Human cannibalism

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"Cannibal" redirects here. For other uses, see Cannibal (disambiguation).
This article is about consuming one's own species. For usage about marketing and mechanical recycling, see Cannibalization.
Cannibalism in Brazil in 1557 as alleged by Hans Staden.

Cannibalism (from Spanish [caníbal] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), in connection with alleged cannibalism among the Caribs), also called anthropophagy (from Greek [[wiktionary:ἄνθρωπος|[anthropos] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)]] "man" and [[wiktionary:-phage|[phagein] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)]] "to consume") is the act or practice of humans consuming other humans. In zoology, the term cannibalism is extended to refer to any species consuming members of its own kind.

Care should be taken to distinguish among ritual cannibalism sanctioned by a cultural code, cannibalism by necessity occurring in extreme situations of famine, and cannibalism by mentally disturbed people.

Origin of the term

Richard Hakluyt's Voyages introduced the word to English. Shakespeare transposed it, anagram-fashion, to name his monster servant in The Tempest 'Caliban'.

Cannibalism in Muscovy and Lithuania 1571

Overview

The social stigma against cannibalism has been used as an aspect of propaganda against an enemy by accusing them of acts of cannibalism to separate them from their humanity. New research points to the fact that early man practiced cannibalism. Genetic markers commonly found in modern humans all over the world could be evidence that our earliest ancestors were cannibals, according to new research. Scientists suggest that today some people carry a gene that evolved as protection against brain diseases that can be spread by consuming human flesh.[1]

The Carib tribe acquired a longstanding reputation as cannibals following the recording of their legends by Fr. Breton in the 17th century. Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture.

According to a decree by Queen Isabella of Castile and also later under British colonial rule, slavery was considered to be illegal unless the people involved were so depraved that their conditions as slaves would be better than as free men. Demonstrations of cannibalistic tendencies were considered evidence of such depravity, and hence reports of cannibalism became widespread.[2] This legal requirement might have led to conquerors exaggerating the extent of cannibalistic practices, or inventing them altogether.

The Korowai tribe of southeastern Papua could be one of the last surviving tribes in the world engaging in cannibalism.

Marvin Harris has analysed cannibalism and other food taboos. He argued that it was common when humans lived in small bands, but disappeared in the transition to states, the Aztecs being an exception.

A well known case of mortuary cannibalism is that of the Fore tribe in New Guinea which resulted in the spread of the disease Kuru. It is often believed to be well-documented, although no eyewitnesses have ever been at hand. Some scholars argue that although post-mortem dismemberment was the practice during funeral rites, cannibalism was not. Marvin Harris theorizes that it happened during a famine period coincident with the arrival of Europeans and was rationalized as a religious rite.

In pre-modern medicine, an explanation for cannibalism stated that it came about within a black acrimonious humour, which, being lodged in the linings of the ventricle, produced the voracity for human flesh.[3]

Historical accounts

Early history era

  • In Germany some experts like Emil Carthaus and Dr. Bruno Bernhard found 1,891 signs of cannibalism in the caves at the Hönne (BC 1000 - 700).
  • Cannibalism is reported in the Bible during the siege Samaria (2 Kings 6:25-30). Two women made a pact to eat their children, but after the first mother cooked her child, the second mother ate it but refused to reciprocate by cooking her own child. Almost exactly the same story is reported by Flavius Josephus during the siege of Jerusalem by Rome in 70AD.
  • Cannibalism was documented in Egypt during a famine caused by the failure of the Nile to flood for eight years (AD 1064-1073).
  • St. Jerome, in his letter Against Jovinianus, tells of meeting members of a British tribe, the Atticoti, while traveling in Gaul. According to Jerome, the Britons claimed that they enjoyed eating "the buttocks of the shepherds and the breasts of their women" as a delicacy (ca. 360 AD). In 2001, archaeologists at the University of Bristol found evidence of Iron Age cannibalism in Gloucestershire[1]

