Montaigne’s cannibal logic consists of losing the body to crystallize better the word and prolong the memory. For the Tupinambas, the body, much more than a simple communication medium, represents a real economy (a trade good) : it is transformed into a sign which enables a symbolic exchange. Thanks to this absolute consumption, death becomes regenerative. Montaigne’s Essays are themselves a living body ; they serve as a meeting place and synthesize exchanges with other bodies. Montaigne literally “feeds” on the Other to strengthen his own body and to protect it from degradation. Like cannibals, the humanists of the Renaissance practice “innutrition” : they consume the dead bodies of their elders (the textual bodies of the Ancients) in order to preserve themselves for posterity.