Thesis_4_History of Stereotypes_B
Monday, September 15th, 2008While continuing my research of stereotyping in the ancient world I ran into an essay titled: ‘These People are…Men Eaters’:
Banquets of the Anti-Associations and Perceptions of Minority Cultural Groups’, Philip A. Harland
in a book titled: “Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean: Jews, Christians and Others”,essays in honour of Stephen G. Wilson.
LINK to the essay.
Greco-Roman Era, how outlaw or foreign anti-associations were dealt with in writing.
“The quotation in the title is found on a map of inland Africa in William
Snelgrave’s travel report of 1734.”
Describing the Africans as cannibals on the map of Africa in this travel report was also common in antiquity of describing and characterizing the ‘OTHER’ people. People that were foreign, prayed to a different deity, or even at times political enemies and such.
This essay concentrates on fictional writings in the Greco-Roman era that uses a number of methods to characterize the seemingly threatening ‘other’ in their society.
Allegations of cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, incest and deviant sexual behavior were pointed at foreigners on a regular basis. These allegations were extreme and destructive in character and were intended on scaring the masses and estranging these foreign peoples.
Some sections in the essay describing the other:
a. ‘They ate and drank in utter disorder’
b. ‘They sacrificed a human being and partook of the flesh’
a. ‘Away…you who suck men’s blood’
b. ‘Come! Plunge the knife into the baby’: Judeans and Jesus-followers