Montaigne and the Cannibals: Toward a Redefinition of Exoticism

Author(s): Roger Celestin

Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Aug., 1990), pp. 292-313
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Montaigne and the Cannibals:

Toward a Redefinition of Exoticism
Roger Celestin

Departmentof Modernand Classical Languages

Universityof Connecticut
No soonerdoes one discoverthe categoriesof the pureunderstandingfor a Newtonian
age than somebody draws up anotherlist that would do nicely for an Aristotelianor
Einsteinianone. No sooner does one draw up a categoricalimperativefor Christians
thansomebodydrawsup one which works for cannibals.
-Richard Rorty, The Consequencesof Pragmatism, 1982
He ties a rope to one of the prisoner'sarms, by the end of which he holds him, a few
steps away, for fear of being hurt, and gives his dearestfriendthe other arm to hold
in the same way; and these two, in the presenceof the whole assembly, kill him with
theirswords. This done, they roasthim andeat him in common and send some pieces
to their absent friends. This is not, as people think, for nourishment,as of old the
Scythiansused to do; it is to betoken an extremerevenge.
-Montaigne, "Of Cannibals," Essays, 1581

What's in a Word?
"Exoticism" is hardly what anthropologists have in mind when they mention Montaigne's Essays, "Of Cannibals" in particular. On the contrary, whenever he is mentioned Montaigne is always given as an example of someone we
might call a "nonexoticist," an "antiexoticist," even a protoanthropologist. He
is perceived as perhaps the first one in the Renaissance to break both with scholastic epitomizations and with the widespread "borrowing" from sources in classical literature (Hodgen 1971:191-194) that occurred whenever a non-European
culture was the topic at hand; his actual interview, with the help of an informantinterpreter, of several Tupinamba Indians as a source for "Of Cannibals"-the
Tupinambas were brought to Rouen in 1562 and formed part of the procession in
honor of Henry III-is rightly called "exceptional": others of the period were
more than satisfied with reading travel accounts (Bucher 1981:5); more recently,
"Of Cannibals" was cited as an early example of ethnography's "traditional vocation of cultural criticism" (Clifford and Marcus 1986:23).
Yet I repeatedly and consistently use the word "exotic" instead of (simply?)
"foreign" in the following reading of Montaigne's treatment of what is non-European as it appears in some of his essays. By extension, this usage implies that
Montaigne's representations of the foreign and, more specifically, of the non-Eu292

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 293

ropeancan be qualifiedas '"exoticism," a termthat, at least in the Frenchtradition

Montaignebelongs to, seems more appropriatein Montesquieu'sEnlightenment
and Flaubert's19th centurythan in Montaigne'sRenaissance.' Further,in addition to this temporaland periodicdisplacement, "exotic" and "exoticism" may
seem semantically inappropriatein the specific case of Montaigne's Essays
(1581): am I not assuminghis representationsof the non-Europeanto be, a priori,
loaded with all the negative weight these words have come to carry(especially)
in the past two decades? Indeed, "exotic" and "exoticism"-rather than "foreign" or "representationof the foreign"--are more immediately and blatantly
linked to an entire arrayof attitudesand figuresthat have come undervery close
scrutinyrecently not only in literaturebut in anthropologyand other disciplines:
a certainaesthetizationof othernessmost often markedby linguistic copiousness
anda correspondingpsychological or analyticalthinness;the (unavowedor unacknowledged)assumptionthat, somehow, the non-Westerncan be capted, brought
back from "out there," "translated," and communicatedto Home and its systems in a "neutral" and "objective"-authenticated and authenticating-language (the language of a now-supposedly-outdated anthropologyfor example). To these two basic categories can be added other particularities,other
stances:a thematicpredilectionfor the odd, the strange, the "aberrant"(at least
in the eye of the beholder);a telescoping into what constituteslack in the Western
narrator'sworld;and other figures:the Wise Persian, the Good Indian, the MysteriousOrient-limited, functionaltalkingheads, idealizedbodies, magicallandscapes.
To use "exotic" and "exoticism" in a reading of Montaigne's Essaysunless exclusively for purposesof opposition, which is not the case here-is thus
to makehim endorseand assume a numberof traits(a whole traditionin fact) that
might not apply. However, what I am proposingis that althoughthe term "exoticism" is alreadyinvested with a set of connotationsthat seem to confine it in
alreadydelineatedperiodsand semanticzones, it neverthelesscontainsthe essential characteristicsof the more generic "representationof otherness" in Western
texts: a hovering between two tendencies that can be summarizedas exemplification and experimentation.The first, a tendency to inscribe the foreign as an
exemplaragainst the backgroundof Center-elaborated2systems, a background
againstwhich the Other, at the extreme of that tendency, ultimatelydisappears,
buriedunderthe weight of what othernesswas only thereto illustrate-as in certainreductiveanthropologiesor even "high-powered"ones (cf. Sontag 1961:77);
the second, a tendency that is stamped by the individual will to affirm itself
throughexploration(literal or metaphorical)of the foreign, discovering (or recovering) materialthat confirms and strengthensindividualityratherthan illustratesystems; paradoxically,this tendency, at its extreme, sometimes results in
the "loss of Self" or "merging with the Other" that is sometimes referredto as
"madness"-gone the way of Kurtz, Ahab, and others who do not return.
In the following readingof MontaigneI examine these two tendencies and
theirattendantmarkersby focusing on what can be called the aporiaof exoticism
(whichis only one variantof the more generic aporiaof representationin general):

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294 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

to what extent can a Western subject represent a foreign subject without automatically producing exoticism, that is, without eliminating himself, and without
eliminating the subject of his discourse?
Traveling in Place
First, what is Montaigne's own experience of "leaving Home"? In his VoyItalie (1962[1581]) he writes:
en
age
Mixing with men is wonderfullyuseful, and visiting foreign countries, not merely to
bringback in the mannerof our Frenchnoblemen, knowledge of the measurements
of the Santa Rotonda, or of the richness of Signora Livia's drawers, or like some
other, how much longer or wider Nero's face is in some old ruin there thanon some
similarmedallion:but to bring back knowledge of the charactersand ways of those
nations, and rub and polish our brainsby contact with those of others. ["Of the Educationof Children," p. 112]3
Montaigne never traveled to the exotic. His long trip-"17 mois, 8 jours"
Rome by way of Germany and Switzerland soon after the
(1962[1581]:236)-to
first edition of the Essays (Books I and II) was published, and following close to
ten years of rest, retreat, and writing in his tower, was a trip confined to Europe.
Nevertheless, his distinction between those who remain intact, who "merely
bring back" additional information to their point of departure, and those who are
changed by contact with the foreign, is also a fundamental aspect of his own experience of the exotic. This experience is dispersed throughout the Essays, but
contained essentially in "Of Cannibals" (1578-80, Book I) and "Of Coaches"
(1585-88, Book III). Although references to the Essays in general are necessary,
an analysis of Montaigne's relation to the exotic is basically a reading of these
two essays.
Where should Montaigne be placed? Isn't his own experience of the exotic
even more reduced and devoid of risk (the way Nietzsche, or even Gide, would
use the word) than the experience of those who "go out there" even if they only
"merely bring back" information? Doesn't the physically limited quality of his
experience reduce or even eliminate the possibility of exposure and of
(ex)change? Isn't his relation to the exotic ultimately limited to a discourse of
exemplification (the exotic Other as an appropriated figure whose function is limited to a slot in a system in need of illustration)? One possible answer is provided
by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. The vice-admiral and explorer was obliquely
looking at Rousseau when writing the following lines, but Montaigne, who in
many ways heralds the Enlightenment philosophes, can be included among those
who are being referred to here:
I am a travelerand a sailor, that is to say a liar and an idiot accordingto this class of
lazy and arrogantwriterswho, in the coziness of theirstudies, philosophizeendlessly
aboutthe world and its inhabitants,and imperiouslysubmitnatureto their imagination. [1955:19-20; author'stranslation]

