Columbus and Other Cannibals

Celebrated American-Indian thinker Jack Forbes' Columbus and Other Cannibals was one of the founding texts of the anti-civilization movement when it was first published in 1978. His history of terrorism, genocide, and ecocide told from a Native American point of view has inspired America's most influential activists for decades. Frighteningly, his radical critique of the modern "civilized" lifestyle is more relevant now than ever before.

Identifying the Western compulsion to consume the earth as a sickness, Forbes writes:

"Brutality knows no boundaries. Greed knows no limits. Perversion knows no bordersThese characteristics all push towards an extreme, always moving forward once the initial infection sets in.This is the disease of the consuming of other creatures' lives and possessions. I call it cannibalism."

This updated edition includes a new preface by the author and an introduction by Derrick Jensen.

Jack D. Forbes is professor emeritus and former chair of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis. Of Powhatan-Renpe, Delaware-Lenpe, and non-Indian background, he founded the organization Native American Movement in 1961, started Native American studies programs across the country. He has lectured around the world and is the author of twelve books.

Could we call it cannibalism when a Christian missionary goes into a Indian Village and gives them no other choice but to see God his way? Why couldn't the missionary just be happy in his own church with his own followers?

Is it cannibalism when a capitalist decides to turn a forest into two-by-fours? Wasn't the forest down the road that was turned into two-by-fours last week enough? Is the person with the chainsaw taking orders a cannibal to?

Forbes makes it clear that there has been, and still are, a lot of people suffering from the cannibal sickness among us who want to consume all life around them. He claims you don't have to eat another person all you have to do is control their heart and mind, you've than consumed them. And to survive in the cannibal's culture you almost have to become a cannibal yourself. It's contagious. It's the sickness that creates the pecking order were all familiar with. It's actually kind of scary, this culture just might consume itself if it isn't careful.

Forbes does show at the end of the book that there is another way. He shows that there has existed, and still exists, different "paths" to take that isn't offered by the cannibals.

A great book to help heal a sick culture.


A Classic   November 20, 2003
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

An amazing perspective on the conditions of mankind. What Forbes tells us is that there is this negative consciousness, this spiritual sickness called "The Wetiko Psychosis" that gets passed on from being to being. It's an inherited twisted perspective on life, and feeling about life.. The bestowers for the last 500 years of the Wetiko disease have come from the European culture, although he mentions that many cultures through out history have endulged in Wetiko behavior, from Egypt, to Rome, to Russia, China. He's also mentioned that the once oppressed may carry on this mentality, this lunacy to a higher degree sometimes then the original oppressors/ colonizers.
There is authenticity in this book that isnt found that often. The reader learns so much about Native American phylosophy. It stays the course with you from beginning to end. When I first read the book, I was thinking to myself "hmm I dont know, thats stretching it isnt it? Cannibalism?" But the way he describes it, and in the way he means it, now I understand. We need to take a more compassionate and loving path. A path of power now because we're running out of time. We're all enduring the effects of it today and will for years to come. He says it wont change unless we change and heal ourselves first.


One of the most important books I've read   December 11, 2002
 17 out of 21 found this review helpful

I agree with both previous reviewers that the book is an extraordinary indictment of the dominant culture. But I got something else from this book as well. I read this that Forbes is saying that one of the reasons civilization is killing the planet is because of a spiritual illness with a physical vector. If I get the flu and then cough all over you, you might then get the flu, with all of its symptoms. If I have the cannibal sickness and I cough (or somehow otherwise transfer the disease to you) you will have to consume the souls of others in order to survive. You will become a vampire. Or to putthis another way, you will become a conquistador, a pornographer, a slaver, a businessman. I read this not only as a metaphor, but as a possible description of how things really are. And he makes a very convincing case. Wonderful and important book by a very wise man.