Premium
demystification, enriddlement, and Aztec cannibalism: a materialist rejoinder to Harner
Author(s) -
PRICE BARBARA J.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1978.5.1.02a00080
Subject(s) - materialism , nomothetic , cannibalism , sociology , epistemology , institution , politics , positive economics , presentation (obstetrics) , economic geography , social science , philosophy , economics , political science , ecology , law , nomothetic and idiographic , biology , radiology , larva , medicine
A recent paper by Harner (1977) explains the Aztec human sacrifice and cannibalism complex on the basis of a postulated protein deprivation and protein hunger. In response, the present model is developed on epistemologically stronger and more parsimonious grounds, which emphasize nomothetic aspects of the institution at the expense of supposed uniquenesses. Powerful systemic links to the economic network of production and distribution and to the related political and military instabilities are competent to explain the institution, rendering superfluous a supplementary protein hypothesis. Like Harner's original presentation, this paper is written within a cultural materialist paradigm but develops a different, competing, theoretical position within that paradigm.