Columbus and other cannibals

Heard mention of this book by Jack Forbes, thought I'd check it out. No local library had it. Using Bookfinder, found a dozen used copies ranging in price from $78 to over $500 -- for a 160 page book that's less than 15 years old! Library search found a copy at Eastern Oregon University, and I requested a loan to Portland State University. Need to get all the "new" books I can before my resolutions take effect ha ha.

I've noticed how out-of-print small press books can skyrocket in price. A slim early volume of my brother's poetry, which he sold for $1, is three-digits now.

Columbus and Other Cannibals

A Review 1998 by Bruce D. Olsen.

Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism (New York: Autonomedia/Semiotexts, 1992). 160 pp.


Subtitled The WETIKO Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism and Terrorism, this is one of the most important books I have read. It examines the subjects of aggression, violence, imperialism, rape and so on, not just from a Native American perspective, but from a perspective as uncontaminated as possible by assumptions created by the very wetiko (the word for cannibal in the Cree language) disease being studied. Most significantly, the author's central premise is that these evils are not simply "bad" choices which men make, but are the symptoms of a genuine, very real, epidemic sickness, a cannibal (wetiko) psychosis. People who exhibit these symptoms are insane (unclean) in the true sense of the word, they are mentally ill. "I shall argue that Columbus was a wetiko," Forbes writes, "that he was mentally ill or insane, the carrier of a terribly contagious psychological disease, the wetiko psychosis." He defines cannibalism as "the consuming of another's life for one's own private purpose or profit," a term which includes the subjugation of the Native Peoples of this continent, the genocide of Nazism, the pollution of our environment and contemporary pornography. The last chapter offers ways for the individual to recover from this all-too-common disease. It has an excellent bibliography which is useful for further study.


The book is a refreshing, insightful, informative and stimulating look at "Western civilization" and is well-researched. This is a must-read for all non-Indians. Jack D. Forbes is Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis.