cannibalism

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Leonhard Kern : ogre, ivory sculpture, around 1650

When cannibalism is digestion of other dogs or parts thereof referred. In particular, it is understood to mean the consumption of human meat by humans (anthropophagy) , but cannibalism also exists in the animal kingdom . The terms cannibalism and anthropophagy are used regardless of whether the eating was preceded by killing or not. Biologists use the more precise terms active and passive cannibalism in animals to distinguish the two cases.

In almost all human societies cannibalism is subject to a food taboo. Anthropophagy in extreme situations (due to lack of food) must be distinguished from ritual or religious manifestations. The belief in the medicinal effectiveness of consuming body parts was widespread in Europe until the 18th century. Individual cases of cannibalism also appear in a sexual or psychiatric context.

Word origin

The word “cannibal” came into use in European languages ​​as a result of Christopher Columbus' voyages of discovery around 1500. It is first recorded in German in 1508.

When Columbus anchored off the island of Hispaniola on his first voyage , he noted in his logbook on November 23, 1492 that the inhabitants of this island lived in constant fear of the Caniba or Canima , the supposedly one-eyed, dog-faced and man-eating inhabitants of the neighboring island of Bohío. The name of this Indian people meant something like "brave" (cf. Tupi language caryba : "hero"). In their language as the sounds l, n and r as allophones vary, originated in the use of Spanish sailors to a variant caribe or Caribal what in the parlance to refer to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Caribbean , the Caribs , narrowed, and another canibal meaning "ogre".

Since one was firmly convinced in the pre-scientific ethnology of antiquity and the Middle Ages that anthropophagic (man-eating) and "half-human" peoples lived on the edge of the known world, the literature of the 16th century in the Caribbean canibales was particularly current and seemingly real Discover embodiment of this ancient idea. The name became a concept; as such, it spread very quickly and became a synonym for the previously common Greek term anthropophage .

In today's German, the term man- eater is mainly used for fairy tale and legend characters or peoples.

Anthropophagy

Different contexts and motives for cannibalism

In his book People Eat People - The World of Cannibals, Christian Spiel differentiates between different types of cannibalism according to the motives and occasions:

  • Mythically based cannibalism - world creation through cannibalism described in world creation myths
  • Religious cannibalism - part of the body as a direct offering to the gods (for example, the Aztecs' heart for the sun god, so that the sun can run its course across the sky anew every day; the raw remains of corpses for humans as omophagy )
  • ritual cannibalism as “ burial in man” - taking in the victim or the deceased and thus preventing his return
  • Piety cannibalism - honoring relatives, be it an ancestor or their own child, out of respect, love or grief, but also keeping them safe
  • Fear cannibalism - keeping the killed enemy in the safest possible place, in oneself, and thus preventing his return
  • magical cannibalism - the idea that qualities such as strength and courage pass from the victim to the eater through consumption
  • judicial or court cannibalism - eating convicts or drinking their blood
  • Nutritional cannibalism in extreme emergencies
  • Cannibalism as sexual fetishism

He did not take into account the medical cannibalism that was widespread in Europe.

Controversial reviews

The description of cannibalism, especially in older reports, but also the corresponding interpretation of archaeological finds is sharply criticized by some authors or viewed as inaccurate. The charge of cannibalism was until the recent past in Europe as a pretext for discrimination of indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups have been used. The results of archaeological research could also not be clearly confirmed. Corresponding misinterpretations were uncovered several times, for example by showing that scratches, which were initially interpreted as signs of cannibalism, came from animals. The lack of organs could also result from funeral rituals, if z. B. in ancient Egypt during mummification the internal organs were removed. The inscription of the Egyptian cannibal hymn is also controversial .

The modern research methods of archeology , however, have provided sufficient credible evidence for the occurrence of cannibalism in various cultural areas. One example is the findings of a research group in 1999 in a cave in Moula-Guercy , France . The human bones found were crushed using the same method as animal remains . In a pre-Columbian settlement of the Anasazi in today's US state of Colorado , a group of dismissed doctors , led by Jennifer and Richard Marler in the found cooking pots and excrement traces of human myoglobin by which human only by feeding meat may originate.

