The French nobles sneered at the Brazilian warriors before them. Savages, they whispered. Cannibals brought to entertain the court. But Michel de Montaigne saw something else in 1562. He approached the Tupinambá directly, asking through a translator what astonished them about France.

A warrior pointed to the palace gates. "Half your people feast inside while the other half starve outside. Why don't the hungry take what they need?" The courtiers laughed. Primitive thinking.

Montaigne didn't laugh. That night in his tower, he wrote: "Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice." The revelation consumed him. The Tupinambá ate enemies after battle to honor their strength. The French burned heretics alive in public squares.

Who was truly barbarous?