The American Vice or the Dos and Dont's of Cannibalism by Mark Johnson

This Play is the copyright of the Author and may not be performed, copied or sold without the Author's prior consent

A Note on the Characters

"The American Vice…" is the third in a series - "Confessions
of a Cultural Spy" (2006) and "Fifi and the Fast Dancer or Chiens
Parisiens et Sauvages Américains" (2009) being the other two.

The narrator is a cultural spy who is constantly bombarded by voices.

As he explains, "It's as if the Universe were a great pinball machine
with all these voices bouncing around in it that from time to time
strike my head." Thus, he speaks the words of characters whose
voices come to him. Below are brief identifications of the historical
figures whose voices interrupt the narrator.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was an English natural philosopher and
is considered to be one of the fathers of modern chemistry.

Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, the Baron of Lahontan (1666-1716)
was a French soldier and explorer who travelled extensively in New
France. He died in Hanover.

Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546) was a Spanish theologian and
political theorist. He was a prominent defender of the rights of
Indians in the New World.

Oswald Croll (1560-1608) was professor of medicine at the
University of Marburg and a follower of Paracelsus. He was an early
advocate of the use of chemicals in medicine.

Nicasius Le Fèvre (1615-1669) was a French physician who was
appointed Royal Professor in Chemistry and Apothecary to the King's
Household by Charles II of England.

"The American Vice…" was written for performance at summer
festivals. For this reason it is ca. one hour long. All texts are
meant to be spoken or read by a single performer. Texts in italics
not labelled as "voices" come either from letters (pp. 6-7) or
from the books in the stacks referred to by Lahontan on p. 8.

As he speaks, the Cultural Spy is setting up a table, covered by
cloths and silver dishes containing various types of meat and
"animal parts". At the end of this speech, he presents these to
the audience as if they were hosts in a eucharist-like ceremony.

THE CULTURAL SPY: I've been asked to speak to you today about
cannibals - identified in the West with cartoons showing missionaries
or explorers cooking in pots, surrounded by grinning naked savages.
Yes, cannibals, the most depraved of human beings. The word itself is
intimately connected with the Fourth Part of the World, America.
Already in Columbus's First Letter, it appears as a corruption of
the word "Cariba" that the Indians of the Lesser Antilles used to
describe themselves. They did, of course, eat human flesh. But the
word "cannibal" has a complicated history. It has not always been
applied only by Europeans to describe others. As late as the
1950's, many Africans considered Europeans to be cannibals -
vampires, in fact. This was in part a reaction to the slave trade.
As you can imagine, it made blood donation drives in Africa very
problematic and led to the conviction in Nyasaland of an African
accused of trying to sell two well-fattened children to a European for
his Christmas dinner. It also led to marketing difficulties for a
Belgian company trying to sell canned meat in the Congo with labels
showing fat, grinning African babies. To give you a less abstract
idea of what being a cannibal might really be like, I've brought
together these items for your consideration. What would human flesh
about to be cooked - or eaten raw for that matter - actually look
like? Would it be dark like this tuna? Or pale pink like this lamb?
Or deep red like beef? And would a child's brain be more or less
like this? And his or her kidneys? Liver…

ROBERT BOYLE (VOICE): Among the savagest barbarians we count the
cannibals, and as for those among them that kill men to eat them,
their inhumane cruelty cannot be too much detested; but to count them
so barbarous merely upon the score of feeding on man's flesh and
blood, is to forget that woman's milk, by which we feed our sucking
children, is according to the received opinion, but blanched blood;
and that mummy or mumia is one of the usual medicines commended and
given by our physicians for falls and bruises, and in other cases
too.

