Of Cannibals

Of Cannibals, written circa 1580, is an essay, one of those in the collection Essays, by Michel [de Montaigne], describing the ceremonies of the Tupinambá people in Brazil. In particular, he reported about how the group ceremoniously ate the bodies of their dead enemies as a matter of honor. In his work, he uses cultural relativism and compares the cannibalism to the "barbarianism" of 16th-century Europe.
An English translation, Of the Caniballes, appeared in John Florio's 1603 translation of the Essais. This has often been viewed as an influence on Shakespeare's The Tempest, in particular Act II, Scene 1.