteous Nature

who furnishes them abundantly with all they need.”70

Hence, warfare for “the barbarians” was not about

conquering other lands, as there was little concern to

expand beyond one’s borders.71 Rather, warfare was for the

natural necessity of self-protection against invasion and

injustice. To Montaigne, “nature” endowed humans with all

the necessities that a culture needed, so there was little

need or motive to conquer other lands for goods as was the

practice of European nations. Montaigne’s ”Of Cannibals”

was therefore, in a sense, a critique of European

Imperialism and conquest. In a word, Montaigne thought that

the political economy of the new world was more sustainable

than that of the Europeans.

Furthermore, in the barbarian society, there seemed to

be more equity and respect for one another than in many

European societies. Still a patriarchal society, Montaigne

noticed that the primitives called each other brother, and

70 Ibid.71 Ibid.

57

each one younger was called a son, while the elders were all

called fathers. In a model commonwealth, the tribe

bequeathed “all their goods, indivisibly, to all their heirs

in common, there being no other entitlement” expected beyond

what “Nature purely and simply endows [to] all her creatures

by bringing them into the world.”72 Like Rousseau,

Montaigne believed that Nature and natural law were superior

in virtue to humanly contrived civilizations that render

nature a commodity.

Still, military conflict seemed somewhat inevitable,

even for a utopia. “Neighboring peoples” could still invade

from the other side of the mountains and attack and possibly

defeat the local tribe. Even so, argued Montaigne, “the

victor’s beauty” did not consist of goods or the seizure of

additional lands. Rather, what seemed to matter was

“mastery in virtue and in valor.” Montaigne thought that

the tribal factions had “no interest in the goods of the

vanquished,” and because of their natural endowments, could

be “content with [one’s] own abundance.”73

72 Ibid., 87-88.73 Ibid., 88.

58

Montaigne believed also that the cannibals were not

ill-equipped for philosophical speculation. Rather, even

though the cannibals had not read Aristotle’s Physics, they

practiced what Aristotle taught, living not only in harmony

with nature, but enjoying the “happiness of a long, tranquil

and peaceable life without the precepts of Aristotle and

without acquaintance with the name of physics.”74 While

the Greeks and the French philosophers speculated about the

ideal world, the “cannibals” put those beliefs into

practice. Utopia, for Montaigne, did not exist in the

abstract, but existed in the historical reality in the

tribal cultures of Brazil.

For the cannibals, the useful was the natural, and onlythose actions were thought useful that preserved life or preserved honor.75

Montaigne believed that if a culture lived in harmony

with Nature, there would be abundant goods so that there

would be no scarcity. This assumption is not unlike those

made in the modern world by environmentalists or other

74 Montaigne, “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” in Complete Works of Montaigne, 404.75 Philip Paul Hallie, The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay on Personal Philosophy (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 18.

59

“green” utopians. Montaigne believed that “the barbarians”

knew how to live in contentment and satisfaction, knowing

that Nature supplied all that was needed for a bountiful

existence. While we may question the accuracy of

Montaigne’s description of primitive tribes in the Americas,

there is little doubt about his prescription. Prisoners,

even if on “death row,” were to be treated with honor and

respect as human beings. For Montaigne, the treatment of

prisoners was different than that which was found among

European conquistadors. Wholesale massacres of indigenous

populations were already being reported by Bartoleme De Las

Casas. Yet, it seemed to the savages that reparations would

not be required of the tribal peoples upon the defeat of a

rival tribe. Rather, it seemed enough that the conquered

ones simply admit defeat. Not so in civilized Europe.

The courage of the defeated was also noted. It seemed

to Montaigne that “there was not one prisoner” who desired

to be spared. Demonstrating their courage, they were

60

ready rather to be killed, and were willing to be prepared

to be eaten afterwards, without fear or trepidation.76

One suspects that Montaigne is utilizing hyperbole to

“shock” his readers. Perhaps he was also using irony,

sarcasm and even comedy to depict the cannibals in a way

that 1) demonstrated the common humanity of all people,

including “the cannibals,” and; 2) he was searching for a

way to elicit self-criticism among those who deemed

themselves “civilized.” Despite questions of historical or

scientific accuracy with regard to the Brazilian tribal

people, Montaigne was effective politically and culturally

in arguing for a greater degree of tolerance, and a more

open society in France. Montaigne’s apparent influence on

Henri IV is testimony to his effectiveness.

Montaigne challenged the notion that self-worth was

connected to anything external like weapons technology or to

an exaggerated opinion of one’s own civilization or culture.

“Bravery” was not the result of physical assets, nor was it,

by implication, the product of one’s technology. For

76 Montaigne, “Of Cannibals,” in The Essays: A Selection, 88.

61

Montaigne, “it is not a matter of what our horse or our

weapons are worth, but of what we are.” Montaigne admired

those individuals who’s “mind remains steadfast … slain but

not vanquished.”77 Montaigne thought that “the cannibals”

could teach Europeans much about courage, loyalty and valor.

