PJ Vogt

But, according to Columbus, the Arawaks warn that there's this other group on certain southern islands, and this group is not as nice.

They're called the Caribs.

The Caribs do not want to be ruled.

They're ready to fight.

And Columbus says that the Arawaks warn him, if the Caribs beat you in battle, they might eat you.

Columbus writes, quote,

Thus I have found no monsters, nor had a report of any, except in an island, Carib, which is the second coming into the Indies, and which is inhabited by a people who are regarded in all the islands as very fierce and who eat human flesh.

Yes, exactly.

And, like, some of them he seems like they're going to be helpful.

Some of them are not.

So these locals are called Caribs.

Carib somehow gets mistranslated to cannib.

And cannibal becomes, like, what the cannibs do.

So this is really, like, while there was an idea that it was bad to eat people before this, we had a different name for them.

Like, cannibal goes to this moment.

Hmm.

But this whole story is just rife with, like, mistranslation, misunderstanding.

And so we don't know what really happened.

Like, did Columbus make all this up?

Were the Caribs actually ritually eating their captured enemies?