Customer Reviews

Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism

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An amazing perspective on the conditions of mankind. What Forbes tells us is that there is this negative consciousness, this spiritual sickness called "The Wetiko Psychosis" that gets passed on from being to being. It's an inherited twisted perspective on life, and feeling about life.. The bestowers for the last 500 years of the Wetiko disease have come from the European culture, although he mentions that many cultures through out history have endulged in Wetiko behavior, from Egypt, to Rome, to Russia, China. He's also mentioned that the once oppressed may carry on this mentality, this lunacy to a higher degree sometimes then the original oppressors/ colonizers.
There is authenticity in this book that isnt found that often. The reader learns so much about Native American phylosophy. It stays the course with you from beginning to end. When I first read the book, I was thinking to myself "hmm I dont know, thats stretching it isnt it? Cannibalism?" But the way he describes it, and in the way he means it, now I understand. We need to take a more compassionate and loving path. A path of power now because we're running out of time. We're all enduring the effects of it today and will for years to come. He says it wont change unless we change and heal ourselves first.

I agree with both previous reviewers that the book is an extraordinary indictment of the dominant culture. But I got something else from this book as well. I read this that Forbes is saying that one of the reasons civilization is killing the planet is because of a spiritual illness with a physical vector. If I get the flu and then cough all over you, you might then get the flu, with all of its symptoms. If I have the cannibal sickness and I cough (or somehow otherwise transfer the disease to you) you will have to consume the souls of others in order to survive. You will become a vampire. Or to putthis another way, you will become a conquistador, a pornographer, a slaver, a businessman. I read this not only as a metaphor, but as a possible description of how things really are. And he makes a very convincing case. Wonderful and important book by a very wise man.

The previous reviewer missed the point of this brilliant book by Dr. Jack Forbes of UC Davis. It's about how the "white culture" (really referred to by Forbes as "European culture") is predatory and planet-destructive, not how white "people" are. This book is brilliant and insightful, a clean revisiting of the history of the Americas from the point of view of indigenous peoples, and not at all racist. Highly recommended!

Jack Forbes, one of the few native authors besides Vine Deloria Jr. (may he RIP) that has been able to put forth an indigenous perspective and critique of western society, and of course, of its most prodigious founders in the Americas. He asks the hard questions, and gives the gory details. This should be mandatory reading for all 3-5th graders and repeated in high school. The truth is plain and simple: columbus, cortez, pizarro, all the kings and partiarchs, the pope, and everyone who participated in the invasion and colonization of the americas suffered from the wetiko or some form of it. This book should be read immediataly following, "Against His-story, Against Leviathan" for a thorough breakdown of western civilization in a nutshell. The only critique I have is that his citations are often not cited, his primary sources are often misquoted, or quoted from other editions/translations, and in this new edition, he needs a freakin editor, and a proofreader who will "READ" EVERY page, what they get paid for doing. All in all, get this book for the content, the ideas, and the insight that Forbes and few others have. One of those must read books for making sense of this crazy, wetiko infested world.

When I think of cannibalism I think of another person eating the body of another person. I don't think that way after reading this book, cannibalism has a totally different meaning to me.

Could we call it cannibalism when a Christian missionary goes into a Indian Village and gives them no other choice but to see God his way? Why couldn't the missionary just be happy in his own church with his own followers?

Is it cannibalism when a capitalist decides to turn a forest into two-by-fours? Wasn't the forest down the road that was turned into two-by-fours last week enough? Is the person with the chainsaw taking orders a cannibal to?

Forbes makes it clear that there has been, and still are, a lot of people suffering from the cannibal sickness among us who want to consume all life around them. He claims you don't have to eat another person all you have to do is control their heart and mind, you've than consumed them. And to survive in the cannibal's culture you almost have to become a cannibal yourself. It's contagious. It's the sickness that creates the pecking order were all familiar with. It's actually kind of scary, this culture just might consume itself if it isn't careful.

Forbes does show at the end of the book that there is another way. He shows that there has existed, and still exists, different "paths" to take that isn't offered by the cannibals.

A great book to help heal a sick culture.

This is the truth about history like I have rarely seen. It is amazing how many historical facts have been withheld from the masses. This book reveals what everyone should know.

This is an incredible book. Jack Forbes brings up ideals on why we are so destructive in a whole new fashion. All of the other reviews ive read on this have been right on. Unfortunately this book is out of print and is up to 130.00 dollars. But over all this is a very important book that should demand re-printing. I recomend this book to anybody who agrees with the fact that industrial civilization is killing everything in its path...

Paints the White man as a disease , a cancer eating the earth and its inhabitants with a demonic appetite. More corectly, the White race as a virus. A virus performs no other function but to replicate itself endlessly. Whites come in contact with a culture and replicate themselves, forcing the natives to adopt white religeon, white customs,white goverment, white culture, white calendar, and if any refuse...like the indians,aztecs,etc etc etc then they Are SLAUGHTERED. Exellent and important read.

Yesterday, I listened to Tish Pearlman interviewing Jack D. Forbes on her npr radio show, OUT OF BOUNDS. His thoughts truly resonated with me, as he was expressing so much of the spirituality that has become my daily experience, as well as so many of my concerns. I really recommend this interview: [...]

Forbes discusses how we mis-identify our religion by broad denomination, e.g., Methodist, when we should be labeling it by our personal identity, as we each interpret the religious system to meet and justify our own needs. Such as, Jane Doe would claim she was a member of the Jane Doe religion. This reminded me of Rabbi Cooper's excellent book, GOD IS A VERB, in which the divine is not an entity but the divine force as God-ing, as we each are part of the divine through our soul's partication and processing divinity. In this lifetime, here and now I am Edie-ing. I also recommend Rabbi Shapiro's MINYON for his discussion of the divine as the Source and Substance of All Being, again the active process of BE-ing. In the interview,Forbes explained that Native Americans have no word for religion as we use it, and he emphasized the indigenous spirituality of oneness with all of creation, overcoming the Western World separation from nature and the divine "entity". This being my first review, perhaps I'll return here after reading COLUMBUS AND OTHER CANNIBALS which I just ordered. Thanks for "listening."

I read this book when i was in 8th grade and i loved it ever since and used to own my own copy. It gave insight to the way i viewed our capitalist world. But why so expensive to buy it? this book has a knowledge that everyone should be able to get at a low cost, not because many of sellers want to make a profit off the book that is out of print, irony to those who read it and are selling and say its a great book. i passed mine on to a good friend.