He believed that the valor of the cannibals was not unlike

the courage shown by the Spartans at Thermopylae. For

Montaigne, defeat sometimes rivaled the impact of so-called

victories. He wrote: “true victory lies in your role in

the conflict, not in coming through safely: it consists in

the honor of battling bravely not battling through.”78

Nor was Montaigne bothered by the problem of polygamy,

for the cannibals had many wives. He argued, perhaps for

the fun of it, that the possession of many wives was a

testament to the husband’s reputation. “Being more

concerned for their husband’s reputation than for anything

else, they take care and trouble to have as many fellow-

wives as possible, since that is a testimony to their

77 Ibid., 89.78 Ibid., 90.

62

husband’s valor.”79 Montaigne observed that, in the Bible,

women sometimes allowed their handmaidens to be available to

their husbands, including Sarah, Leah, and Rachel. For

moderns, this line of argumentation is unconvincing, even

patriarchal and sexist, yet there are other passages where

Montaigne argues for what amounts to women’s equality.

Montaigne describes in detail the visit of three

natives to Rouen, France in 1562, and their estimate of what

they found. Montaigne reversed the order of judgment and

altered the process whereby cultural differences might be

evaluated. In short, the civilized world had much to learn

from tribal cultures, so Montaigne presented a reversed

pedagogy noting what the civilized world could learn from

primitive tribal peoples. Montaigne could not help but

notice the effect of such contact on the visitors:

Three such natives, unaware of what price peace and happiness they would have to pay to buy a knowledge of our corruptions, and unaware that such commerce would lead to their downfall… pitifully allowing themselves to be cheated by their desire for novelty, and leaving the gentleness of their regions to come and see ours were at Rouen at the same time as King Charles IX.80

79 Ibid.80 Ibid., 91.

63

Significantly, King Charles IX (1550-1574) was but a

child of 12, and succeeded his brother, a sickly child who

died at the age of 16. Charles IX’s reputation was that he

was ruled by his mother and unfortunately heeded her advice

to massacre French Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day in

1572.81 Montaigne, writing later, no doubt had this event

clearly in mind. Montaigne reported that the three natives

had a meeting with the king, were introduced to French

customs, and then given a tour of the city.

Afterwards, Montaigne’s servant asked them what their

opinion was of France, and what it was in their visit to

France that made the greatest impression. Montaigne noted

that they made three points, although Montaigne, irritated

with himself, was only able to remember two of the three.

He wrote:

…[T]hey found it very odd that all those full-grown bearded men, strong and

bearing arms in the king’s entourage, should consent toobey a boy rather than

choosing one of themselves as Commander; secondly—sincethey have an idiom in their language which calls all

81 “Charles IX, King of France,” in Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary, edited by Melanie Parry (New York: Larousse, 1997), 376.

64

men ‘halves’ of one another—that they had noticed that there were among us men full bloated with all sorts of comforts while their halves were begging at their doors, emaciated with poverty and hunger: they found it odd that those destitute halves should put up with such injustice and did not take the others by the throat or set fire to their houses.82

Clearly, Montaigne is using the situation to question the

implicit inequality in French society, one that allowed

children to become kings because of the accident of noble

birth relations, and one that tolerated economic inequality

among the classes. Montaigne argued implicitly that the

system of elder-rule and the practice of economic

distribution among tribal peoples was a more superior and

just system.

With sarcastic wit, Montaigne stated that he had a

conversation with one of the three “savages” that visited

France. Despite little help from a poor translator, his

employee, Montaigne noted that the “king” of the tribal

culture played a similar role to the king of France, and yet

with greater efficiency, and much less hierarchy. Similar

to a European king, the tribal leader could mobilize 5,000

82 Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” 91-92.

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troops for battle, and after the war was over, “he retained

the privilege of having paths cut for him through the

thickets to their forests, so that he could easily walk

through them when he visited villages under his sway. Not

at all bad, that,” Montaigne wrote. “Ah! But they wear not

breeches….”83 Montaigne noted the general similarity of

function, but without the pomp and ceremony of customary

divisions of class and privilege.

Montaigne was acutely aware of the economic disparity

between rich and poor that seemed to characterize his native

France. As Montaigne describes it, there was clear

injustice in who carried the burden of taxation. The taxes

that were paid by nobles, and the taxes that were paid by

the poor were not only different, but Montaigne noticed that

the poor were taxed beyond their means, whereby the rich got

off easily. He used every source of influence at his

disposal to counter this injustice, both in his essays such

as “Of Cannibals,” and from his position as Mayor of the

city of Bordeaux. In his August 31, 1583 letter to King

83 Ibid.

66

Henry III, Montaigne raised the question of unjust taxation,

and the plight of the poor in the duchy of Guienne.84

Montaigne appealed to the King with utmost respect, but also

tactfully suggested an alternative operational motif based

on a sense of fairness.

