When seeing the word “cannibal”, one would think of the stereotypical representation of an uncivilized, animal, barbaric and malevolent creature slipping into the shadows of the night, waiting the right time to feed on its prey. As theatrical as it may sound, this thinking is common among most people. But what really makes someone a cannibal, other than eating human flesh? Does a cannibal have to be someone who lives a barbaric life, with a scabby complexion and ignoring normal societal customs, with cannibalism being their normal way of feeding? Or if the act of cannibalism is caused by outside forces, such as improper supplementation of food by the government, does that automatically make that person barbaric and inherently evil as a cannibal? Michel de Montaigne and Jonathan Swift both argue the contradictory view that cannibalism is behavior habituated to a barbaric lifestyle, with one of the authors Montaigne sharing his second-hand experience with the natives of the New World in the region today known as Brazil. Based on the account of his faithful traveler Durand De Villegagnon, who spent twelve years with the natives of the New World, Montaigne proclaims that “there is nothing savage or barbaric in these people, but that every man calls barbarian everything he’s not used to.” to” (Montaigne 61). Europeans formed a negative prejudice toward the customs of the indigenous peoples they encountered during their explorations, purely because they were different from their own. With this, the Europeans declared that it was their duty to change the lives of the natives "for the better" by showing them how people should live, even though, blinded by their own ignorance, they did not realize that their own way of life was wilder than that of the time. "savages" that they were trying to