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 295

Strongly stated here is an idea of the philosophe as a stay-at-homewhose

relationto the exotic can only be seen in termsof (1) a system and its illustration
or (2) a lyrical Self whose exotic Otheris imaginedor imaginary,both equations
requiringlittle if any epistemological inquiry.
But Montaigneis neither. Neither the agent of a steamrollingCenterintent
on "merely bringingback," whetherphilosophicalillustrationsor "pepper and
pearls" ("Of Coaches," p. 695', on incorporatingwhat is perceivedas a deviant,
chronologically"behind," in any case profitable,periphery,nor the builder of
an imaginarydimension.4Montaignedoes not travelto the exotic, but he is nevertheless somewhereelse thanin the Center.His is a "voyage sur place," as Gilles
Deleuze defines it:
Therearestationary
voyages,voyagesin intensityand,evenhistorically,nomadsare
notthosewhomoveas migrantsdo;on thecontrary,theyarethosewhodo notmove
andbeginto nomadizein orderto stayin the sameplacewhileescapingthe codes.
[1973:174;author'stranslation]
Montaigne'sprojectcan also be seen in those terms:to remainin the Center
while escaping its codes. Even more succinctly, like the Epechistshe refers to in
the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond" his position can be summarized by
"ETFEXI.L,""I abstain."

Yet, he writes. His text paradoxicallyappearsas the proclamationof his abstention. "Of Cannibals"and "Of Coaches" as texts where the exotic is ostensibly the centralconcern thus seem to serve a projectthat underminesitself: the
presentationof an exotic realmthatis opposed by Montaigneto his Home culture
as an affirmationof his own self-exclusion from that culture, is also the elaboration of a text that, in itself, regardlessof its alleged primaryconcern, constitutes
a link to Montaigne'sown cultureas audience-even if this connectionis denied.
Thus, a continuoustension between the proclamationof an outside position
and the simultaneouspresence of a medium that is itself the markerof an inside
positioninformsMontaigne'stexts "on" the exotic, and is reflectedin a series of
figuresandtacticsthatI proposeto examine:Knowledge, Antiquity,Nature,Cannibalism.
Knowledge
On the most literallevel, the exotic for Montaigneis constitutedby the presence of the new lands charteredby the relativelyrecent or contemporaryvoyages
of exploration.5In "Of Coaches" and "Of Cannibals" the expansion of the
globe's known surface is also one more unveiling of the world's diversity (religious wars in Montaigne's Franceand the general Renaissancediscovery of the
Greco-Romanworld are otherunveilings). In "Of Coaches":
us thatit is the
Ourworldhasjustdiscoveredanotherworld(andwhowill guarantee
lastof its brothers,sincethedaemons,theSybils,andwe ourselveshaveup to now
beenignorantof thisone?)no less great,full, andwell-limbedthanitself. [p. 693]

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296 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
In "Of Cannibals":
This discovery of a boundlesscountry seems worthy of consideration.I don't know
if I can guaranteethat some other such discovery will not be made in the future, so
manypersonagesgreaterthanourselveshaving been mistakenaboutthis one. [p. 150]
The impossibility of "guaranteeing" that discoveries will stop with this last one
appears in both essays. It also appears in Montaigne's longest and most important
essay, the "Apologie de Raimond Sebond":
It was heresyto admitthe existence of the Antipodes.Behold in ourcenturyan infinite
expanse of terrafirma, not an island or one particularcountry, but a portion nearly
equal in size to the one we know, which has just been discovered. The geographers
of the presenttime do not fail to assureus that now all is discoveredand all is seen,
'for what we have at hand always seems best of all.' [p. 430]
What strikes Montaigne, one more time and from a different angle, in these
discoveries is the absence of limits, the crumbling of any epistemological certainty. The allusion to heresy in the excerpt from the "Apologie" extends the
implications to the realm of religion itself. In short, we cannot know. The impos-

sibility of knowing constitutesthe long preliminaryof "Of Coaches" and precedes the "Our world has just discovered anotherworld" which is posited as an
illustration, a proof of the impossibility of certain, fixed knowledge. What the
new discovery leads to, in other words, is this type of reasoning: we cannot know,
since when we thought we knew we did not really know, so why should we assume that we now know? The realization is reaffirmed several times in "Of

Coaches" before any direct mention is made of the Incas and the Aztecs, and,
each time, the key word remains knowledge (cognoissance):
I fear that our knowledgeis weak in every direction;we do not see very far aheador
very far behind. It embraceslittle and has a shortlife, shortin both extent of time and
extent of matter.[p. 693]
And of this very image of the world which glides along while we live on it, how puny
and limited is the knowledgeof even the most curious. [p. 693]
There is nothing unique and rare as regardsnature, but there certainlyis as regards
our knowledge,which is a miserablefoundationfor our rules and which is apt to representto us a very false pictureof things. [p. 693]

Whatis presentedthen, even before the new lands and people are introduced
in the essay, is the limitationand localized qualityof knowledge. The exotic appears as either catalyst or illustration of a construct, in this case Montaigne's re-

alizationor affirmationof the relativityof knowledge. The constructis not totally

independent of the exotic presence-since this presence is either causal or illustrative-but it is already removed from this presence, already beyond it and di-

rectedat the Home as audience.

Still functioning within that pattern Montaigne grants the Self the hypothetical ability ("if") to have knowledge of even those lands and civilizations that