THE CULTURAL SPY: The voices, those voices… It's as if the
Universe were a great pinball machine with all these voices bouncing
around in it that from time to time strike my head. They've never
stopped, you know. Ever since I confessed to being an American
cultural spy in Europe and started doing research to bring to light
other spies, sent to Europe by other American Presidents. Two years
ago, for example, it was George Catlin's voice - among others…
Catlin was an artist, you know, sent to Europe in 1839 by President
Martin van Buren. And I'm sure there have been others… But what
if, and this is what has struck me lately, what if European
governments have sent cultural spies to America? Of course they have,
and I'm here today to tell you about one of them whose voice
overwhelms me constantly: I'm talking about Louis-Armand de Lom
D'Arce, the Baron de Lahontan, sent - I'm sure - as a soldier and
spy to New France in 1683 by Louis IV's Head of Naval Affairs, the
Marquis de Seignelay, more commonly known as the anonymous benefactor
to whom Lahontan's "letters" are addressed. How can I be so
sure, you ask? The proof, so to speak, is that there are absolutely
no records whatsoever - none - explaining the reasons for Lahontan's
enlistment in the French Marines. What we do know is this: Lahontan
sailed for New France on August 29th, 1683, just nine days before the
Marquis de Seignelay took over as head of the French Navy, a post he
had shared with his father for many years. Furthermore, the Marquis
is mentioned in Lahontan's letters several times - his death being
described in "Letter XXI" as a misfortune for Lahontan in
particular. Speaking of the Marquis's death: he died on November
3rd, 1690, and Lahontan left to return to France for the last time
later that same month, on November 27th - just three weeks later!
But, you say, communication wasn't so fast in those days. Yes, of
course, but the Marquis died of cancer, and his imminent death had
been predicted already in August. By the way, he had been given
mother's milk as medicine… And if that's not enough - Lahontan
in later years was often connected with spying - first in Spain,
spying for France, then in Holland, also spying for France and then in
England he was even suspected of being a double agent.

(The Narrator takes off his "bowler hat" as a sign that he is
"becoming" Lahontan.)

LAHONTAN: This afternoon, during our daily stroll in the garden, I
was just beginning a story from my adventures in New France, when
Electress Sophie interrupted me. She explained that the Germans had
never travelled extensively in the new world like the French but that
there was one exception - Hans Staden who had apparently been captured
by a tribe of cannibals in Brazil during the time of Montaigne.
"Did I know about him," she asked? "Well, no," I mumbled, and
then she asked, "By the way, why didn't you discuss cannibalism
with your dear savage Adario?" She then exchanged a sly smile with
her lovely lady in waiting, Mademoiselle de Pöllniz. I lamely
explained that the Hurons never ate human flesh - which is of course
not true. The truth is that if I'd mentioned it, all my readers
would have remembered that and nothing else from my otherwise positive
description of Indian life. I fear that fewer and fewer trust my
accounts of New France and the Indians. I also didn't tell the
Electress the truth about Hans Staden. I have read his book - the
greatest account of life with cannibals in the New World… It always
comes down to cannibals, doesn't it? Whenever we want to describe
people who aren't like us, we call them cannibals - all the way back
to the Greeks and Romans. Just think of Homer's "Cyclops" and
"Laestrygonians" and Pliny the Elder's Monstrous Races. Listen
to this! This is how Jean de Mandeville - the greatest liar of us all
- described life in Sumatra in the 14th Century:

The heat is very great in this land, and it is customary for both men
and women to be completely naked. They laugh whenever they see a
foreigner with clothes on, saying that God, who created Adam and Eve,
was naked, that Adam and Eve themselves were created naked, and that
human beings should not be ashamed to show themselves as God made them
because nothing that is natural can be ugly.

None of the women are married all of them are in common, so to
speak and they do not refuse themselves to anyone. They say that
they would be committing a sin if they refused themselves to men, and
that God Himself commanded this to Adam and Eve and to all of their
descendants when He said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the
Earth." And when the women have children, they give them as they
choose to one of the men who had relations with them.

The land itself is also completely in common. One owns it one year,
a second another year, and each person takes the land he wants. The
country's goods are also jointly owned thus one person is as
rich as another. BUT (You see, here it is, the great "but" that
is always there when we describe people different from us!) but they
have an unpleasant custom in that they prefer to eat human flesh
rather than any other meat. And the land abounds in grain, meat,
fish, gold, silver, and other resources. Merchants go there to sell
children to the people, who buy them. If they are plump, they eat
them right away. If not, they fatten them up and say that it is the
best and sweetest meat in the world.

Books! Look at them all. And they lie each and every one of
them. Listen to how the English distorted my account of
Denonville's campaign against the Iroquois in New France. This is
what I actually wrote:

To Pursue the bare matter of fact; we marched next day to the great
village and carried our wounded men upon litters: but we found
nothing there but ashes, for the Iroquois had burnt the village
themselves, by way of precaution… In all these villages we found
plenty of horses, black cattle, fowl, and hogs.