He suggested that “all impositions must be made equally

upon all persons, the strong supporting the weak, and

although it is most reasonable that those who have the

greater means should feel the burden more than those who

live only precariously and by the sweat of their body; yet

it has happened, for some years back and especially this

year, that as regards to the taxes imposed” (by the King),

this was not the case.85

Montaigne noted that “the richest and most opulent

families of the said city have been exempt from all these

because of the privilege claimed by all the officers of

justices and their widows.” Further, he observed that the

very people who possessed the means to pay taxes were also

84 Michel du Montaigne, “To King Henry III: Letter of Remonstrance Fromthe Mayor and Jurats of Bordeaux, August 31, 1583,” The Complete Works of Montaigne, 1068 ff.85 Ibid., 1088-9.

67

the ones declared exempt, whereas the burden of taxation was

born by those least able to pay.

[A]ll he children of presidents and counselors of the Parlement have been declared noble and not subject to any tax; so that henceforth when it is appropriate to impose some sort of tax, it will have to be borne by the least and poorest group of inhabitants of the cities, which is quite impossible, unless suitable remedies are provided against this by Your Majesty, as the said mayor and jurats very humbly request you to doso.86

Montaigne’s essay, “On the Cannibals,” was thus primarily a critique of French

Society. He argued that the culture of the cannibals was

superior and more sustainable than European culture, despite

the despised practice of eating one’s enemies after capture.

In France, there were many practices, especially during the

time of war, that was even more despicable, especially the

rape and pillage of protestant villages by Catholic armies,

and vice versa. Montaigne was also aware that the culture

of France was characterized by a rigid class system. The

rich and powerful not only had more means, but the system

they created them punished the poorer among them.

86 Ibid., 1089.

68

Montaigne’ essay was a clear assault on French privilege and

social injustice. The presumed utopia of the new world was

a greater societal ideal.

Conclusions

Montaigne’s essays, especially “Of Cannibals,” were

attempts to celebrate cultural pluralism, and were often

concerned with the problems of equity and social justice.

Justice in the legal system of the times was often a

judgement against the poor, and against the outsider. For

Montaigne, justice was to be found more universally in

harmony with nature and with natural laws. Fundamentally,

for Montaigne, the assumption that human-made laws were

69

universal and applicable to all people in all circumstances

was suspect. Laws, and the application of them in any

society, seemed arbitrary and were often a source of

flagrant injustice.87

Montaigne’s humanism, and his celebration of cultural

diversity and the pluralism of custom was his attempt to

find a more universal critical posture. In the final

analysis, Montaigne was at war with custom and thought it to

be “a treacherous schoolmistress.”88 Montaigne wrote:

But the principal effect of the power of custom is to seize and ensnare us in such a way that it is hardly within our power to let ourselves back out of its grip and return into ourselves to reflect and reason about its ordinances. In truth, because we drink them with our milk from birth, and because the face of the world presents itself in this aspect to our first view, it seems that we are born on condition of following this course.89

Montaigne’s skepticism was the other side of the coin

of his argument for the acceptance of diversity and cultural

pluralism. He was suspicious that the pretension of

superiority on the part of Europeans was but an excuse for

87 Frederick Rider, The Dialectic of Selfhood in Montaigne (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973) 14.88 Ibid., 57.89 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 83.

70

domination and was a method used to justify inequality.

Many Europeans labeled the cultural practices of others as

barbaric, savage, pagan, magical, and yes, even

cannibalistic. Montaigne does not wander too far from this

perspective, except to say that Europeans in many ways were

also barbaric. Montaigne’s appreciation of diversity

enabled him to accept the particularity of customs over the

portended transcendence and universalism of law. For

Montaigne, a pluralistic world would not allow him to

universalize any particular culture. All cultures and

customs were legitimate in their own right, although he

universally eschewed the practice of cruelty in any

culture.90

Montaigne wondered if the “pagan” cultures in Brazil

were really any more pagan or barbaric than those of other

European groups such as the ancient Scythians, or even

Montaigne’s contemporary Portuguese. Montaigne of course

lived in an era that was associated with the Inquisition,

and later with the conquest and extermination of pagans,

90 Tetel, Montaigne, 44.

71

“witches,” and other barbarians or savages in both the old

and new worlds. His mother’s family was forced to escape

the Inquisition in Spain for a more tolerant France. For

many in Montaigne’s world, the best way to deal with the

other was to eliminate them. How utterly contemporary.

