Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest. Christy G. Turner and Jacqueline A. Turner. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1999

Human sacrifice and cannibalism, the potential forinstitutionalized violence or warfare, witchcraft or sorcery, and ritual executions areemotionally charged issues; but some anthropologists and other learned scholars nowsuggest that these activities and behaviors occurred in the American Southwest, a regionusually depicted for peace, harmony, tranquility, and spirituality. Christy Turner,Regents' Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Arizona State University, andhis late wife, Jacqueline (1934-1996), are the co-authors of Man Corn. The book's titlederives from the Nahuatl word tlacatlaolli, a "sacred meal of sacrificed human meat,cooked with corn." The Nahuatl and Mesoamerican connections are more than coincidental.The idea for this volume was conceived in 1958, and Christy dedicates the volume to thememory of his wife. They comment (p. 8) that "re­search on cannibalism has not been freeof controversy or political and professional censuring" and they cite instances wheretheir work has been disbelieved, dismissed, or admonished