Origin: 1545–55; < Spanishcaníbal, variant of caríbal, equivalent to canib-, carib- (< Arawak) + -al-al1; from the belief that the Caribs of the West Indies ate human flesh
1550s, from Sp. canibal "a savage, cannibal," from Caniba, Christopher Columbus' rendition of the Caribs' name for themselves (see Caribbean). The natives were believed to be anthropophagites. Columbus, seeking evidence that he was in Asia, thought the name meant the natives
were subjects of the Great Khan. Shakespeare's Caliban (in "The Tempest") is a version of this word, with -n- and -l- interchanged, found in Hakluyt's "Voyages" (1599). The Sp. word had reached French by 1515.