It was Portugal that invaded Brazil, and Portuguese

became the European language of dominance. Yet, Montaigne

crossed the line at points, presenting aspects of an

alternative point of view held by some intellectuals. This

was the naïve, romantic view of Brazilian peoples as noble,

even enlightened savages, based as much on invention and

hearsay as scientific observation. What matters of course

was first of all Montaigne’s estimate of European society;

and secondly his appreciation of the virtues of indigenous

cultures elsewhere.

Montaigne challenged the clear instances of barbarism

in Europe, but also the obvious social inequality and

injustice that persisted in so-called “advanced” societies.

Inequality and injustice was often justified by local

custom. Montaigne believed that the legalization of any

72

local custom and the consequences of repression was as

barbarous as any action of the aforementioned “cannibals.”

He wrote: “what is more barbarous to see that a nation

where by lawful custom the charge of judging is sold, and

judgments are paid for in ready cash, and where justice is

lawfully refused to whoever has not the wherewithal to

pay.”91

Montaigne provides us with an alternative perspective.

He believed that all human beings were capable of cruelty.

He lived in an era that was characterized by cruelty and

hatred fed by the religious wars between Protestants and

Catholics. Both groups demonized the other, and both could

slaughter the other mercilessly, even in defiance of

religious traditions held by each group. Montaigne’s

critical realism was the product of his understanding of the

human condition, resulting from his own experience in

France. In this respect, Montaigne’ essay was clearly the

product of his sense experience. Yet, when it came to an

evaluation of cultures beyond his own, his articulation of

91 Montaigne, “Of Custom,” in Montaigne’s Complete Works, 85.

73

the ideal of detached scientific observation based on direct

sense experience was more theoretical than actual. The

ideal is there, but not quite the practice.

Instead, what we find in Montaigne is predominantly a

critique of European culture and civilization. The

presumption of superiority and the assumption that one’s

culture, any culture, was transcendentally normative, were

challenged. Instead, Montaigne’s conclusion is that all

cultures are relative, and that all laws and polities are

socially conditioned. Montaigne is perhaps the first

serious writer to argue that reality is socially

constructed. 92

The “cannibals” in turn present not just an alternative

to European society, but in a sense represent the ideal way

to live in harmony with nature. This belief, for

Montaigne, was the first complete presentation of the “noble

savage” idea that became identified later with the writings

of Rousseau.

92 See for example, Eric Aaron Johnson, Knowledge and Society: A SocialEpistemology of Montaigne’s Essais (Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1994): 47-69.

74

Whether or not the cannibals lived a utopia in reality

is subject to question. Montaigne’s use of his sources,

and his lack of direct empirical observation prevents us

from accepting his critical realism as a valid scientific

methodology. Yet, the notion and the ideal of a critical

realism is clearly present, at least in theory. For David

Quint, there was enough in the cultural milieu that allows

one to accept much as true in Montaigne’s portrayal of the

cannibals. For one thing, argues Quint, there really is no

scientific objectivity that is possible anyway, and the

intermingling of fact and interpretation is not only

probable, but inevitable, especially for a writer in 16th

century France.

The ideal of an objective or transparent reporting of the practices of an alien culture—just the facts, please—is indeed utopian. There are no ‘facts’ withoutinterpretation, since ‘facts’ are constituted by the language that describes them….93

In short, not everything was lost in the

interpretation. Indeed, while there may be much “invention”

in Montaigne’s portrayal of the cannibals, in the end it

93 Quint, “The Culture that Does Not Pardon,” 77-78.

75

doesn’t really matter. Montaigne’s attention is really more

directed at France. This may indeed be the case that

Montaigne’s story is a matter of “a humanist sitting in his

study, not to the eyewitness testimony of his ethnographic

sources.”94 Yet, the public rumor and the discussion about

the cannibals across the ocean was in the air. Indeed, we

conclude that his portrayal of the cannibals is at least as

consistent with what was presented by many of Montaigne’s

contemporary travelers.

As Quint includes in ironic contrast: “perhaps only by

confronting the New World culture from the vantage point and

preoccupations of his own could Montaigne put the right

words in the mouth of his valiant cannibal.”95 If one

accepts this conclusion, one would have to admit that in the

final analysis Montaigne succeeded. His project of self-

analysis and rhetorical self-disclosure ultimately was the

disclosure of the human condition that most troubled him.

In the final analysis, we are all cannibals. We are all

humans who have the potential to be both noble and savage,

94 Ibid., 101.95 Ibid.

76

depending on the environment that has nurtured us. In

practice, Montaigne’s thoroughgoing skepticism and his

belief in the universal shortcomings of human nature and of

any human culture was based on his experience of living amid

the decadence of an advanced European society, which he then

projected on his contemporary global society as a

consequence. In this respect, his essay on the cannibals

suited his purposes perfectly.

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