Archaeological evidence in Europe

"The archaeological criteria for cannibalism are broken bones, hacking and cut marks , longitudinal splitting of the long bones for the medullary and opening of the skull for brain removal, as well as the effects of fire, which occur in the same or a similar way on animal bones and suggest the same treatment of humans and animals . "

Homo antecessor and Homo erectus

Already around 800,000 years old bone finds by Homo antecessor have been interpreted as evidence of cannibalistic practices, which is asserted on the basis of incisions on finds from 1997 from Atapuerca (near Burgos , northern Spain). In Bilzingsleben ( Thuringia ) an approximately 300,000 year old pavement semicircle was found, which could have served as a ritual place. Remains of the shattered skulls of the early man Homo erectus were interpreted by the excavator Dietrich Mania as evidence of a brain removal (funeral cannibalism).

Neanderthals

In the cave of Krapina north of the Croatian city of Zagreb, broken and partially burned bones of at least 24 Neanderthals were found between 1899 and 1905 , which was classified as "ritual cannibalism". This is countered by the fact that the supposedly authentic cuts on the skulls as scratches can in part only have arisen after the preservation. The site is unsuitable as evidence of cannibalism.

In a cave in the Hortus massif ( southern France ), the remains of up to 36 people were found, all of whose bones were broken and who were surrounded by remains of food and animals. Also cut marks on a lower jaw with Neanderthal features from the cave of Les Rois (near Mouthiers-sur-Boëme ) were assessed as possible evidence of cannibalism, which is said to have been practiced by the Cro-Magnon people of the Aurignacia . However, this was contradicted by a study in 2009, which came to the conclusion that the context of certain pieces of information that are necessary to give preference to a cannibalistic context are missing.

Neolithic

The finds from the virgin cave of Tiefenellern near Bamberg in Franconia come from the Neolithic ceramics culture with cut marks that were interpreted as a sign of cannibalism. Today, however, the method of laying down is considered a secondary burial. Other sites are the Hanseles Hohl cave in the Alb-Donau district , Ober-Hörgern in the Wetterau district and Zauschwitz ( Borna district , now Leipzig district ). It is in these places that members of the band ceramic culture allegedly made sacrifices. Another controversy about cannibalism at the end of the ceramic band was waged around the Herxheim site . The project manager Andrea Zeeb-Lanz ruled out cannibalism.

The Fontbrégoua Cave in Provence in France , which was examined from 1986 onwards, is another finding that has been discussed.

Tradition, ritual and religion

The ritual consumption of human flesh, sometimes as human sacrifice , was practiced in different cultures. It was above all the bodies or body parts of defeated enemies (exocannibalism) that were consumed in order to gain their powers. Those who consumed wanted to absorb properties of the dead such as strength or intelligence with the meal. Therefore, body parts were preferred where the magic power of the soul was assumed, such as the brain and heart. However, some peoples mainly ate body parts of deceased relatives and friends (endocannibalism). Admission into the body of the living served to preserve the soul of the deceased. During the 2017 session of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , cases of ongoing cannibalism in the Congo Basin were reported, based on the belief by some Bantu that eating pygmy meat would render them invulnerable and even protect them from bullets.

America

Burn marks on the bones of the Anasazi Indians from pre-Columbian times are interpreted as an indication of cannibalism. However, the traces may come from execution rituals, and the discussion about this is controversial. In 1150 AD, according to the researcher R. Marlar in Colorado, enemies were killed and consumed by the Anasazi. The meat of the inhabitants of "three earth houses" was cooked in pots, the broken pieces of which were found in a pit. Bones with more than 1,000 cut marks from at least seven people of both sexes remained on the hut floor. Before one of the perpetrators left the place, he relieved himself in the fireplace. R. Marlar was able to detect traces of human flesh on the shards and in the excrement using biochemical methods. “ Myoglobin was also found , a protein that is responsible for storing oxygen in the muscles. He discovered this substance in the dried excrement, which he found to be consistent with human provenance in terms of size and shape. Myoglobin is found in skeletal and heart muscle tissue, but not in the digestive tract. If it is found in excrement, it can only come from human flesh that has been eaten, ”says Marlar.

In the sacrificial cult of the Aztecs , up to 14,000 victims are said to have been eaten at religious slaughter festivals from 1325 to 1519 (the beginning of the Spanish conquest of Mexico ). This often included thousands of prisoners of war from opposing tribes . The heart went to the priests for use in fire rituals, the skulls were lined up in a tzompantli . The rest of the body went to the family of the warrior who captured the victim. Bernal Díaz del Castillo found over 100,000 skulls kept as relics in the city of Xocotlan alone. In Zultepec , archaeologists found evidence that 550 people were sacrificed and partly eaten at this place. With the Aztecs, ritual cannibalism was one of the fertility rites. The European colonizers were particularly interested in young male priests who were clad with the stripped skin of a woman.