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MONTAIGNE
ANDTHECANNIBALS 297

have not yet been discovered,those thathave alreadybeen forgottenor were never
even known. The resultis a continuingHeracliteandriftin time and space, a constantand infinitelydiversifiedpassing:
If we sawas muchof the worldas we do not see, we wouldperceive,it is likely, a
andvicissitudeof forms.["OfCoaches,"p. 693;emphasis
perpetual
multiplication
added]
If we couldviewthatexpanseof countriesandages,boundlessin everydirection,into
whichthemindplungingandspreadingitself,travelsso farandwidethatit canfind
no limitwhereit canstop,therewouldappearin thatimmensityan infinitecapacity
to produceinnumerable
forms.[p. 693;emphasisadded]
Montaigne'sinitial discovery of the exotic thus presentsitself as a confrontationwith infinitevariety, what elsewhere he refersto as le branle, the perennial
seesaw, the swing ("Of Repentance"). The next step is what at anothertime
might be called existential discovery of the absurdor, later, the "absence of a
centeredstructure. . . of a play based on a fundamentalground, a play constitutedon the basis of a fundamentalimmobility and reassuringcertitudewhich is
itself beyond the reach of play" (Derrida 1967:279).6 Elsewhere, it is called
"doubt, the heightenedawarenessof insistentvariety" (Hallie 1966:37). At first,
Montaigne'sdoubt-very differentfrom Descartes's in its conclusions-appears
as a question, already announcingCandide's (a traveler's . . .) questioning of
Pangloss's precepts:
WhatamI to makeof a virtuethatI sawin credityesterday,thatwill be discredited
tomorrow,andthatbecomesa crimeon the othersideof theriver?Whatof a truth
thatis boundedby thesemountains
andis falsehoodin the worldthatlives beyond?
["Apology,"p. 437]
On one level Montaigne'squestioningreflects socioethical concerns:the validity
of laws and customs, their contextualgrounding,the indeterminacyof morality,
etc.; but, ultimately,it is his Self thatMontaigneis concernedwith, and not systems. Again, in a discourse apparentlyfocused on the exotic discovery, a personal, ego-centeredproblematic(but not a Euro-centeredone, as we will see)
precedesthe main (what is supposedto be the main) development. Again, in the
preliminaryto "Of Coaches," preceding the (in contemporaryterms) "anticolonialist" requisitorythatmakes up much of the essay, Montaignerefersto himself:
If anythingmademy soul lose its footing,it wouldneverset it backuprightin its
place;it probesandsearchesitselftoo keenlyanddeeply,andthereforewouldnever
let thewoundthathadpiercedit close upandheal. [p. 686]
Even if we take into accountthe sedimentaryand peripateticform and style of the
Essays, the link between sneezing, fear, the varietyof coaches throughoutdifferent historicalperiods, and the discovery of new lands by Montaigne's contem-

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298 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

poraries,could seem tenuous. The connectingthreadis providedby Montaigne's

realizationof such incongruousvarietyand his correspondingattemptat marking
out a personalterritoryagainst the backgroundformed by the clashing of these
"innumerableforms."
The equivalentpassage in "Of Cannibals," also strategicallyplaced at the
beginning of the essay, allows for a more direct link between the discovery of
new lands, the ironic-criticalstance vis-a-vis the very concretediscoverers/colonizers, and the more abstractimpossibility of knowing; after mentioning the
"boundlessterritory"where Villegaignon, the Frenchexplorerlanded(Brazil, in
1557), Montaignewrites: "I am afraidwe have eyes bigger than our stomachs,
and more curiosity than capacity. We embrace everything but we clasp only
wind" (p. 15). Montaigne'sdigestive metaphorscan be appliedto either the colonial project or the underlyingepistemological one; on one level, political indictment:what are we doing out there? On the other, philosophical considerations:do we really thinkthat we can ever really know?
In short, the world has opened up. And Montaignehas no groundto stand
on. His doubt, his questioning, now center upon an alternative,a means of continuingafterseeing the initial breach:
Whatthenwillphilosophy
tellusin thisourneed?Tofollowthelawsof ourcountrythatis to say, theundulating
sea of theopinionsof a peopleor a prince,whichwill
paintmejusticein as manycolors,andrefashionit intoas manyfacesas thereare
changesof passionin thosemen?I cannothavemy judgmentso flexible.["Apology," p. 437]
Montaigneaffirmshere his inabilityto remainwithoutcertainty;but his relationsto the exotic can only be delineatedwithina flexible structure.He "cannot
have [his] judgment so flexible," but neither can he accept as firmly grounded
laws, customs, even so-called scientificsystems he knows to be relative. He cannot remainensconced in his own society, a firmly containedidentity within the
Centerbut neitherwill he completely shed the attributesof what he (afterall) is.
Montaignewill not go "out there," to the Peripheryand become the cannibal.
Instead,he "nomadizes." He writes his Essays as a means of remaining, while
simultaneouslylooking to the outside: Odysseus securely tied to the mast of the
ship, listening to the sirens' song. Thus the Essays in general, and the representationof the exotic in particular,are a projectof containment,an attemptatfixing:
Likea runawayhorse,it [hismind]givesitselfa hundredtimesmoretroublethanit
tookforothers,andgivesbirthto so manychimerasandfantasticmonsters,oneafter
theirineptitudeand
another,withoutorderor purpose,thatin orderto contemplate
at my pleasure,I havebegunto putthemin writing,hopingin timeto
strangeness
makemy mindashamedof itself. ["OfIdleness,"p. 21]
In other words, Montaigne attempts to "make sense." For the Self firmly
groundedin its (assumed)centralityand validity, the outcome of such an attempt
is usually synonymouswith an incorporationof any extreme, peripheral,or oth-

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 299

erwise recalcitrant,in a word, "exotic" data into The paradigm,one's own; or,
when the new data are really too recalcitrant,with an extensionof The paradigm
in orderto accommodatethe added data. In any case, the perceived difference
ends up being denied or, to use one of Montaigne'smetaphors,digested.
The representationsof such a difference, as a result, appearsonly within the
confines of a rigid and imposed framework.The centralSelf elaboratesa picture
of the Otherif not in his own image, at least accordingto his own image; and this
is the representationof the perceiveddifferencethatappearsas the Other'sreality
(cf. Crapanzano1980:introduction).There is no possibility of a negotiatedrelation withinthe representationwhich becomes a system closed uponitself. Further,
the textualrepresentationappearsas the manifestationof an entireculture, rather
thanthe utteranceof an individual;what is exotic is resorbedand disappearswithout a vast, centraltaxonomy where differencesbecome mere variationsor aberrationsof a given, authentic,all-powerfuloriginal.
In "Of Cannibals"and "Of Coaches" this is not the case: Montaigne'sstarting point is different. He is not the emissary of a system obliteratingdifferences
throughincorporation,but in the process of negotiatingwhat constituteshis Self;
as he says: "It is myself thatI portray"throughthe very act of writingthe Essays.
The exotic is not incorporatedby a predefined,prelegitimizedstructure,but becomes partof the definingprocess itself. As we have seen, Montaigneapproaches
the exotic alreadyknowing-and reaffirmingin the two essays-that any taxonomy is bound to be relative. But he "cannot have [his] judgment so flexible."
This is yet anothertension inherentin the two essays.
Montaigne continually attemptsto resolve this tension. He hovers, struggling not to "allow his armorto be pierced." The image of the exotic shifts accordinglyin the two essays: a discovered, accepted, affirmed,celebrateddifference of which he partakes,but also the means to illustrateor allude to systems
and concepts that are alreadybeyond this difference and tend to reinscribeMontaigne within his own culture.
Ultimately, however, the prominentpresence of Montaigneeverywhere in
the Essays, above and beyond all systems, consistently underminesthe incorporationof the exotic into any system-Montaigne's Essays as yet one more central
text where the exotic would disappearinto a single, vast taxonomy-by turning
Montaigne'stext into the relationof an individualto the exotic, ratherthan that
of an incorporatingsystem to a peripheraldifference.
Antiquity
As we have seen, the exotic is both catalystand illustrationof what has been
referredto as Montaigne's discovery of the relativity of knowledge, "insistent
variety," etc. In that network, the exotic is incorporatedinsofar as it is used as
an example, but remainsintactinsofar as it is presentedas an irreducibleand acknowledgeddifference.
A similar play occurs in the network of Antiquity as it appearsin the two
essays. Once again, Montaigneremainspoised in the Center,now simultaneously

