PJ Vogt

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?

Were the Arawaks making this up to get Columbus to go after their enemies?

Like, there's just a lot of debate here even today.

But what's important is Columbus told people that on these islands, some of the locals were dangerous and that they would eat his men.

I think it was just sort of like...

a particularly bad way to die in their minds?

Because I agree.

Like for me, I'm like, I'd prefer not to be killed.

After being killed, being eaten would be like a tertiary concern probably.

I think there's a lot of evidence that that is what is going on here.

Because what ends up happening is Queen Isabella, who has, like, sent Columbus on this journey, when she gets the reports back that some of these people eat people, she says that he's allowed to treat the cannibals differently from the other locals.

Ooh, I see.