Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Cannibalism
In the book Three Day Road Niska describes her father and his ways of being chief. As well she tells us about his job as a windigo. His job was described in depth. He is a medicine man and helps people find game to hunt as well he takes care of people who have become cannibals. Niska is very young when she learns of things from her father. She would have been no older than 12 when she witnesses for the first time her father disposing of cannibals in her very home. I personally couldn't imagine seeing someone be killed in the hands of another person, never mind that person being my father and see him do the same to a young child. On the other hand I also could not imagine someone eating another human. Everyone gathering around the family table and the dad missing and you ask "mom wheres dad" as you take another bite of your meat from your plate and your mother replies " in your tummy". What would you ask them to pass you if you wanted more? This reminds me of the movie city slickers. "Hey can you pass the Phil? Yum this sure is a good meal thanks to Phil" (City Slickers). Niska wasn't affected by what happened, she learned from it and wanted to do the same in the future. This part of the book was very disturbing to me.
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I agree about this section from the book being very disturbing. I cannot see how a father could kill people in front of his own children, regardless of what they have done. At the same time I also cannot understand how Micah's wife became so desperate that she was willing to kill Micah and feed him to her child. I think that both of these things were culturally unacceptable at the time and they are still unacceptable now. Murder is always unjustified regardless of the situations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, but I think that her father felt it was time for Niska to see the real world as it is. I think that Niska figured that in order to stop Windigos, you need to kill them.
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