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300 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

looking to the exotic and the Ancients, each informed by the other, both representing, one in time, one in space, an ideal(ized) out there and back then. This
link between the exotic and the Ancients is, to a great extent, a generalized one
in the Renaissance. First, because of a chronological telescoping symptomatic of
the period: the empires of Antiquity were seen as "almost contemporaneous"
(Hodgen 1971) with Renaissance Europe.7 Second, because these empires became the paradigms from which to view contemporary differences, the exotic cultures brought within the reach of Europe by the voyages of discovery: "Renaissance studies of Classical Antiquity not only stimulated a general interest in differences among men, they also provided models for such differences" (Rowe
1965:1).
Thus, in "Of Cannibals" and "Of Coaches" the exotic often appears only
through the prism of Antiquity because, at one level, that is the model available
to Montaigne. The first paragraph of "Of Cannibals" does not mention the cannibals but introduces the difference between the contemporary Center and the exotics by way of the "Barbarian" topos of Antiquity:
When King Pyrrhuspassed over into Italy, after he had reconnoiteredformationof
the army that the Romans were sending to meet him, he said: "I do not know what
barbariansthese are" (for so the Greekscalled all foreignnations), "but the formation
of this armythat I see is not at all barbarous."The Greeks said as much of the army
thatFlaminiusbroughtinto their country, and so did Philip, seeing from a knoll the
orderand distributionof the Roman camp, in his kingdom underPublius Sulpicius
Galba. Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by
reason's way, not by popularsay. [p. 150]
The reference to Antiquity, thus placed at the very beginning of the essay, and
introducing its thesis ("we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions," etc.)
appears as a validation of the points Montaigne is about to make about the cannibals.
In the two paragraphs immediately following this introductory one, Montaigne attempts twice to make the newly discovered land coincide with Antiquity,
to make of it a piece detached and having drifted from ancient lands:
Platobringsin Solon, telling how he had learnedfrom the priestsof Sais in Egypt that
in days of old, before the Flood, there was a great island named Atlantis. . . . But
there is no great likelihood that that island was the new world which we have just
discovered;for it almosttouchedSpain, and it would be an incredibleresultof a flood
to have forced it away as far as it is, more thantwelve hundredleagues. [p. 150]
The other testimony of Antiquity, with which some would connect this discovery is
in Aristotle, at least if that little book Of Unheard-ofWondersis by him. He there
relatesthat certainCarthaginians,after setting out upon the AtlanticOcean from the
Straitof Gibraltarand sailing a long time, at last discovereda greatfertile island ....
This story of Aristotledoes not fit our new lands any betterthanthe other. [p. 151]
The procedure is the same in both attempts: to introduce a real link, genetic or
geographical (Brazil as a "piece" of Antiquity having "drifted" from the whole,

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 301

or the Tupinambasas descendantsof the Greeks) between Antiquityand the exotic, to explore the parallelat length, only to finally point out the impracticality
of such a link. In spite of the two concluding denials, however, Montaigne
reacheshis (unavowed)aim: the possibility of a physical connectionbetween the
Ancientsand the exotics, even if only because it has been extensively alludedto,
reverberatesthroughoutthe essay.
To the end of "Of Cannibals"Montaignecontinuesto referto this possibilto
elaborate this validation of the Tupinambas through what sometimes
ity,
amountsto an enumerationof the similarities between their world and GrecoRomancivilization. This is perhapswhere the exotic becomes a mere palimpsest,
only appearingat the points where it coincides with Antiquity. After quoting a
Tupinambasong at the end of "Of Cannibals," Montaignewrites: "Not only is
therenothingbarbarousin this fancy, but it is altogetherAnacreontic.Their language, moreover, is a soft language, with an agreeable sound, somewhat like
Greekin its endings" (p. 158).
Montaignestrainsto establishconnectionsthat, physically, do not exist. Ultimatelyhis desire/nostalgiafor an exotics/Ancients equivalency leads to a configurationthat includes the exotic, Antiquity, and Nature, but excludes his contemporaries.In "Of Cannibals":
I amsorrythatLycurgusandPlatodidnotknowof them;forit seemsto methatwhat
we actuallysee in these nationssurpassesnot only all the picturesin which poets have
idealized the golden age and all their inventions in imagining a happy state of man,
butalso the conceptionsandthe very desire of philosophy. I am sometimesvexed that
they were unknownearlier, in the days when therewere men able to judge them better
thanwe. [p. 153]
In "Of Coaches":
Why did not such a noble conquest fall to Alexanderor to those ancient Greeks and
Romans?Why did not such a great change and alterationof so many empires and
peoples fall into handsthatwould have strengthenedand fosteredthe good seeds that
naturehas producedin them, not only adding to the cultivationof the earth and the
adornmentof cities the artof our side of the ocean, in so far as they would have been
necessary, but also adding the Greek and Roman virtues to those originally in that
region?[p. 695]
Although approximately half of "Of Coaches" consists of a sardonic and

vigorousdenunciationof the Europeanconquestof Centraland SouthAmerica"So manycities razed, so many nationsexterminated,so manymillions of people
putto the sword, andthe richestandmost beautifulpartof the worldturnedupside
down, for the traffic in pearls and pepper!" (p. 695)-here Montaigne, carried
away by his admirationof the Greeks and Romans, does not direct his invective
at the colonial projectper se, but againsta particular(contemporary)set of "participants."
The attractionof what appearsto him as an ideal combinationis too great.
In a meeting of the contemporaryexotics and the Ancients, Montaigne sees the

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302 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

possibilityof perfectionitself. The (imagined)Golden Age and the (lost) Garden

of Eden would merge in the exotic landscape, assemblingthe basic propertiesof
both:innocence, health, communitas,beauty, abundance.In Montaigne'sterms,
a meeting of Natureand Reason, the "very desire of philosophy," the ultimate
equilibriumthat would provide a stability out of Heracliteandrift, out of the
branle he perceives, accepts, but in which he nevertheless attemptsto achieve
happiness.
There is no systematic presentationof a utopia in Montaigne's work, of a
time and place where everything would be perfect all at once, only a repeated
regret;in this case, thatthe Tupinambas,the Incas, and the Aztecs were "discovered" by the wrong people, his contemporaries.For Montaigne these contemporariescannot constitute a base from which to evaluate the new civilizations
openedup by exploration.Antiquitythus becomes the vital point of reference;to
a certainextent, the exotic is valid, is perceived even, only insofar as it can be
comparedto thatideal model, even if sometimes it supersedesthatmodel, at least
accordingto Montaigne:
As for pompandmagnificence,wherebyI enteredthis subject,neitherGreecenor
RomenorEgyptcancompare,whetherin utilityordifficultyornobility,withtheroad
whichis seenin Peru,laidoutby thekingsof thecountry,fromthecity of Quitoas
faras Cuzco(a distanceof threehundredleagues).[p. 698]
This is the point at which the exotic is no longer the aspiringelement in a
comparativeequation("almost as good as," "as good as"), and becomes a reality to be reckonedwith ("the best"), even accordingto the Center's criteria. It
has surpassedthe "civilized" traditionas exemplifiedby both its most perfected
avatar(the Greco-Romanworld) and, it goes without saying for Montaigne, the
degradedexample representedby his own society, a society that is barely fit to
judge these achievements,and in fact only able to do so by comparingthe exotic
to Antiquity,not to itself.8
However, even thoughthe exotic world displays the ability to producesuch
works, this is not, in Montaigne'stext, what intrinsicallycharacterizesit and radically divides it from his own civilization. Rather, in "Of Cannibals" and "Of
Coaches," the exotic is placed most consistentlyunderthe sign of Nature.
Nature
Here we encounter another of the fundamental tensions in Montaigne's Essays: the play between "Nature" and "Art." The road from Quito to Cuzco re-