And this is how it's been lately rewritten:

The next day he marched on with Design to burn the village, but when
he came there, he found that the Senecas had saved him the trouble;
for they had laid all in Ashes before they retired. Two old men only
were found in the Castle, who were cut into pieces and boiled to make
soup for the French Allies.

What is it that my Adario said about writing? Ah, yes, here it is:

O! that cursed writing; that pernicious invention of the Europeans
who tremble at the sight of their own chimera's, which they draw
themselves, by the ranking and disposal of three and twenty small
figures, that are calculated, not for the instruction but for the
perplexing of men's minds.

But what's this? Mademoiselle de Pöllniz must have forgotten her
letters. Ah, what a gorgeous creature! Dare I look? Of course!
These seem to be letters to and from Leibniz… About me! Professor
Bierling wrote to the philosopher:

What is your opinion, I ask you, my illustrious friend, of the work
of the Baron de Lahontan? I have heard it said that he is in Hanover.
I first read his description of the customs of the peoples of Canada
- that they live in peace although they have neither laws nor courts;
I then closely examined the dialogue between Lahontan and a savage
Canadian (my dear Adario!) where a large number of criticisms of the
Christian religion are openly expressed…

Ah, Bierling,, the old fool. But how did Mlle get Bierling's
correspondence? Doesn't matter - one of the skills of a lady in
waiting, I suspect… Wait, here's one from Leibniz - this is
addressed to Mlle de Pöllniz herself!

I was asked in an express letter whether the Baron de Lahontan, in
his travels and dialogues, is something imaginary and invented, like
this Sadeur who visited the Australians and reported to us their
customs and his conversations; or if he is a real person, who was
actually in the country and spoke with a real savage named Adario…

And here's how Leibniz replied to Bierling:

Baron de Lahontan is a very real person, not invented like Sadeur,
guest of the unknown Australians, and not only the man but also his
travels. Lahontan actually lived for a rather long time in the French
part of America… He is originally from Béarn and is faithful to
the Roman religion (Hah!). He lacks neither wit, nor human
experience, nor I would add, does he lack knowledge. He is completely
credible.

Ah, wise old Leibniz. Truly the greatest philosopher of our age.
I'll bet mademoiselle left these letters on purpose - part of her
plan to cheer me up, to give me a more positive outlook on life. She
is truly the joy of my old age.

Too bad about poor Sadeur, Gabriel, I mean - Gabriel de Foigny. His
only mistake was thinking he could give drunken sermons in Geneva!
Hah! I love him! Even if he did make it all up, I love his account
of the naked Australian hermaphrodites. Notice how savages are always
naked? Anyway, I love Gabriel because, like me, he refused to
sensationalize his description of Australians by making them
cannibals. Not only will his Australians not eat human flesh, they
won't even eat meat of any kind! Listen to what he wrote:

I can't help mentioning here that not only do the Australians not
eat meat, they can't even conceive how anyone could eat it. Their
reasons for this are as follows: firstly this sort of food is not
compatible with human nature that must naturally be far removed from
cruelty. Secondly because the flesh of animals has much in common
with that of men, he who can eat the former can without difficulty
also eat the latter. Thirdly - that the digestion of meat is
extremely dangerous and that it is not possible to eat the meat of an
animal without taking on some of its desires. And fourthly that
the flesh of a beast is its very essence and one cannot eat it without
becoming like the beast itself in proportion to the amount one has
eaten.

Anyway, after our stroll in the garden, I went to Electress
Sophie's library. I was curious. So here it is, my stack of books
about cannibalism in America. And my other stack over here about
cannibalism in Europe. That's right, the Americans may be
cannibals, but so are we! Anyway, as I said, I have read Hans
Staden's account of his adventures in Brazil - the most amazing
cannibal tale of them all - who knows if it's true!

Hans Staden was a German from Homburg in Hessen. He sailed for the
New World to seek his fortune in 1549 - four days after Easter.
Because of contrary winds, however, he did not arrive in Brazil until
St. Catherine's day - six months later. These are his first
impressions of America and the Americans:

[end of extract]

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