Christopher Columbus' accounts of the Caribbean include harrowing descriptions of fierce raiders who abducted women and cannibalized men - stories long dismissed as myths. But a new study suggests Columbus may have been telling the truth.I'd add a strong caution. The Caribs were apparently fierce warriors. Among the old tribes, fake news of "cannibalism" was used as an insult to help fight and defeat the accused tribe. The Tonkawa in Okla were hated by other tribes. The same insult was applied to them, which helped other tribes to wipe them out.
Using the equivalent of facial recognition technology, researchers analyzed the skulls of early Caribbean inhabitants, uncovering relationships between people groups and upending longstanding hypotheses about how the islands were first colonized.
One surprising finding was that the Caribs, marauders from South America and rumored cannibals, invaded Jamaica, Hispaniola and the Bahamas, overturning half a century of assumptions that they never made it farther north than Guadeloupe.
The Spanish monarchy initially insisted that indigenous people be paid for work and treated with respect, but reversed its position after receiving reports that they refused to convert to Christianity and ate human flesh.Fake news is always useful for tyrants.
For Dempsey, the debate has pushed long-simmering disagreements over science and land rights to the fore. “I’m kind of glad in some ways that we’ve been forced into this conversation,” she says. “We didn’t do enough creative things in our local community in Hawaii until we were forced to — by people saying that this is not okay.”
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