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

ethology and theater 269
with them or playing with the penes of corpses. Both men and women
smear themselves with blood and hang from their head and shoulders
various parts of the body in much the same way as is done with the
meat of pigs during the pig festival.
(Berndt 1962: 283–4)
Such incidents seem more suited to pornographic horror films than
ethnography. One event Berndt describes, were it acted on a stage in
proper Grand-Guignol style by Charles Ludlam, would surely be farce.
Groups of Aguara, Moiife, and Kogu men and women gathered around
corpses taken in battle to cut them up. Unapicna began on a woman
named Pazucna – but instead of cutting her up he fucked her. A Kogu
woman, Aria, accused him of taking too long and because Unapicna
ignored her she began to cut up Pazucna. “She cut further in and
across, hacking away at the flesh; and since Unapicna’s penis was in the
woman’s vagina, she cut most of it off.” Aria blamed Unapicna: “You
sit there copulating, not bothering to cut her up properly. . . . Thus I
cut off your penis!” Unapicna screamed at Aria, but then she removed
the penis from the corpse, “popped it into her mouth, and ate it, and
then continued with the cutting. Unapicna was helped back to his
house where he rested. Ovens were made and the meat cooked, amid
dancing and singing. Unapicna was given Pazucna’s vulva and
surrounding flesh to eat” (Berndt 1962: 283).
In 1976 when I originally wrote this chapter I accepted as factual
these accounts of the cruel, bizarre actions of the Kogu. But in 1987 the
debate concerning the existence of cannibalism made me think the
“data” over again.
In the preface to his book, Berndt says, “My wife and I, together or
singly, were able to observe the majority of features discussed in this
volume, some of them not once or twice but many times, in Kogu and
various adjacent districts, as well as in the Busarasa-Moke area” (1962:
xii). He then gives a long list of what they saw. Finally he says:
There was, however, as there must always be, much that we could not
see: for example, violence during cannibal feasts, sharp fighting and
confusion when a village was raided, certain extra-marital ventures,
and so on. Although by all accounts these were still taking place south