ferredto in "Of Coaches" is a productionof the latter, but only appearsin the
exotic territory as a manifestation of the former:
Nature, to show that there is nothing barbarousin what is underher guidance, often
brings forth, in the nations least cultivated by art, productionsof the mind that vie
with the most artisticproductions.["Of Coaches," p. 100]

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 303

The dismantlingof the Civilized/Barbarianbipolarity,alreadyeffected in the very

firstparagraphof "Of Cannibals," continueshere. Montaigneis also perversely
attemptingto play both sides of the board:praisingthe exotic world's capacityfor
matchingand even surpassingthe "civilized wonders" of Antiquity, but simultaneouslypointingto Natureas the provenanceof these productions.It is as if the
road from Quito to Cuzco were a mark of independentand omnipotentorigin,
ratherthan the systematic affirmationof a specific people's talent, strength,and
will.
The roadto Cuzco appearsto be as independentof those who producedit as
are the evidences of the Christianfaith-objects and ritualsperceived as such by
Montaigne-scattered, as it were, in the exotic landscapelike so many signs of
revealed, but apparentlyunacknowledgedreligion. The absence of a consciousness that would perceive these signs the way Montaigneperceives them creates
(for him) a rupturebetween phenomenaand unknowingsubject. In Montaigne's
eyes, the two coexist side by side, but something is missing: the Indiansdo not
seem to see the true significance of their rituals and objects because these, like
the road to Cuzco, are manifestationsof something that, like Nature, rules their
lives, but is beyond them:
I haveoftenmarveledto see, at a verygreatdistancein timeandspace,the coincidencesbetweena greatnumberof fabulouspopularopinionsandsavagecustomsand
beliefswhichdo not seem fromany angleto be connectedwith our naturalreason .... For nationswere found there thatnever, so far as we know, had heardanything about us, where circumcision was in credit . . . where our fasts and our Lent
were represented... where our crosses were in credit in various ways .... These

emptyshadowsof ourreligionthatareseenin someof theseexamplestestifyto its

itselfto someextentnotonlyintoalltheinfidel
dignityanddivinity.It hasinsinuated
nationson thissideof theworldby somesortof imitation,butalsointothesebarbarousonesas by commonandsupernatural
["Apology,"p. 433]
inspiration.
The theological parallels are not fortuitous. Indeed, trustingin Nature and
relinquishing"Art" for what is "natural" is not only, accordingto Montaigne,
the best way to live, but also-this is essentially his argumentin the "Apologie
de RaimondSebond" where he posits fideism against "Art" and "Reason"the meansto achieve truereligion. Althoughthey do not know the Christianfaith,
the cannibalsare an example of why "it is not reasonablethatArt should win the
place of honorover our greatand powerful motherNature" ("Of Cannibals," p.
152), as it has in his own civilization.
On a more concrete and physical level for Montaigne(who began to suffer
from gallstones at the age of 45 and did so until his death), the "etat de Nature"
is synonymouswith Health. The cannibals"live in a countrywith a very pleasant
andtemperateclimate, so thataccordingto my witness it is rareto see a sick man
there; and they have assured me that they never saw one palsied, bleary-eyed,
toothless, or bent with age ("Of Cannibals," p. 153). Health is one of the most
intimateconnectionsbetween Montaigneand the cannibals,just as, for him, it is
one of the concrete manifestationsof Nature. His relation to his own sensuous
self, to his body, and to diseases constitutesone of the most direct channels be-

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304 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
tween himself and the exotic, that is, the least informed by any desire to illustrate,
to systematize, to convey to the Center.
Here again, the exotic and the Ancients meet, this time under the banner of
what we could call a natural stoicism or an artless therapeutics:
I agreewith Crantor,thatwe must neitherobstinatelyandheedlessly oppose evils nor
weakly succumbto them, butgive way to themnaturally,accordingto theircondition
andour own. We shouldgive free passage to diseases; and I findthatthey do not stay
so long with me, who let them go ahead;and some of those that are consideredthe
most stubbornand tenacious, I have shakenoff by theirown decadence, withouthelp
and withoutart, and againstthe rules of medicine. Let us give Naturea chance; she
knows her business betterthan we do. ... I have allowed colds, gouty discharges,
looseness, palpitationsof the heart, migrainesand other ailmentto grow old and die
a naturaldeath within me. ["Of Experience," pp. 835-838; emphasisadded]
Health, as the absence of pain and suffering, is also a kind of stability in the midst
of le branle. Although Montaigne points out the relativity of a number of concepts
and customs ranging from beauty and cruelty to dress codes and justice, nowhere
does he ever subject "health" to such a procedure; to him it is one of the "givens," solid, if restrained, territory out of the flux, just as the exotic territory represents a stable dimension, away from the vicissitudes and "diseases," both figurative and literal, of his own time and place-religious intolerance, war, torture,
extreme economic disparity, famine, epidemics.
At one point in the "Apology," the concept of health is widened to include
the mental and the metaphysical; here, the "you must become like the little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" of the New Testament, becomes "you
must become like the animals to 'be guided' ":
Do you wanta manto be healthy, do you wanthim disciplinedandfirmlyand securely
poised? Wraphim in darkness,idleness and dullness. We must become like the animals in orderto become wise, and be blindedin orderto be guided. [p. 363]
Further, the analogy between the Tupinambas and animals qua healthy
beings is made explicit: both inhabit a world characterized by the absence of
everything that, in Montaigne's world, causes the mind to be "unhealthy," and
leads to madness:
The animalsshow us well enough how manymaladiesthe agitationof the mindbrings
us. Whatthey tell us of the Brazilians,thatthey died only of old age, which is attributed to the serenity and tranquilityof the air, I attributeratherto the tranquilityand
serenityof theirsouls, unburdenedwith any tense or unpleasantpassion or thoughtor
occupation, as people who spent their life in admirablesimplicity and ignorance,
withoutletters, withoutlaw, withoutking, withoutreligion of any kind. [p. 352]
Mens sana in corpore sano. The Roman ideal is transferred to the exotic by
a student of Antiquity. In "Of Cannibals" the negative enumeration is even more
systematically detailed:

