變成他者：殖民主義脈絡下的食人論述與「薩滿」巫術

This study examines colonialist cannibal narratives not just as a discourse on the native, but also that of the native. The discussion begins with an overview of the subject of cannibalism—its historical and cultural significance on human sensibility and consciousness—with emphasis on its role as the “tool of Empire” within the colonial context. It is followed by the debate on the native’s agency, which provides an interpretative scheme for understanding the cultural and symbolic meaning of the “cannibal native,” i.e., as a sensible being imbued with human rationality and not as a fixed entity categorized by Western discourses. The strategy of interconversion of intelligibility and sensibility illustrates the native’s influence and involvement in the cannibal discourse. The interplay of the intelligible and the sensible can be seen in the subsequent discussion on the workings of shamanism to suggest that through the savage imaginings of the colonist, the so-called cannibal native takes on the role of shaman, with the enactment of the magic of mimesis to imitate and become Other. The native thus mimes the act of cannibalism and assumes the role of “cannibal” through consumption and incorporation in which the cannibal takes on physical and symbolic possessions of the eaten. The colonial discourse of cannibalism thus is not just a discourse on the native; it is also a discourse of the native. This calls into question the reliability of the Western cannibal discourse and reveals the impossibility of the colonial pedagogy to subsume and subjugate the Other, which renders the Western discourse on cannibalism problematic and unstable.