Middle Ages

  • Cannibalism was practiced by the participants of the First Crusade. Due to lack of food some of the crusaders fed on the bodies of their dead opponents after the capture of the Arab town of Ma'arrat al-Numan. Amin Maalouf also discusses further cannibalism incidents on the march to Jerusalem, and to the efforts made to delete mention of these from western history. (Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes. Schocken, 1989, ISBN 0-8052-0898-4).
  • In Europe during the Great Famine of 1315–1317, at a time when Dante was writing one of the most significant pieces of literature in western history and the Renaissance was just beginning, there were widespread reports of cannibalism throughout Europe. However, many historians have since dismissed these reports as fanciful and ambiguous. The canto 33 of Dante's Inferno ambiguously refers to Ugolino della Gherardesca eating his own sons while starving in prison.
  • Cannibalism was reported in Mexico, the flower wars of the Aztec Empire being considered as the most massive manifestation of cannibalism, but the Aztec accounts, written after the conquest, reported that human flesh was considered by itself to be of no value, and usually thrown away and replaced with turkey. There are only two Aztec accounts on this subject: one comes from the Ramirez codex, and the most elaborated account on this subject comes from Juan Bautista de Pomar, the grandson of Netzahualcoyotl, tlatoani of Texcoco. The accounts differ little. Juan Bautista wrote that after the sacrifice, the Aztec warriors received the body of the victim, then they boiled it to separate the flesh from the bones, then they would cut the meat in very little pieces, and send them to important people, even from other towns; the recipient would rarely eat the meat, since they considered it an honour, but the meat had no value by itself. In exchange, the warrior would get jewels, decorated blankets, precious feathers and slaves; the purpose was to encourage successful warriors. There were only two ceremonies a year where war captives were sacrificed. Although the Aztec empire has been called "The Cannibal Kingdom", there is no evidence in support of its being a widespread custom.
  • Aztecs believed that there were man-eating tribes in the south of Mexico; the only illustration known showing an act of cannibalism shows an Aztec being eaten by a tribe from the south (Florentine Codex). In the siege of Tenochtitlan, there was a severe hunger in the city; people reportedly ate lizards, grass, insects, and mud from the lake, but there are no reports on cannibalism of the dead bodies.
  • The friar Diego de Landa reported about Yucatán instances, Yucatan before and after the Conquest, translated from Relación de las cosas de Yucatan, 1566 (New York: Dover Publications, 1978: 4), and there have been similar reports by Purchas from Popayán, Colombia, and from the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, where human flesh was called long-pig (Alanna King, ed., Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Seas, London: Luzac Paragon House, 1987: 45-50). It is recorded about the natives of the captaincy of Sergipe in Brazil, They eat human flesh when they can get it, and if a woman miscarries devour the abortive immediately. If she goes her time out, she herself cuts the navel-string with a shell, which she boils along with the secondine, and eats them both. (See E. Bowen, 1747: 532.)]]

Early modern era

  • Howard Zinn describes cannibalism by early Jamestown settlers in his book A People's History of the United States.
  • An event occurring in the western New York territory ("Seneca Country") U.S.A., during 1687 was later described in this letter sent to France: “On the 13th (of July) about four o’clock in the afternoon, having passed through two dangerous defiles (narrow gorges), we arrived at the third where we were vigorously attacked by 800 Senecas, 200 of whom fired, wishing to attack our rear whilst the remainder of their force would attack our front, but the resistance they met produced such a great consternation that they soon resolved to fly. All our troops were so overpowered by the extreme heat and the long journey we had made that we were obliged to bivouac (camp) on the field until the morrow. We witnessed the painful Sight of the usual cruelties of the savages who cut the dead into quarters, as in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the pot (dinner); the greater number were opened while still warm that their blood might be drank. our rascally outaouais (Ottawa Indians) distinguished themselves particularly by these barbarities and by their poltroonery (cowardice), for they withdrew from the combat;..." -- Canadian Governor, the Marquis de Denonville.
  • In 1729 Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, a satirical pamphlet in which he proposed that poor Irish families sell their children to be eaten, thereby earning income for the family. It was written as an attack on the indifference of landlords to the state of their tenants and on the political economists with their calculations on the schemes to raise income.
  • The survivors of the sinking of the French ship Medusa in 1816 resorted to cannibalism after four days adrift on a raft.
  • The Acadian Recorder (a newspaper published out of Halifax in the early 1800s) published an article in its May 27, 1826, issue telling of the wreck of the ship 'Francis Mary', en route from New Brunswick to Liverpool, England, with a load of timber. The article describes how the survivors sustained themselves by eating those who perished.[4]
  • The case of R v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 (QB) is an English case which is said to be one of the origins of the defense of necessity in modern common law. The case dealt with four crewmembers of an English yacht which were cast away in a storm some 1600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. After several days one of the crew fell unconscious due to a combination of the famine and drinking sea-water. The others (one objecting) decided then to kill him and eat him. They were picked up four days later. The fact that not everyone had agreed to draw lots contravened The Custom of the Sea and was held to be murder. At the trial was the first recorded use of the defense of necessity.
  • In the 1870s, in the U.S. state of Colorado, a man named Alfred Packer was accused of killing and eating his travelling companions. He was later released due to a legal technicality, and throughout his life maintained that he was innocent of the murders. However, modern forensic evidence, unavailable during Packer's lifetime, indicates that he did murder and/or eat several of his companions. The story of Alfred Packer was satirically told in the Trey Parker comedy/horror/musical film, Cannibal! The Musical, released in 1996 by Troma Studios. The main food court at the University of Colorado at Boulder is named the Alferd Packer Grill.
  • In 1884, the Mignonette, a small yacht bound for Australia, was overturned. The three survivors drifted on a dinghy for four weeks, fed by the remains of a cabin boy whom they had murdered. When they returned to England, they were found guilty of murder on the argument that hunger, like poverty, does not justify murder (Albany Law Journal, 13 December 1884).

