This Horrid Practice

Front Cover
Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited, Aug 4, 2008 - History - 304 pages
'Though stronger evidence of this horrid practice prevailing among the inhabitants of this coast will scarcely be required, we have still stronger to give.' - Captain James Cook This Horrid Practice uncovers an unexplored taboo of New Zealand history - the widespread practice of cannibalism in pre-European Maori society. Until now, many historians have tried to avoid it and many Maori have considered it a subject best kept quiet about in public. Paul Moon brings together an impressive array of sources from a variety of disciplines to produce this frequently contentious but always stimulating exploration of how and why Maori ate other human beings, and why the practice shuddered to a halt just a few decades after the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand. The book includes a comprehensive survey of cannibalism practices among traditional Maori, carefully assessing the evidence and concluding it was widespread. Other chapters look at how explorers and missionaries saw the practice; the role of missionaries and Christianity in its end; and, in the final chapter, why there has been so much denial on the subject and why some academics still deny that it ever happened. This Horrid Practice promises to be one of the leading works of New Zealand history published in 2008. It is a highly original work that every New Zealand history enthusiast will want to own and read.
 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
Glossary
POPULAR CANNIBALISM
Footprints
A Modest Proposal
I Restrained My Resentment
Frightful Tales
Fe Fi Fo Fum
Just An Appetite?
Rage Against the Body
In the Blood
Emotional Insensitivity or Moral Transgression?
Ideological Cannibalism
The Autopsy
ABOLITION
Abolition Immediately

PORTRAITS OF MAORI CANNIBALISM
Standards of Evidence
The Oral Legacy
The Stuff of Legends
Cooks First Visit
A French Connection
A People Who Show So Much Friendship For Me
Thoughtful Encounters
The Experiment
Cannibal Cove
The Boyd
Hidden Rites
The Curtain Closes
In the Hands of Cannibals
Revival
The Archaeological Imprint
Case Closed
AN ANATOMY OF MAORI CANNIBALISM
The Cannibal and the Kumara
Deaths Permanent Aggression
Ordering Cannibalism
Unfinished Sublimation?
The Evolution of Symbolic Cannibalism in Maori Society
Shame
The Hope of Abolition
Official Participation
No New Performance
Success?
THE REVISIONIST APOSTASY
Who Are the Cannibals?
A Method in the Madness
Propaganda Cannibalism
The Cannibal Conspiracy
The Willingness to Disclose Cultural Traits
A South Pacific Allegory
Dual Standards of Evidence
Personal All Too Personal
PROOF POSITIVE
ENDNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copyright

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About the author (2008)

Dr Paul Moon is Professor of History at the Faculty of Maori Development, Auckland University of Technology, where he has taught since 1993. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master of Philosophy degree, a Master of Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy. In 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College, London. Moon is widely recognised for his study of the Treaty of Waitangi and the early period of Crown rule in New Zealand. Among his many published works, he has produced major biographies of political and Maori figures – including Governors William Hobson and Robert FitzRoy, and the Ngapuhi chief, Hone Heke – a trilogy of books covering New Zealand history from the 1820s to the 1840s, an examination of Maori cannibalism and a general history of New Zealand in the twentieth century.

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