*NOTE - Lol, I'm surprised people still are reading and commenting on this. I have no idea how relevant it is, as it was created well before the painted cannibals came around.

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Video proof, for the idiots who claim this is impossible:

Do you have cannibal troubles? Are you wondering why you're attacked day and night, despite your displays of post-modern art made of their friends dismembered remains? The following guide is based on my personal experiencing, and screens are from my current day 25 save, where I have NEVER been attacked by the regular cannibals.


Never do the following:

1. Be caught sprinting. They think "b%tch" when they see you running and decide you're food. If you encounter them and need to move back to shelter, hold block, look at them, and walk back to your shelter.
2. Let them see you cutting bushes or trees. They LOVE trees especially, and will flip out.
3. Build effigies. Turns out that building decorations out of their friends body parts doesn't go down too well with them.
4. Be caught sneaking around in their camps and ignoring their territorial markers.
5. Build, or gods forbid light, a bonfire.


To start off on the right foot, it's helpful not to piss them off straight away when you build up your shelter. The best, and safest place to build is INSIDE your plane. Even the large creepy mutants can't harm the plane itself, so build either a stairway heading inside, or a platform with a climbing rope, then build a hunting shelter on top of that.


From here, I'm completely immune to attack,since I magically built through the metal of the plane.


Outside of the plane, I try to keep all construction with in the vegetation free/burned out area around the crash site. I have NOT built defensive walls, as this seems to irritate them. Bone fences and animal heads might annoy them, but this requires further testing. To prevent them from getting stuck under the plane, which can be really common depending on the crash site, I use rock walls and turtle shells to create something of a barrier in front of the plane, and log holders along the sides. I also only use one fire at night, as lighting more than one seems to cause them to aggro more easily. Remember, NO BONFIRES OR EFFIGIES.


When you are first seen by a group or individual cannibal, they will NOT sprint up and attack you, but stand at a distance and watch. With the normal mutants especially, you can expect to be approached and challenged by growling and even striking you once. When this happens, you must do the following:

1. Do not run. Hold block and either stand still or walk slowly to shelter or a place where you can cover your back like the ocean.
2. Maintain eye contact as much as possible, with a priority on those who approach and growl at you. Stare them down until they start to back away, then look at the others.
3. If you are out in the world and want to retreat to your base, hold block while WALKING back to the plane.
4. They may very likely test you by hitting you. Do not spaz out, simply block and stare them down. If it was simply a test, they will do another growl and run away. If one of them persists and starts attacking you with combos, refer to the troublemaker guide below.
5. You may have to repeat this approach/challenge process MANY times before they become neutral and leave you alone. When this is successful, they will simply approach you and stare, or ignore you entirely, even when you are outside the base. Note that doing anything stupid like cutting trees or sprinting by them can completely ruin everything.
6. When you have successfully made peace with a group of cannibals, they can actually come to your base at night and fight off the other tribes. Here, my local friendly group battles some pesky starving ones.


Please note that it may be very tempting to assist your "allies" in battle, but the current AI can be really finicky, and they may decide they don't like you after all. It might be possible to not aggro them by shooting their foes with arrows, but this requires more testing.

While staring down a group, it's possible to have a one (occassionaly two) cannibals go aggro on you while the rest of the group just watches. If a whole group goes apesh*t and attacks you, YOU did something very wrong, like hitting that shift button while moving.

Much like dealing with a troublesome child, the best way to cure such wayward behavior is a good smack upside the head. Similar to disciplining a human child, it's more appropriate to use a sturdy stick, and stay away from axes, clubs, and spears.


A starving cannibal decides he's a special snowflake, and doesn't have tolerate me any longer. Note his companions are off to the side, not attacking.


Here he attacks, not once, but multiple times.


Blue stick of justice time.


After knocking him down, I stop and hold my ground. They will stare at you in a bewildered state, then run off to reflect on the lessons you've taught. In this case, his companions continued to stare at me, then ran off themselves.


1. Normals
Please note, the only cannibals you can reliably make peace with are the "normal" ones:


The normal mutants are divided in a few tribes that live around the map, and diplomacy with one tribe does not carry over to the others. I've been hostile with a group that had black stripes on them, while being at peace with the group that lives near goose lake. Do your best to NOT hit them. The rule for dealing with a lone troublemaker applies here. In every sav

2. Skinnies
These cowardly bastards were the second group of mutants added to the game. It IS possible to to have a tentative peace with them, but they also can't help but attack you if you turn your back on them too long.

3. Greys
Unlike what the Wiki claims, these seem to be their own tribe, and are hostile to the original cannibals. The grey mutants come in two types, one is larger than the normal cannibal males, the other is like a reskinned skinny. These are FAR more aggressive than the first two cannibal types. In most of my games, the normal mutants who are at peace with me battle them constantly.

4. Giant Mutants

Whyyyy :(


Armsy, Virginia, Cowman... these walking nightmares can NOT be negotiated with. No matter how peaceful you've been with other cannibals, they will be hostile, and will eventually wander into your base to ruin your day. Their spawn times seems to be based loosely on your cannibal relations and whether or not you've declared war on nature and go crazy cutting down trees. I've always had them spawn around day 7-10, even on saves where I NEVER struck a mutant in anger.

There you have it, a guide to get you started on cannibal diplomacy, more or less. Remember, if you are being attacked, you probably did something wrong!