Modern era

Finnish soldiers displaying the skins of the Soviet soldiers who were eaten by their fellow soldiers at Maaselkä. Original caption: "An enemy recon patrol that was cutten out of food supplies had butchered a few members of their own patrol group, and had eaten most of them."
  • A well-documented case occurred in Chichijima in 1945,[citation needed] when Japanese soldiers killed and ate eight downed American airmen. This case was investigated in 1947 in a war-crimes trial, and of 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, five (Maj. Matoba, Gen. Tachibana, Adm. Mori, Capt. Yoshii and Dr. Teraki) were found guilty and hanged.
  • John F. Kennedy during his service in World War II believed that a boy from the Solomon Islands that was his servant bragged of eating a Japanese soldier. Native islanders also in their historical culture also practiced headhunting.[5]
  • The New York Times reporter William Buehler Seabrook, in the interests of research, obtained from a hospital intern at the Sorbonne a chunk of human meat from the body of a healthy human killed by accident, and cooked and ate it. He reported that, "It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. It was mild, good meat with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste such as for instance, goat, high game, and pork have. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough or stringy to be agreeably edible. The roast, from which I cut and ate a central slice, was tender, and in color, texture, smell as well as taste, strengthened my certainty that of all the meats we habitually know, veal is the one meat to which this meat is accurately comparable."[6]
  • References to cannibalizing the enemy has also been seen in poetry written when China was repressed in the Song Dynasty, though the cannibalizing sounds more like poetic symbolism to express the hatred towards the enemy. (See Man Jiang Hong) The Chinese hate-cannibalism was reported during WWII also. (Key Ray Chong:Cannibalism in China, 1990)
  • In his book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, James Bradley details several instances of cannibalism of WWII Allied prisoners by their Japanese captors. The author claims that this included not only ritual cannibalization of the livers of freshly-killed prisoners, but also the cannibalization-for-sustenance of living prisoners over the course of several days, amputating limbs only as needed to keep the meat fresh.
  • Cannibalism was reported by at least one reliable witness, the journalist Neil Davis during the South East Asian wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Davis reported that Khmer (Cambodian) troops ritually ate portions of the slain enemy, typically the liver. However he, and many refugees, also report that cannibalism was practised non-ritually when there was no food to be found. This usually occurred when towns and villages were under Khmer Rouge control, and food was strictly rationed, leading to widespread starvation. Any civilian caught participating in cannibalism would have been immediately executed.[7]
  • Cannibalism has been reported in several recent African conflicts, including the Second Congo War, and the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Typically, this is apparently done in desperation, as during peacetime cannibalism is much less frequent. Even so, it is sometimes directed at certain groups believed to be relatively helpless, such as Congo Pygmies. It is also reported by some that African traditional healers sometimes use the body parts of children in their medicine. In the 1970s the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was reputed to practise cannibalism, but the stories were never conclusively proved.[citation needed]
  • It has been reported by defectors and refugees that, at the height of the famine in the 1990s, cannibalism was sometimes practiced in North Korea.
  • Médecins Sans Frontières, the international medical charity, supplied photographic and other documentary evidence of ritualised cannibal feasts among the participants in Liberia's internecine strife in the 1980s to representatives of Amnesty International who were on a fact-finding mission to the neighbouring state of Guinea. However, Amnesty International declined to publicise this material, the Secretary-General of the organization, Pierre Sane, stating at the time in an internal communication that "what they do with the bodies after human rights violations are committed is not part of our mandate or concern". The existence of cannibalism on a wide scale in Liberia was subsequently verified in video documentaries by Journeyman Pictures of London.
  • In September 2006, Australian television crews from 60 Minutes and Today Tonight attempted to rescue a 6-year-old boy who they believed would be ritually cannibalised by his tribe, the Korowai, from Papua, Indonesia.
  • On April 13, 1995, it was reported by the Electronic Telegraph that there are hospitals in Shenzhen, P.R.C., that sell aborted fetuses for human consumption. Several of the doctors at the hospitals openly admitted to consuming the fetuses regularly for "health benefits;" one added that the "best" were first-born males of young women. Another said that the fetuses were sometimes sent to factories for use in the production of medicines. [4]