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MONTAIGNE
ANDTHECANNIBALS 305
This is a nation,I shouldsay to Plato, in which thereis no sortof traffic,no knowledge
of letters, no science of numbers,no name for a magistrateor for political superiority,
no custom of servitude, no riches or poverty, no contracts,no successions, no partitions, no occupations but leisure ones, no care for any but common kinship, no
clothes, no agriculture,no metal, no use of wine or wheat. [p. 152]
The approach is comparative9 ("what they don't have" and-implied"what we have"), but the comparison is not made by one who sees these absences
as defects or abberations,'0 but by Montaigne to whom the lack is perceived on a
positive mode. Montaigne breaks here with a tradition that has its roots in Antiquity. He abstains from the "scholastic epitomizations" (Hodgen 1971) of the
Middle Ages and of his own time. He refrains from the borrowing of "interesting
facts," of the "grotesque," and their free transfer from one culture to another, a
common practice in Antiquity:
In discussingbarbarians,men felt free to transferan interestingstatementor a peculiar
custom from one people to another. Thus, statementsmade by Greek writers about
Scythian customs were applied by Tacitus to the Germans. Evidently, differences
amongbarbarianswere not consideredimportantenough to requireaccuratereporting
by historiansand encyclopaedist. The result was the developmentof a series of ethnographiccommonplacessuch as that barbariansuse neither images nor temples in
theirworship;thatthey live by war and pillage; that they do not appreciatethe value
of preciousmetals;and so forth. [Rowe 1965:6]
This transferring of "ethnographic commonplace" from one culture to another by the authors of Antiquity mentioned by Rowe is tantamount to a disappearance of the barbarian in a web of textual cross-referencing. Since, in this
configuration, the exotic is confined to the illustration of Center-originated and
Center-validating systems, it can never appear as a desirable or viable alternative.
In this type of relation, the differences between the periphery and the Center (the
barbarianand the omphalos) can only appear on a negative mode. In Montaigne's
text they appear as positive absences. The "absence" of laws in Brazil in the mid16th century is not "savagery" but one more manifestation of the (beneficent)
power of Nature:
Naturealways gives us happierlaws thanthose we give ourselves. Witness the picture
of the Golden Age of the poets, and the state in which we see nationslive which have
no laws. . . . King Ferdinand,when he sent colonists to the Indies, wisely provided
that no student of jurisprudenceshould accompany them, for fear that suits might
breed in this new world, this being by nature a science generatingaltercationand
division;judging, with Plato, thatlawyers and doctorsare a bad provisionfor a country. ["Of Experience," p. 816]
Even the "civilizing power" of Montaigne's world is negated here: not only are
laws "absent" from the exotic territory, but the possibility of taking them to that
realm is perceived as a negative enterprise. The tables have been turned.

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306 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
The very idea of stable laws contradicts an essential aspect of Montaigne's
philosophy, what he calls "this mobility of mine" ("Apologie," p. 42). Immutable laws endlessly proliferating and dogmatically enforced run counter to his
perception of reality as branle:
Thereis little relationbetween our actions, which arein perpetualmutation,andfixed
and immutablelaws. The most desirablelaws are those that are rarest,simplest, and
most general and I even think that would be betterto have none at all than to have
them in such numbersas we have. ["Of Experience," p. 816]
Here again the exotic appears as a viable alternative: what appears to Montaigne
as the absence of laws among the Tupinambas is deemed more desirable than their
proliferation in the Center. Laws, as they function in his world, are equivalent to
what is not in Nature, what creates "useless tensions," disturbs the "tranquility
and serenity of the soul," what renders mad.
Of course, in spite of what in his time is an unusual effort at gathering precise
information and restraining from sweeping generalizations, Montaigne cannot reexotic.
frain from idealizing-V.
S. Naipaul would say "romanticizing"-the
What Montaigne perceives as the simplicity and even absence of laws among the
Tupinambas is not only the actualization of a dissatisfied philosopher's wishful
thinking, but the very real lack of recorded information on the exotic that characterizes his time. The world opened up by the "Age of Exploration and Discovery" is "turned upside down" by soldiers, merchants, and priests, but not yet
striated by ethnographers.
Montaigne's perception of Tupinamba sexuality is an example of this idealization (with an admixture of wishful thinking):
The men here have several wives, and the highertheir reputationfor valor, the more
wives they have. It is a remarkablybeautifulthing abouttheirmarriagethatthe same
jealousy our wives have to keep us from the affection and kindness of other women,
theirshave to win this for them. ["Of Cannibals," p. 158]
The infrastructure of Montaigne's time has not yet developed the tools that, even
considering their own informed status, would have made the following a possible
reply to his text:
It turns out that in Mehinakuculture female sexuality poses a grave psychological
threatto males and all majorinstitutionsdepend on rigid gender segregation. Males
jealousy guardtheir prerogatives,threateninggang rape for women unlucky enough
to see or touch objects used in male rituals. And even though the Mehinakuhave a
sophisticatedknowledge of the genitalia, female orgasm appearsto be unknown to
them. [Paul 1985:1;review of Gregor(1985)]
Montaigne easily accommodates what he personally approves of within a
positive view of the exotic. But even those elements which he denounces in his
own society are somewhat redeemed among the Tupinambas because, there, they
are ruled by Nature. The most representative of these is war:
Their warfareis wholly noble and generous, and as excusable and beautiful as this
humandisease can be; its only basis among them is their rivalryin valor .... They

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MONTAIGNE
ANDTHECANNIBALS
307
arestill in thathappystateof desiringonly as muchas theirnaturalneedsdemand;
to them.["OfCannibals,"p. 156]
anythingbeyondthatis superfluous
War is redeemedbecause, there, it deviates from its usual aims: it is no longer
broughtaboutby the desire to acquireadditionalwealth, territory,andpower, but
informedby that most representativeattributeof Antiquity, valor. Montaigne is
"astonishedat what firmnessthey [the Tupinambas]show in theircombatswhich
neverend but in slaughterandbloodshed" ("Of Cannibals," p. 155) and "would
not fear to oppose the examples [he] could find to the most famous ancient examples" ("Of Coaches," p. 694). Once again the reference to the Ancients is
broughtin to validatethe exotic; butthis repeatedintrusionof Antiquityinto Montaigne'stext on contemporarycannibalsremainssecondary.The ultimatepoint of
referenceis Nature;Antiquityis added as a rhetoricaldevice which appearsin the
text not only as a resultof the deep affinityMontaignefeels with the Greco-Roman
world, but as a meansof persuadingreadersfor whom the GreekandRomanepitomized the achievementsof their own tradition.
Cannibalism
Cannibalism,as Transgressionand Difference incarnate,is inscribedwithin
this play between Natureand Antiquity. After a straightforwardand lapidaryaccountof the killing andeatingof an enemy by the Tupinambas,Montaignewrites:
"This is not, as people think, for nourishment . . . it is betoken of an extreme