In her book Consuming Grief, the ethnologist Beth Conklin of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee described the Wari ' tribe who lived in the Brazilian rainforest and practiced both endo- and exocannibalism, the former as a means of dealing with grief. When eating enemies, their bodies were shown no respect and treated like that of a hunted animal ( dominance behavior ). In contrast, members of their own tribes were respectfully ate in elaborate burial ceremonies. However, their findings are not based on their own observation, but on the memories of the Wari '. In addition, she admits that there are no anthropological or ethnological eyewitness accounts of cannibalism.

Oceania

On his second South Seas voyage to New Zealand, James Cook and the entire crew (including the natural scientists Georg and Johann Reinhold Forster , the on-board astronomer William Wales and the third lieutenant Richard Pickersgill) eyewitnesses to the cannibalism of the Māori . A Māori had been slain in a tribal feud and the victors had dismembered and partially consumed the body. Cook's third officer Richard Pickersgill bought a Māori head and took it aboard the Resolution ship . In the afternoon some of the victorious Māori came on board:

“As soon as they saw the head, they testified to a great desire for it, and indicated by signs that the flesh was of excellent taste. [Pickersgill] offered to give them a piece of the cheek […] but they did not want to eat raw, but asked to have done it. So it was left to roast a little over the fire in all our presence, and no sooner had this happened than the New Zealanders devoured it before our eyes with the greatest greed. "

The incident is documented in several private on-board diaries of Cook's travel participants. The natural scientist Georg Forster suspected "anger and vengeance" as the cause of cannibalism, while the on-board astronomer William Wales said that the Māori liked human flesh "because of the taste". The observers agreed that the cannibalism was in no way caused by hunger or lack of meat.

In Papua New Guinea it is said that the Fore tribe eats the meat of their deceased relatives for ritual reasons. The spread of Kuru disease is said to be due to this. However, this is questioned by some authors. Ritual cannibalism is reported among the Korowai forest nomads in the province of Papua in the southeastern part of West Papua until at least the late mid-20th century . People believed to have fallen into witchcraft ( khakhua ) were killed with an arrow shot in the heart . Then they were gutted, cut up and made ready to eat in banana leaves .

On July 21, 1867, the English missionary Thomas Baker is said to have been eaten in the village of Nabutautau , which belongs to Fiji , because of a taboo violation . It is considered an insult in the Fiji Islands to touch someone else's head hair . The islanders solemnly apologized to the descendants of Baker in 2003.

China

In China , special burial rituals and ancestral cult , which are essential components of Chinese culture, have survived to this day. Before their burial, the deceased are offered sacrificial foods by their biological relatives, which today mainly consist of rice dishes. The sources show, however, that human sacrifices were also common in the past and were then eaten ritually. “Throughout the length of Chinese history, one can see a development in the sacrificial foods. It ranges from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice and finally to vegetarian sacrifice. (...) The sacrifice of people also meant eating people. "

Even hated enemies were sometimes eaten as a special punishment and as an expression of triumph in ancient China, also in honor of their own ancestors. “For example , when Zhou , the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, felt his honor had been struck by two gentlemen, he had one processed into minced meat in brine sauce, the other cooked and served, seasoned and sliced. He sacrificed this food in compliance with the rites in the temple of his ancestors. ”Although cannibalism became uncommon under the influence of Buddhism , according to sources it still occurred in the recent past, but no longer religiously motivated. Well-known Chinese writer Zheng Yi documented some cases of cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi Autonomous Region , where alleged class enemies were victims.

“In historical times, cannibalism also existed when someone in the family died of natural causes. Here cannibalism also served to free the bones of the dead from contamination by the decomposing flesh of the corpse. The corpse was ritually cleansed in this way. This happened because the successor of the deceased in the family hierarchy ate the meat of the deceased or drank a broth prepared from it. (...) This cannibalism practiced within the family was regarded as a duty of piety towards the deceased. "

Medical cannibalism (Europe)

In ancient Rome , fresh blood from gladiators was given for epilepsy .