Cannibalism by necessity

Cannibalism is also sometimes practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine. In the US, the group of settlers known as the Donner party resorted to cannibalism while snowbound in the mountains for the winter. The last survivors of Sir John Franklin's Expedition were found to have resorted to cannibalism in their final push across King William Island towards the Back River.[8] There are disputed claims that cannibalism was widespread during the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, during the Siege of Leningrad in World War II,[9][10][11] and during the Chinese Civil War and the Great Leap Forward in the People's Republic of China. There were also rumours of several cannibalism outbreaks durining World War II in the concentration camps where the Jews were malnurished. Cannibalism was also practiced by Japanese troops as recently as WWII in the Pacific theater.[12] A more recent example is of leaked stories from North Korean refugees of cannibalism practiced during and after a famine that occurred sometime between 1995 and 1997.[13]

Lowell Thomas records the cannibalisation of some of the surviving crew members of the Dumaru after the ship exploded and sank during the First World War in his book, The Wreck of the Dumaru (1930).

Documentary and forensic evidence supports eyewitness accounts of cannibalism by Japanese troops during World War II. This practice was resorted to when food ran out, with Japanese soldiers killing and eating each other when enemy civilians were not available. In other cases, enemy soldiers were executed and then dissected. A well-documented case occurred in Chichi Jima in 1945, when Japanese soldiers killed and ate eight downed American airmen. This case was investigated in 1947 in a war-crimes trial, and of 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, five (Maj. Matoba, Gen. Tachibana, Adm. Mori, Capt. Yoshii and Dr. Teraki) were found guilty and hanged.

When Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the Andes on October 13, 1972, the survivors resorted to eating the deceased during their 72 days in the mountains. Their story was later recounted in the books Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors and Miracle in the Andes as well as the film Alive by Frank Marshall and the documentary Alive: 20 Years Later.

Cannibalism as cultural libel

See also: Blood libel

Unsubstantiated reports of cannibalism disproportionately relate cases of cannibalism among cultures that are already otherwise despised, feared, or are little known. In antiquity, Greek reports of anthropophagy were related to distant, non-Hellenic barbarians, or else relegated in myth to the 'primitive' chthonic world that preceded the coming of the Olympian gods: see the explicit rejection of human sacrifice in the cannibal feast prepared for the Olympians by Tantalus of his son Pelops. In 1994, printed booklets reported that in a Yugoslavian concentration camp of Manjaca the Bosnian refugees were forced to eat each other's bodies. The reports were false.

William Arens, author of The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (New York : Oxford University Press, 1979; ISBN 0-19-502793-0), questions the credibility of reports of cannibalism and argues that the description by one group of people of another people as cannibals is a consistent and demonstrable ideological and rhetorical device to establish perceived cultural superiority. Arens bases his thesis on a detailed analysis of numerous "classic" cases of cultural cannibalism cited by explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists. His findings were that many were steeped in racism, unsubstantiated, or based on second-hand or hearsay evidence. In combing the literature he could not find a single credible eye-witness account. And, as he points out, the hallmark of ethnography is the observation of a practice prior to description. In the end he concluded that cannibalism was not the widespread prehistoric practice it was claimed to be; that anthropologists were too quick to pin the cannibal label on a group based not on responsible research but on our own culturally-determined pre-conceived notions, often motivated by a need to exoticize. He wrote:

"Anthropologists have made no serious attempt to disabuse the public of the widespread notion of the ubiquity of anthropophagists. … in the deft hands and fertile imaginations of anthropologists, former or contemporary anthropophagists have multiplied with the advance of civilization and fieldwork in formerly unstudied culture areas. …The existence of man-eating peoples just beyond the pale of civilization is a common ethnographic suggestion."

