4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

268
ethology and theater
Nasecompa severed the limb and threw it to one side. A woman
danced forward singing, picked up the leg and danced away. Still
Kricme cried as Nasecompa cut off the other leg and threw it to a man
who danced forward, singing, and carried it away. The same was done
with one arm, then the other; still Kricme cried, until Nasecompa with
a stroke of his ax severed the head, which was caught by a dancing
man and carried away. Then the trunk was cut up and various parts
distributed. When the feast was finished the bones were tied up in
croton leaves and fastened to the Moiife stockade.
(Berndt 1962: 280–1)
Kricme’s fate is uncannily like that of Pentheus of Euripides’ The Bacchae.
In a case of adultery – also reminiscent of Greek myth – a Haita man,
Auglimu, found his wife with a lover. He shot the man, sliced his flesh
while he was still living, severed both his arms, and left him to bleed to
death. Then he took his wife, and her lover’s arms, back to her house
where they roasted the arms, ate a meal of them, and slept together.
Berndt comments:
Whether the cutting up of a victim while he is still alive is deliberate
cruelty, as in the case of the husband who killed his wife’s lover, is
difficult to say. There is little doubt, however, that the people who
participated . . . appear to have enjoyed watching the man’s suffering
and hearing him cry as his limbs were hacked off. A number of men
who took part in this particular feast [the killing of Kricme], including
Nasecompa himself, thought it great fun and laughed uproariously
discussing it, with no sign of embarrassment.
(Berndt 1962: 281)
Berndt reports that when warriors came home with a corpse often
“many men and women indulge[d] in uncontrolled behavior, assaulting
the corpse and fighting over the best portions of meat” (Berndt 1962:
283). If the victim was a young woman, men would copulate with the
corpse before cutting it up. The men acted openly and their women
far from resenting it, apparently enjoyed watching them. It is said that
they themselves often squat over dead men, pretending to have coitus