ChatGPT Takes Aboriginal Cannibalism off the Menu

Having obtained an under graduate degree in anthropology, I have always been fascinated with the Australian Aborigines. But after reading A.P. Elkin’s classic, Aboriginal Men of High Degree (1945), in particular on the indidence of cannibalism in many indigenous tribes, I was fascinated to learn more. There has already been some excellent material published in Quadrant by William D. Rubinstein (2021) and Geoffrey Partington (2008) as well as E.G. Heap in Queensland Heritage (1967). However, I quickly discovered that it was difficult to find more recently published material. And so, I turned to ChatGPT, from which I received the following brusque reply:

I realise that I am not the first to observe the ‘woke’ tendencies of the new AI as can be seen here. Nevertheless, I was still shocked to see how Orwellian the whole thing has become. For it has quickly become obvious that Aboriginal cannibalism is destined for the memory hole, never to be heard of again.

This subsequently set me on a path of further investigation to see what others had written on the topic. Undeterred, I purchased a copy of Daisy Bates’, The Passing of the Aborigines: A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia (Benedictine, 2009). Originally published in 1938, it offers a fascinating account of traditional indigenous practice, specifically in the outback of South Australia and the Northern Territory. Bates lived and worked with the indigenous peoples of Australia for over 30 years, claiming to have learnt over 120 of their dialects. Towards the end of her life, Bates was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to Aboriginal people.

Bates set up something of a secular indigenous community which provided practical assistance to tribes being forced out of their traditional lands. Towards the end of her book, though, Bates records the following exchange:

I often asked my natives why they did not return to their own waters.

‘No,’ they said, ‘we can’t go back, we would be stalked and killed by the relations of those we killed and ate on our way to Ooldea Water. We are safe here with you, but if we went back we would kill and eat our own people again, and when those whose brothers and fathers we killed and ate came to Yooldil Gabba, you’look out’ Kabbarli [the name they gave to Bates], and you don’t let them eat us or let us eat them and so we can all sit down with you, but in our own country we must kill and eat our kind…”

Bates’ book is peppered with similar anecdotes and observations. Bates herself witnessed multiple occasions when women gave birth and ate their own children, expressing their preference for what they called, “baby meat”.

Another book I came across is the two-volume work by Sir Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, The Arunta: a study of a stone age people (MacMillan, 1927). It is a masterful account and model of scientific enquiry. Towards the end of the second volume, there is a provocative section entitled, ‘Cannibalism’ which contained the following extended description:

There is very clear evidence, if traditions may be regarded as such, that during a former stage cannibalism was a well-recognised custom. We have already described certain ceremonies performed at the Engwura which can only be regarded as pointing back to the existence of a different state of affairs from that which now obtains. For example, in the Quabarra Ingwurninga inkinja[1], two men had their bodies decorated with circles of white down which were supposed to represent the skulls of slain and eaten men. The performers themselves represented the Ulthana or spirits of the dead men wandering about in search of those who had killed and eaten them. In another ceremony two Achilpa men were engaged in cooking the body of a third; in another, concerned with the white bat totem, one of the performers carried on his head an object representing a limp, dead body; and in the traditions dealing with the wanderings of the wild dogs, the men are continually referred to as killing and eating other wild dog men and women.

These ceremonies may be regarded as probably indicative of what took place in part times amongst the ancestors of the present Arunta tribe, and of what still takes place amongst the Luritcha tribe, by whom enemies are said to be eaten. Care is always taken at the present day, amongst the latter, to destroy the bones, as the natives believe that unless this is done the victims will arise from their coming together and will follow and harm those who have killed and eaten them. It is regarded as especially essential to destroy the skull—an existing belief which may be compared with the tradition referring to the early lizard men, whose head was not destroyed, and who therefore came to life again when his brother spoke to the head.

In the Luritcha tribe also young children are sometimes killed and eaten, and it is not an infrequent custom, when a child is in weak health, to kill a younger and healthy one and then to feed the weakling on its flesh, the idea being that this will give to the weak child the strength of the stronger one.

As usual in regard to customs such as this, it is by no means easy to find out exactly what takes place, as the natives of one part of the country will assure you that they do not indulge in the habit, but that they know that those of other parts do. When the accused are questioned, they in turn lay the same charge against their accusers, and so on, often from group to group.(494-495, Vol. 2)

I record all this not as a comprehensive analysis of the topic—there is clearly more work to do—but as an encouragement for people to continue to access and read the primary sources. Because if ChatGPT is anything to go by, then it is definitely not the neutral research many people assume. What’s more, it is this reluctance to tell the truth about traditional aboriginal practices though, why many people view colonisation as being an unmitigated evil when it often did something really quite different.

Mark Powell is Pastor and Teaching Elder at the Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Hobart

[1] A phrase meaning “bones arisen”.