Aren's findings are controversial, and his argument is often mischaracterized as "cannibals don't and never did exist," when in the end the book is actually a call for a more responsible and reflexive approach to anthropological research. At any rate, the book ushered in an era of rigorous combing of the cannibalism literature. By Aren's later admission, some cannibalism claims came up short, others were reinforced.

Conversely, Michel de Montaigne's essay "Of cannibals" introduced a new multicultural note in European civilization. Montaigne wrote that "one calls 'barbarism' whatever he is not accustomed to." By using a title like that and describing a fair indigean society, Montaigne may have wished to provoke a surprise in the reader of his Essays.

Similarly, Japanese scholars (e.g. Kuwabara Jitsuzo) branded the Chinese culture as cannibalistic in certain propagandistic works — which served as ideological justification for the assumed superiority of the Japanese during World War II.

Sexually motivated cannibalism

Main article: Vorarephilia

The wide use of the Internet has highlighted that thousands of people harbor sexualized cannibalistic fantasies. Discussion forums and user groups exist for the exchange of pictures and stories of such fantasies, a good example of which is provided by the works of Dolcett. Typically, people in such forums fantasize about eating or being eaten by members of their sexually preferred gender. The cannibalism fetish or paraphilia is one of the most extreme sexual fetishes. Very rarely do such fetishes leave the realm of fantasies, most being satisfied with pornographic stories, fetish art or photo modification (or completely computer generated images), with some enacting their fantasies in sexual roleplaying.

There have however been extreme cases of real life sexualized cannibalism, such as those of the serial killers Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Sascha Spesiwtsew, Armin Meiwes, Fritz Haarmann ("the Butcher of Hanover"), and Nicolas Claux.

Another well-known case involved a Japanese student of English literature, Issei Sagawa, who grew fond of Renée Hartevelt, a 25-year-old Dutch woman he met while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1981. He eventually murdered and ate her, writing a graphic yet poignant description of the act. Declared unfit to stand trial in France, his wealthy father had him extradited back to Japan where he eventually regained his freedom. The way he reveled in what he did made him a national celebrity, and he has written several bestselling novels and continues to write a nationally syndicated column. The story inspired the 1981 Stranglers song "La Folie" and the 1983 Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood".

In December 2002, a highly unusual case was uncovered in the town of Rotenburg in Hesse, Germany. In 2001 Armin Meiwes, a 41-year-old computer administrator, had posted messages like his more recent ones (see messages) in Internet newsgroups on the subject of cannibalism, repeatedly looking for "a young Boy, between 18 and 25 y/o" to butcher. At least one of his requests was successful: Jürgen Brandes, another computer administrator, offered himself to be slaughtered. The two men agreed on a meeting. Jürgen Brandes was, with his consent, killed and partially eaten by Meiwes, who, as a result, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail for manslaughter (Totschlag, second-degree murder). In April 2005, the German Federal Court of Justice ordered a retrial upon appeal of the prosecution, and in May 2006 Meiwes was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The band Rammstein took up this case in the song Mein Teil.

This was not the first consensual killing mediated through the Internet (see Sharon Lopatka), but it is the first such known case of consensual cannibalism.

Cannibal themes in mythology and religion

File:Goya-Saturnus.png
"Saturn devouring his children", Francisco de Goya.

Cannibalism features prominently in many mythologies; cannibal ogresses appear in folklore around the world, the witch in Hansel and Gretel being a popular example.

A number of stories in Greek mythology involve cannibalism, in particular cannibalism of close family members, for example the stories of Thyestes, Tereus and especially Cronus, who was Saturn in the Roman pantheon. The story of Tantalus also parallels this. These mythologies inspired Shakespeare's cannibalism scene in Titus Andronicus.

