Omophagia

The category of "raw-eating" most generally finds two applications. In mythology, it designates various demons who naturally take the traits of predators—enemies of the gods or even certain uncanny and dangerous gods. On a more realistic level, ethnocentrism and xenophobia combine to mark certain foreign tribes as "raw-eaters," be they neighbors or faraway people known from hearsay. In Western tradition, this cliché has remained attached to Huns and Tatars. As a variant or for reinforcement, the motif of cannibalism easily comes in. It is notable that the concept of "raw-eaters" goes back to Indo-European strata, that is, to the early third millennium BCE, as shown by the correspondence of the Sanskrit āmād with the Greek ōmēs-tēs; in the same vein, a Scythian tribe was known as Āmādokoi. Tribalism also admits of mythical transformations: For the Greeks, the centaurs, hybrids of man and horse, living in the woods but sometimes visiting humans to wreak havoc, were not only hunters but "raw-eaters."

In a more complex way the opposition of "raw-eating" to civilized may appear within one ethnic unity: One special group is set apart by this very characterization. The imitation of carnivores is most evident in secret societies of leopard men as attested in Africa, or the folklore of werewolves in Europe, including ancient Greece.

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