Throughout “Of Cannibals” by Michel de Montaigne, Montaigne suggests that the cannibals of South America take part in acts that are considered barbaric, but he also explains that these cannibals practice similar activities as Europeans. Barbaric (adj) meaning cruel or extremely brutal and uncivilized or unsophisticated when compared to high developed citizens; may seem like the appropriate word to use when talking about “cannibals” however, I’d argue along with Montaigne that “we may then call these people barbarous, in respect to the rules of reason: but not in respect to ourselves, who in all sorts of barbarity exceed them.” Although these cannibals may commit acts that may qualify them as barbaric, the europeans commit acts that would qualify them as barbaric or even more barbaric as well.
When living in a developed society, an undeveloped society may seem uncivilized. The Europeans live in a country with laws, businesses, cities, towns, schools and churches. While the cannibals live in the forest, off the land, hunting for their own food, teaching their children, building there homes. They provide for themselves, building what they need and using the resources from the land they live in. Perhaps not as sophisticated as the europeans, but no less civilized. “Their disputes are not for the conquest of new lands, for these they already possess are so fruitful by nature, as to supply them without labor or concern, with all things necessary, in such abundance that they have no need to enlarge their borders. And they are moreover, happy in this, that they only covet so much as their natural necessities require: all beyond that, is superfluous to them: men of the same age call one another generally brothers, those who are younger, children; and the old men are fathers to all.” These “cannibals” are content with what they have and do not desire the superficialities of the developed world. They live in a small community which accepts each other and sticks together in order to defend and survive.
Perhaps the dismantling of an enemies limbs causes one to accuse the cannibals of being barbaric, as Montaigne writes, the cannibals “frequently entertain them [prisoners] with menaces of their approaching death, of the torments they are to suffer, of the preparations making in order to it, of the mangling their limbs, and of the feast that is to be made, where their carcass is to be the only dish.” However, one could argue that the gallows europeans used was barbaric, beheading enemies or trapping prisoners behind bars. From the perspective of the cannibals, living in a developed society could be barbaric. Is ruining nature, constantly striving for more territory and developing cruel? Perhaps not to the europeans, but to a society which lives off the exact opposite, it could be.
What makes someone barbaric? Is it the fact that we are not comfortable with their culture or the practices of their daily lives? Barbarians are cruel and extremely brutal, they are uncivilized and unsophisticated but as Montaigne describes, they simply do not fit the definition of a barbarian. Montaigne sees that the cannibals are people of valor, they respect the land and even their enemies. In the european culture cannibalism is barbaric, its abnormal; but to the cannibals, europeans do some barbaric things as well. In order to properly judge a different culture, we mustn’t judge from our own perspective.