According to Catholic dogma, bread and wine are transubstantiated into the real flesh and blood of Jesus (the eucharist), which are then distributed by the priest to the faithful. The accusations of cannibalism made against ancient Christians may reflect earlier versions of such beliefs but should also be understood as a form of libel (see above), expressing anxiety and concern about a new and somewhat secretive religious group. Christians in turn accused their opponents, such as the Gnostic sect of the Borborites, of cannibalism and ritual abuse.

In the Qur'an Backbiters are stigmatized as those who eat the flesh of the dead body of the person they backbit.

In Hindu mythology, cannibals are usually forest-dwellers that refuse to join society and are known as Raksasa. However, there have also been Raksasas such as Ravana, said to be shape-shifting creatures.

Non-cannibalistic consumption of human-derived substances

It is interesting to note that currently the cheapest source of material from which food grade L-cysteine may be purified in high yield is human hair. Its use in food products is widespread worldwide.

Few people identify the compulsion to gnaw and bite nails or pieces of skin from fingers as cannibalism, because it is not the intentional harvest of a food item. Similarly, intentionally consuming one's own flesh or body parts, such as sucking blood from wounds, is generally not seen to be cannibalism; ingesting one's own blood from an unintentional lesion such as a nose-bleed or an ulcer is clearly not intentional harvesting and consequently not cannibalistic. The consumption of human sperm is also not generally considered cannibalism.

Likewise it has to be questioned whether the practice of some South American peoples to consume the bone ashes of their deceased relatives can be considered cannibalistic.

It is possible for some mothers to gain possession of their afterbirth or placenta once their child is born. Some people eat this placenta material as a delicacy. See placentophagy.

There are many accounts of drinking urine and coprophagia. These may be toward fetishistic, allegedly homeopathic, or survival-based ends. Aboard space flights and the International Space Station, urine is regularly filtered for drinking water.

Non-human cannibalism

Main article: Cannibalism (zoology)
File:Mormon cricket cannibals.jpg
Three Mormon crickets eating a fourth Mormon cricket

Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded for more than 1500 species (this estimate is from 1981, and likely a gross underestimation). In sexual cannibalism as recorded for example for the female red-back spider, black widow spider, praying mantis, and scorpion the female eats the male after mating (though the frequency of this is often overstated).

The more common form of cannibalism is size structured cannibalism, in which large individuals consume smaller ones. In such size-structured populations, cannibalism can be responsible for 8% (Belding Ground Squirrel) to 95% (dragonfly larvae) of the total mortality, making it a significant and important factor for population and community dynamics. Such size structured cannibalism has commonly been observed in the wild for a variety of taxa, including octopus, bats, toads, fish, monitor lizards, red-backed salamanders and several stream salamanders, crocodiles, spiders, crustaceans, birds (crows, barred owls), mammals, and a vast number of insects, such as dragonflies, diving beetles, back swimmers, water striders, flour beetles, caddisflies and many more. Unlike previously believed, cannibalism is not just a result of extreme food shortage or artificial conditions, but commonly occurs under natural conditions in a variety of species. In fact, scientists have acknowledged that it is ubiquitous in natural communities. Cannibalism seems to be especially prevalent in aquatic communities, in which up to ~90% of the organisms engage in cannibalism at some point of the life cycle. Cannibalism is also not restricted to carnivorous species, but is commonly found in herbivores and detritivores. Another common form of cannibalism is infanticide. Classical examples include the chimpanzees where groups of adult males have been observed to attack and consume their infants, and lions, where adult males commonly kill infants when they take over a new harem after replacing the previous dominant males. Also, gerbils, pigs raised for meat and hamsters eat their young if they are stillborn, or if the mothers are especially stressed.

In the agricultural industry, savaging is the aggressive or cannibalistic behavior of mother livestock towards newborn young. This is especially prevalent in pigs.

Cannibalism in popular culture

Main article: Cannibalism in popular culture

In 1976 Owlswick Press of Philadelphia published To Serve Man: a Cookbook for People by Karl Wurf, containing recipes for dishes incorporating human flesh.

Brazilian modernist Oswald de Andrade wrote the Cannibal Manifesto, arguing that Brazilian society should absorb and reprocess outside influences to create a new culture.

