==JAPAN: KM== [Culture]

Once an airplane carrying an American football team crashed down in some snow covered mountains. Those who were alive survived by eating their dead teammates. In comparison, one tribe in Africa eats humans, not to survive but for a certain ceremony. In our culture this behavior is generally regarded as the deed of a madman or uncivilized, savage person. Let me tell you a story based on films about one tribe in Africa that four American freelance writers took before they were killed by them.
One American reporter with some armed guides visited the tribe to locate four missing writers. In the village he saw the four Americans quickly, but all of them were dead. However, the people in the tribe weren't hostile but friendly. The reporter had no idea why or how the four writers were killed by them.
The reporter went back to his T.V. station with the film. The film proved that they had been killed. The four American freelance writers had had a camera, many weapons and an ambition. They wanted to film a fight between two tribes. But there was no war among the tribes, so they tried forcing one tribe to fight with another. But the tribe refused to do it . The writers wanted to take footage of fights in the film by all means, so they decided to injure some people of one tribe hoping that the injured would regard it as an attack by the other tribe. First, the four Americans burned all the houses of the tribe and killed their domestic animals. The writers filmed the fire joyfully, showing the inhabitants of the village watching close at hand with eyes full of anger, fear, and an intention of killing.
Next they shot children, the old men or women and filmed them dying. Lastly they set one old man on fire and killed him, saying that the old man had an infectious disease and was banished from his village. They continued to do savage things, not because of wanting to seize the land of the tribe, but only for filming the people in the middle of some disasters.
The people of the tribe, filled with anger, decided to catch and kill the four murderers. One of the four murderers was caught. Many young soldiers cut off his arms and legs and ate him. The other three murderers didn't escape, either. To my great surprise, they still filmed the situations. Of course, eventually all of the three were caught and eaten. What made them continue to film, and why did the tribe eat them?
The four Americans had an ambition to get a great prize for film making. For that purpose, they continued to film and were killed. They became lunatics and frightful murderers. On the other hand, the tribe had a habit of eating humans as a ceremony, but only when the tribe won a battle against a hostile enemy, or when a wife betrayed her husband. Therefore, we can know that the four American writers were recognized as hostile people. Now, we have seen two examples of savage behavior. Which behavior do you think is more savage?
It is true that an uncivilized ceremony like this is very cruel from our view point, but such different points of view are found among all countries. The four were regarded as hostile people that the ceremony was intended to deal with. It was natural in the culture of the tribe. And after all, the four writers' behavior would be regarded as cruel in all countries regardless of culture.
The murderers had a race prejudice, believing that savage people are not equal to them. The prejudice brought about their own murders. Just because of their trivial ambitions and prejudice, the tribe was robbed of many lives and houses. And as the revenge the journalists were eaten.
If such crucial incidents had happened in their own country, the four would have been punished by the law. Absolutely, the four would be found guilty and perhaps put to death as murderers. But in the region of the tribe, the decision of the tribe is the law. Naturally, the method of execution was eating them.

COMMENT
I read this essay with great interest, because this essay taught me a lifestyle of a cannibal tribe which is entirely different from our life. And I was amazed at the existence of this strange tribe. It is natural that civilized people like us can't eat human flesh and can't even imagine doing so. I was impressed by the extent of the world. I am now very thankful to have been born in this civilized country, not in such a strange tribe and to live peacefully.

Masayuki Okamoto