revenge" ("Of Cannibals," p. 155). Cannibalism, like war, is divested of its

utilitarianend, and, as a result, is detachedfrom a delimited context in which it
would appearas negative or aberrant.Epistemologically,the concept is no longer
rootedto solid groundwhere it acquiresmeaningonce and for all (precisely what
Montaignehas againstlaws), butbecomes loosely connectedto a shiftingnetwork
of positions in which it appearsdifferently according to given arrangementsat
given coordinatesin time and place.
However, Montaignedoes not stop there. Showing his contemporariesthat
cannibalismis practiced(even if not for the purposeof nourishment)in the exotic
realmcould be redundantstrategy:a Centerthatjudges exclusively accordingto
its own standards(this is how it acquiresits "centrality" in the firstplace) is not
moved by "examples" from elsewhere, but remainsfirmly groundedin its own
certainty.At this point Montaigne introducesthe rhetoricalfigure of Antiquity;
relocatingthe "aberrance"of the Other in the traditionof the Same, he can at
least hope to provokedoubt, to administera certaindose of skepticism:
andZeno, headsof the Stoic sect, thoughttherewas nothing
Indeed,Chrysippus
wrongin usingourcarcassesforanypurposein caseof need,andgettingnourishment
fromthem;justas ourancestors,whenbesiegedby Caesarin the city of Alesia,resolvedto relievetheirfamineby eatingoldmen,women,andotherpeopleuselessfor
fighting.["OfCannibals,"p. 155]
Thereis nothingso horribleto imagineas eatingone'sfather.Thenationswhichhad
thiscustomin ancienttimes, however,regardedit as testimonyof pietyandgood

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308 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
affection, trying therebyto give theirprogenitorsthe most worthyand honorablesepulture,lodging in themselves as it were in their marrowthe bodies of their fathers
and theirremains, bringingthem to life in a way and regeneratingthem by transmutationinto theirliving flesh by meansof digestionandnourishment.It is easy to imagine whata crueltyand abominationit would have been, to men saturatedand imbued
with this superstitionto abandonthe mortalremainsof theirparentsto the corruption
of the earthand to let it become food of the beasts and worms. ["Apologie," p. 438]
The "aberrant" is defused. At the very least, it is introduced into a network where
it appears as a factor that must be confronted rather than relegated to the isolation
(and safety) of "what is not me." Montaigne thus forces the Center to relinquish
its own elaboration as Center through the tracing of limits that designate, in a
Hegelian mode, the Exterior.
Montaigne continues the demolition with the introduction of Nature as a uniformizing structure that eliminates all claims to centrality. All other points of reference disappear; all taxonomies become the elements of an even larger, more
generic taxonomy that determines the "positivity" or "negativity" of concepts
and customs according to their simple occurrence rather than their origin. In other
words, for Montaigne, anything that exists, no matter how rare, no matter how
unique, is part of Nature; five-legged sheep as well as kiwi-eating city dwellers,
and cannibals.
Having thus displaced the point of reference, Montaigne compares the Center to the exotic once again:
These people are wild, just as we call wild the fruits that natureproducedby herself
and in her normalcourse; whereas it is really those that we have changed artificially
and led astrayfrom the common order that we should rathercall wild. The former
retainalive andvigoroustheirgenuine, theirmost useful and naturalvirtuesandproperties, which we have debasedin the latterin adaptingto gratifyour corruptedtaste.
["Of Cannibals," p. 152]
In this instance, the dismantling of the Center as paradigm of reference is
extended to language. Montaigne does not propose to eliminate "wild" as a "signifier" but to reexamine its "signified." Although, his examination of language
is never a radical and systematic questioning, he nevertheless obliquely, almost
inadvertently discerns the wider implications of language that have become so
widespread today.
Montaigne is aware of the possibilities offered by what we would call the
"arbitrary nature of language" (what he might have called "rhetoric" or "sophistry"): "People are prone to apply the meaning of other men's writings to suit
opinions that they have previously determined in their minds" ("Apologie," p.
327). This is why he proposes the use of a "common language" ("Of Experience," p. 816) following the example of Socrates "who makes his soul move
with a natural and common motion. . . . His mouth full of nothing but carters,
joiners, cobblers, and masons" ("Of Physiognomy," p. 793).
However, Montaigne's reassessment of his world's assumptions remains
fundamentally a decentering of its points of view through the use of the exotic,

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MONTAIGNEAND THE CANNIBALS 309

Antiquity,andNatureas alternatepoints of reference,ratherthana reexamination

of its linguistic postulates:" "Truly here are real savages by our standard;for
eitherthey mustbe thoroughlyso, or we mustbe; for thereis an amazingdistance
between their characterand ours" ("Of Cannibals," p. 158). His irony, which
we find again in the last line of "Of Cannibals"-"All this is not too bad but
what's the use? They don't even wear breeches!" (p. 159)-distances him from
the "we" and the "our" that seem to include him in the Center.
Nothing like Home?
This distancingleads us back to the question: where should Montaigne be
placed in his relationto the exotic? He has apparentlyeliminatedany possibility
of remainingfixed within his own culture's points of reference by pointing out
their relative status, while his own contact with the exotic consists of his readings,'2 the account of an informant, "a simple, crude fellow-a characterfit to
bearwitness" ("Of Cannibals," p. 151), the objects he keeps in his house,13and
his own encounterwith three of the Tupinambasat Rouen in 1562. These congeries of channels connecting him to the exotic do not constituteanotherworld
that would replace Montaigne's, providing him with a way out of the Center, a
meansof "mergingwith the Other";rather,they constitutethe basis of a relation
in which neitherone nor the other disappears.Montaignedoes not "go native,"
and the Tupinambas,the Incas, and the Aztecs do not merge as undifferentiated
elementsof a textual web solely destined for consumptionby the Center.
The Centeras receptorof Montaigne'stext cannotbe occulted;the Essays is
also the productof a given culture,circulatingwithinthatculture-the "Apologie
de RaimondSebond," for example, is addressedto Margarettede Valois, daughter of HenriII and Catherinede Medici, and wife of Henride Navarre,the future
HenriIV of France;the Essays is a concrete productof a specific infrastructure
thatalso generatesimprovementsin ship-borneartillery;the Essays is also a certain numberof editions, of volumes printed, sold and read within his world, and
leading to the productionof more text, etc.-but Montaignesimultaneouslyundoes his own incorporationwithin his world throughthe same move that undermines the absorptionof the exotic by a SingularParadigm:he inscribes his text
withinthe privatesphereof self-elaboration.This double move of presenting and
withdrawingis explicitly made even before the Essays actually begin, in the
"Avis au Lecteur" ("To the Reader"): "Thus reader,I am myself the matterof
my book; you would be unreasonableto spend your leisure on so frivolous and
vain a subject. So farewell" (p. 2). In the same paragraph,while thus dismissing
the audience (Home), Montaigne maintains a connection to the exotic, what
Michel Beaujourrefers to as Montaigne's ability to "se menagerune sauvagerie
et se reserverune jouissance" (1980:220). The exotic, as what is "natural" and
"without artifice," coincides with Montaigne's project of total self-portraiture
and disengageshis text from his world as unique and ultimatepoint of reference:
If I had writtento seek the world's favor, I should have bedecked myself better, and