Cannibalism is a recurring theme in literature and film. Well-known examples include:

  • The Doctor Who story The Two Doctors features a gourmet cannibal named Shockeye.
  • In the Torchwood episode "Countrycide" it is discovered that a whole village of cannibals kill and eat travellers every ten years as part of a "harvest".
  • Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus
  • The film Soylent Green, a 1973 Charlton Heston movie is about overpopulation, starvation, and one obvious solution for both problems.
  • The Texas Chainsaw Massacre film series, which features the monstrous killer Leatherface and his cannibalistic family.
  • The film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by Peter Greenaway has a scene featuring cannibalism.
  • Hannibal Lecter, a fictional character created by Thomas Harris in the 1981 novel Red Dragon who also appeared in Harris's 1988 The Silence of the Lambs, 1999 Hannibal and 2006 Hannibal Rising, was famed for his culinary skills with human flesh, and was nicknamed "Hannibal the Cannibal." Among his famous lines: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." Lecter is also reported to be the world's most famous fictional cannibal.[citation needed]
  • The film Fried Green Tomatoes features cannibalism as a way to dispose of a murder victim.
  • The play and musical Sweeney Todd features a vengeful barber and his associate who grind up the barber's victims and serve them in tasty meat pies.
  • The musical Cannibal! The Musical, is a light-hearted take on the true story of Alferd Packer.
  • In Futurama, there is a planet called Cannibalon which is home to cannibals. There is also mentioned a "Soylent Cola" made with people, with the taste varying "from person to person". There is at least one episode involving Soylent Green, and a reference to Soylent Orange.
  • In an episode of Family Guy (entitled Da Boom), Channel 5 Action News anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons are shown eating Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa after a nuclear holocaust caused by Y2K. Also, there was a joke involving cannibalism when Lois' brother kills an obese man and brings another to the verge of death. The survivor is so hungry that he asks if anyone wishes to consume his fellow victim. At the end of the episode, when all is apparently resolved, Stewie informs his family that there's "a half-dead fat guy eating a dead fat guy. I guess we're just going to look the other way, then."
  • The Simpsons has several references, the most significant being in the episode Treehouse of Horror V, where cannibalism takes place at Springfield Elementary School when Lunchlady Doris makes school lunches out of the students.
  • In an episode of The Young Ones the cast decide to eat their least popular member (Neil) when they are trapped in their house, submerged in a flood.
  • In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, there is a reference to 'long pork' along with a tribe of cannibals on the island of the Pelegostos.
  • In an episode of "South Park" Scott Tenorman is tricked by Eric Cartman into eating his recently murdered parents in a bowl of chili.
  • In the "Stephen King" short story "Survivor Type" a man is stranded on an island and is forced to eat his legs, arms, earlobes, and other body parts.
  • In the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" King Arthur and the other Knights of the Round Table are forced at one point in their journey to eat Sir Robin's minstrels (and there was much rejoicing)
  • The song Mein Teil by the German band Rammstein, makes reference to the case of Armin Meiwes. A notorious German Cannibal.
  • In the 1989 horror movie Parents, a seemingly normal 1950s suburban family regularly engages in cannibalism.
  • The Jack Ketchum novels Off Season and Offspring, both deal with cannibalistic people living in the United States who hunt their prey.
  • The 2003 horror film Wrong Turn, starring Eliza Dushku, was also about a group of cannibalistic "mountain men" living in the woods of West Virginia who murder those who venture too deep into the wilderness.
  • In one of the stories told in the film Sin City (film), a serial killer is featured who murders women and eats parts of their bodies.
  • The crime-thriller Feed (film), has a prologue story which features a man eating the body part of another man who willingly allowed him to do so.
  • A film entitled Ravenous, is about a group of men who become stranded in the wilds of 1840's California and must resort to cannibalism to survive.
  • Alive (1993 film) was based on the true story of a group of people whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains, and in order to survive, resorted to eating their deceased companions.
  • In "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", in the scene where most of the characters are eating dinner, a sheet is pulled off the table revealing a dismembered corpse of the character "Eddie" displayed under a sheet of glass and the characters are shown to have possibly eaten parts of his body
  • In American Psycho, serial killer Patrick Bateman, eats some of his victim's body parts, most notably the brain.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the Death Eater Fenrir Greyback, enjoys cannibalizing his victims, even out of his werewolf form. The one known case of him doing so is described by the school nurse at Hogwarts as "possibly unique."
  • In Scott Westerfeld's popular teen novel, Peeps, a parasite transmitted through bodily fluids causes its victims to become cannibalistic (as well as vampiric)
  • In Naruto, (the pre-teen/ teen anime and manga) Zetsu from the "criminal' organization Akatsuki is a cannibal. Interestingly, this has been attributed to the fact that his head is surrounded by a large venus fly trap that can envelope his entire body for protective purposes.
  • Rapper Brotha Lynch Hung, a crip rapper notorious for his gruesome lyrics, has mentioned eating human meat in many of his songs, most vividly in Return of The Baby Killa. Lynch has also released a film called Now Eat, where Lynch goes on a bloody rampage, killing and eating many people.
  • Zombies are popularly depicted as cannibalistic in many works of fiction, though it is debateable if zombies, who eat the brains of humans, are counted as humans themselves.
  • Suddenly Last Summer a 1950's early film based on the play of Tennesse Williams of the same name,portrays the mysterious killing of a character Sebastien by a group of Cannibals.
  • Death Metal act Cannibal Corpse is well-known for their extreme use of lyrics appealing to cannibalism, as well as many other subjects such as murder, rape, mutilation, dismemberment, etc.
  • In a popular Death Metal song "Eaten" by Bloodbath the protagonist tells about his desire to be cannibalized.
  • American movie " Eating Raoul"(1982)the main characters eat the locksmith Raoul.
  • In the arthouse video-art movie "Drawing Restraint 9" by Matthew Barney featuring his partner Björk there is a climatic scene where the couple inact a ritualistic transformation into whales while cutting each other's limbs and taste a small piece of flesh from each other which is peculiarly reminiscent of Japanese Sashimi.
  • In the game Jade Empire, the player encounters cannibals in the forest. The cannibals spoken of are short, dwarflike monsters.
  • The Hong Kong horror film Dumplings tells the story of an aging television actresses who wishes to recapture her physical youth and beauty. At a dumpling shop, she discovers the secret ingredient in the dumplings is unborn fetus.
  • In the video game nethack, cannibalism is possible, but usually results in negative consequences for the player.
  • The Monkey Island Cannibals, from the Monkey Island (series) of computer games.
  • In the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, the Forsaken race are able to cannibalize Humanoids and Undeads corpses to regain health points.
  • In the movie The Green Butchers, two butchers in their failing butcher shop accidentally kill a man who is locked in the meat freezer overnight. One butcher then chops off the dead man's thigh, and sells the meat. Customers love the meat and the two butchers kill more people for profit.
  • The Stephen King short story Survivor Type, featured in Skeleton Crew, deals with an incident of self-cannibalism.
  • In the fictional Sword of Truth series Mud people eat the flesh of their enemies before worshipping and speaking to their ancestor sprits.

