English

Noun

anthropophagist ‎(plural anthropophagists)

1. (rare) A cannibal.
   • 1819, “On Anthropophagism”, in The London Medical and Physical Journal, volume 41, page 215:

     The want of food became so urgent, that flesh was torn from dead human bodies; children were strangled by their parents, for the purpose of feasting on their flesh; and bands of express anthropophagists traversed the whole country.

   • 1884, Albert Samuel Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians:

     The Atákapa of old were a well-made race of excellent hunters, but had, as their name indicates, the reputation of being anthropophagists (Cha'hta: hátak, hattak person, ápa to eat).

   • 2002, Iwan Bloch, Marquis de Sade: His Life and Works:

     The notorious anthropophagist, Blaize Ferrage, called Seyé, seemed to have served the Marquis as a model.

2. (Brazilian culture) A follower or representative of the Manifesto Antropófago of Oswald de Andrade, Brazilian poet; one who advocates a "cannibalistic" attitude towards the appropriation of European culture.
   • 1996, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarría, The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature:

     The anthropophagists were out to celebrate life. They rejected the oppressive theories of Freud and advocated a reality "sem complexos, sem loucura, sem prostituições" ("Manifesto antropófago", Revista de Antopofagia, I) ["without complexes, without madness, without prostitutions"].

   • 2012, Edwin Gentzler, Translation and Identity in the Americas:

     In his essay “Brazilian Anthropophagy Revisited,” Sérgio Bellei makes similar claims. He suggests that the anthropophagists have a kind of split consciousness, being aware of both the "superior" European culture and the material backwardness of their own culture; the "purpose" of the anthropophagists, according to Bellei, was to dissolve the borders between the two.

   • 2013, Bettina Papenburg, Carnal Aesthetics: Transgressive Imagery and Feminist Politics:

     Reversing the cultural cannibalism practiced by the colonisers, the anthropophagists, as de Andrade envisages them, adapt the strengths of European culture and 'incorporate [..] them into the native self'.

Related terms

• anthropophagistic
• anthropophagous
• anthropophagy