I shouldpresentmyselfin a studiedposture.I wantto be seen herein my simple,

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310 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
natural,ordinaryfashion, without strainingor artifice; for it is myself that I portray. . . . Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the
sweet freedomof nature'sfirstlaws, I assureyou I should have portrayedmyself entire and wholly naked.
Taken to its limits, it would seem that Montaigne's strategy should result in
total revelation, in complete nakedness; but he recognizes his own position and,
instead of severing all lines of communication, continuously nomadizes within
the limits of a world that is given. Whether he acknowledges it or not, or attempts
to refute it, the act of writing his text, the representation itself of what could have
remained the heterogeneous fragments of a privately lived experience (his brief
meeting with the three Tupinambas) or a privately acquired one (his readings, his
recording of an "informant's" account, his collection of objects), the act of writing his text constitutes a strong link to his culture.
The idea of a last stop, of a stability, has no place in Montaigne's scheme.
It is as means and not as objective, as flux rather than state, that the exotic plays
its vital role in his self-elaboration. He does not become the exotic, but he is involved with that Other in a dynamic, dialogical relation'4 that is both subversive
and contained. The exotic provides the means to remain inside while looking from
the outside:
This great world, which some multiplyfurtheras being only a species underone genus, is the mirrorin which we must look at ourselves to recognize ourselves from the
properangle. In short, I want it to be the book of my student.So many humors,sects,
judgments, opinions, laws, and customs teach us to judge sanely of our own, and
teachourjudgmentto recognize its own imperfectionand naturalweakness, which is
no small lesson. ["Of the Educationof Children," p. 11]
Montaigne remains, but looks to the outside. The cannibal is cannibalized,
but not digested.
Notes
'Rabelaisdoes mention "diverses marchandisesexoticques et p6r6grines"in Pantagruel
(1955 [1548]), the firstrecordeduse of the word in a moder Europeanlanguage, but "exoticism" does not become an identifiabletrend(tendance) in France, or elsewhere, until
the 18thcentury,while the word itself does not appearin the Littreuntil 1866.
2Iborrowthe term from Samir Amin, an Egyptianeconomist who coined it in the 1970s
(1976). This coinage is meantto reflectthe respectivedominantand subservientpositions
of the West andthe "ThirdWorld" (anothertermcoined by an economist) in an economic
configurationin which the conceptualizationand manufacturingof products (especially
software)is localized in a specific and restrainedarea, while the rest of the world-the
periphery-essentially producesand consumes hardware,mimics, far from the true locus
of production,far from the center.
3Allreferencesto Montaigne'sEssais are to TheCompleteEssays of Montaigne, translated
by Donald M. Frame.

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ANDTHECANNIBALS 311
MONTAIGNE
4Thisrelationto the exotic is more characteristicof the Middle Ages and the post-Enlightenment, periods during which the lack of informationor the refusal of information,respectively, producedeithera collective vision of the exotic as the fabulousor the menacing
(the MiddleAges) or an individualvision of the exotic as dreamlikefullness (Romanticism
and after).
5Montaigne'sworldview cannot be disassociatedfrom the technological base that makes
the very appearanceof these new lands possible. The combinationof an exploring/conquering/cataloguingimpulseandof this technologicalunderpinningis whatmakesthe concept "exotic" possible. Cf. Jean-FrancoisLyotard's analysis of this "impulse" in "Le
tenseur"section of EconomieLibidinale(1974).
6Inthe same chapterof L'Ecritureet la Difference ("Structure, Sign and Play") (1967)
Derridabegins by quoting Montaigne:"We need to interpretinterpretationsmore than to
interpretthings."
7Sincethe Old Testamentchronology, as interpretedby medievalandRenaissancethought,
usually allowed no more than six thousandyears both for the Creationand for the enactment of subsequenthistoricalperiods, an awarenessof greaterdistance was seldom present. Hence, the empiresof Antiquityto which Renaissancescholarshipgave unstintedadmirationwere thoughtof as almost contemporaneous,not as separatedfrom Renaissance
Europeby fifteen hundredor two thousandyears. When therefore, in the 16th and 17th
centuries,existing Mediterraneancultureswere chosen for description,theircharacteristics
were not ascertainedby independentcontemporaryinvestigation or reappraisal.On the
contrary,they were describedas thoughthese earlierempires were still in existence (Hodgen 1971:182).
8Thisis essentiallythe methodemployed by Las Casas to refuteJuanGines de Sepulvdda's
contentionthat the Indianswere semianimalswhose propertyand services could be commandeeredby the Spaniardsand againstwhom war could be justly waged. De Sepulv6da,
translatorof Aristotle, based his argumenton an "Aristoteliandoctrineof naturalslavery"
at Vallalolid, Mexico, in 1551. Las Casas advancedthe idea, which astonishedthe Spaniardsof his day, that the AmericanIndianscomparedvery favorablywith the peoples of
ancienttimes, were eminentlyrationalbeings, and in fact fulfilled every one of Aristotle's
requirementsfor the good life (L. Hanke 1974:55).
9Montaignehas no choice but to "speakfrom his own culture." If he is not "modem"
enoughto radicallyquestionthe validity of his own languageas a medium, he is nevertheless enough of a "precursor"to question the assumptionsof his own interpretations.
'?Thisis the stance adopted,for example, by Sepulv6daat Vallalolid:
Comparethen those blessings enjoyed by Spaniardsof prudence, genius, magnanimity,temperance,humanityandreligion with those of the homunculiin whom you will scarcely findeven
vestiges of humanity,who not only possess no science but who also lack lettersand preserveno
monumentof their history except certain vague and obscure reminiscences of some things in
certainpaintings. Neitherdo they have writtenlaws but barbaricinstitutionsand customs. They
do not even have privateproperty.[L. Hanke 1974:54]

"Montaigne'sultimatebelief in the possibility of an uninformedlanguage, of a language

withoutontology reinscribeshim within his own time, within a Renaissanceview of language, of language as part of Nature. Foucault here makes an allusion to one of Montaigne's favoritemetaphors,the world as book:

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312 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
In its raw, historicalsixteenthcenturybeing, languageis not an arbitrarysystem; it has been set
down in the worldand forms a partof it, both because things themselveshide and manifesttheir
own enigma like a language and because words offer themselves to men as things to be deci-

of thebookthatone opens,thatoneporesoverandreadsin order

phered.Thegreatmetaphor
toknownature,is merelythereverseandvisiblesideof another
anda muchdeeper
transference,
one, whichforceslanguageto residein theworld,amongtheplants,theherbs,thestones,and
the animals. [TheOrderof Things, 1970:35]

'2Hehad readthe books on the New World by Thevet, Lery, Benzoni, Gomara,and possibly Belleforest, whose work was in parta translationof Boemus and Muenster(Hodgen
1971:421).
'3 'Theremay be seen in severalplaces, includingmy own house, specimensof theirbeds,
of theirropes, of the wooden swords and the braceletswith which they cover their wrists
in combats, and the big canes, open at one end, by whose sound they keep time in their
dances" ("Of Cannibals," p. 15).
'Mikhail Bakhtin's "anthropologicalphilosophy" providesa similarmodel.

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