Animal cannibalism

Animals may resort to cannibalism when they have a new litter. The main reasons that they eat their young are:

  • stress;
  • too many young to look after;
  • the young may have been handled and the scent of the human may be left behind;
  • and other adults may eat the young due to starvation or to free the mother for mating with themselves.

Rodents, small mammals and other solitary animals are those most likely to eat their young.

See also

References

  1. ^ ""Cannibalism Normal?"". "National Geographic". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ Brief history of cannibal controversies; David F. Salisbury, August 15, 2001
  3. ^ Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) Anthropophagy.
  4. ^ The Acadian Recorder, Saturday, May 27, 1826
  5. ^ PT 109 by Donovan (book)
  6. ^ William Bueller Seabrook. Jungle Ways London, Bombay, Sydney: George G. Harrap and Company, 1931
  7. ^ Tim Bowden. One Crowded Hour. ISBN 0-00-217496-0
  8. ^ Beattie, Owen and Geiger, John (2004). Frozen in Time. ISBN 1-55365-060-3.
  9. ^ http://observer.guardian.co.uk/life/story/0,6903,605454,00.html
  10. ^ http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/aeer13_2/Dickenson.html
  11. ^ http://www.sovietarmy.com/books/leningrad.html
  12. ^ Tanaka, Toshiyuki, and Tanaka, Yuki (1996). Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. ISBN 0-8133-2717-2.
  13. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41966-2003Oct3?language=printer

External links

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