According to recent medical-historical research by the cultural historian Anna Bergmann (2004) and the British medical historian Richard Sugg (2006), there was widespread medical cannibalism in Europe well into the 18th century. Body parts of those who were executed and their blood were sold by the executioner to the people and to pharmacists and then used for medical purposes. The fat ( " hangdog fat ") and the meat ( "rogue meat") of the "poor sinner" - even the unborn and unbaptized deceased children - were processed into all sorts of magical ingredients that are swallowed in part, partially as ointments the face and Body smeared. A remedy was promised against gout and osteoarthritis and against diseases, for the development of which the fateful work of demons was assumed to be the cause. From the 17th century z. For example, a prescription from the German doctor Johann Schröder has come down to us, which describes the preparation of human muscle meat. Similarly, the American anthropologist Beth A. Conklin describes, referring to the 1896 publication by Mabel Peacock: “In Denmark , epileptics were reported who, with a bowl at hand, stood in groups around the scaffold , ready to drink the red blood, that flowed out of the still trembling bodies. ”In the 1870s - z. B. 1879 in Berlin and thus for the creation of the Reich Criminal Code - occurred in northern Germany to grave desecration , where corpses pieces of meat and blood was taken, "strong" with the intention to allow the sick to.

The British King Charles II is said to have consumed a distillate from human brains ("the king's drops") every day . This form of magical medicine was based on the notion of the unity of body and soul and the belief that the incorporation of parts of a purified sinner had healing properties.

Since the Middle Ages , powdered ancient Egyptian mummies were also regarded as medicinal products under the name Mumia and sold in European pharmacies . Behind this was the assumption that the good state of preservation of the embalmed body was a sign of the special healing powers contained therein. Since the 16th century, the mumia , which was made from the body parts of the executed, was considered to be particularly effective. There was an extensive trade in real and counterfeit mummies for centuries up until the 1920s. Tinctures and ointments were made from the powder , which were used internally or externally to help with various ailments and diseases. Since the 19th century, Mumia has been used almost exclusively in veterinary medicine .

Cannibalism in extreme situations

Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Due to the worsening climate in Central Europe , isolated cases of cannibalism were reported in the extreme hunger year 784. During the Maarat an-Numan massacre in 1098, due to a famine, cannibalism by Christian crusaders broke out on the local Muslim population.

In the “hunger winter” of 1609/1610, residents of Jamestown, Virginia , the first permanently settled English colony in North America , ate a 14-year-old girl to avoid starvation.

During the Thirty Years' War, the parish priest Michael Lebhardt von Kutzenhausen, a neighboring village of Agawang (near Augsburg), documented the consumption of human flesh on February 3, 1635. He reported about it to his superior Dr. Kaspar Zeiller, who urged the parish priest to be lenient in the face of the extreme famine.

19th century

Sometimes cannibalism occurred in the event of a shipwreck in order to save one's own life, even if only a few cases, such as the loss of the French frigate Méduse in 1816, are documented.

On November 20, 1820, the whaler Essex, rammed by an angry sperm whale , sank in the Pacific . The surviving sailors were able to save themselves with the small whaling boats and drifted for weeks in the Pacific. No longer up to the hardships, the Essex men began to die. The first two dead were buried in the seaman's style. Then the half-starved sailors began to eat their dead comrades. When that was no longer filling, they drew the lot. Another whaler finally found the last two survivors. “ The skin littered with ulcers , the castaways gnawed at the bones of their dead comrades with hollow-cheeked faces. Even when the rescuers rushed up, they did not want to give up their gruesome meal. "

In 1822 seven prisoners and Alexander Pearce fled the Macquarie Harbor penal colony on Sarah Island and tried to cover the approximately 215 km long route to Hobart . The way led through the uninhabited and inhospitable west coast of Tasmania . Two of the inmates gave up and died from the exertion on their return, while four others were gradually axed to death to provide food for the others. In the end, only Alexander Pearce, who ate the meat of all four, survived. After more than 100 days, he was caught again, and he and his fellow inmate Thomas Cox managed to escape again. He killed this after a short time and ate parts of his corpse, he took other parts with him as food. Alexander Pearce was caught again ten days later and executed in 1824. His skull is still in the possession of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia . His life has been featured in several films, including The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce .

A tour group of 87 American settlers went down in the history of settlement in the American West as the Donner Party , who wanted to reach California in 1846 . In the Sierra Nevada , she was surprised by the winter and went hungry. A total of 34 participants in the trek died. The others, according to the diaries and reports of the search parties, may only have survived through cannibalism on the dead group members. It is unclear whether any of the killings of the split-up tour group took place to obtain food.

In 1884 the British sailing ship Mignonette got into distress in the South Atlantic . Four crew members were able to save themselves in a small rowboat . After starving for nearly three weeks, they decided to kill and eat the 17-year-old cabin boy . This was allegedly already terminally ill because he had drunk sea ​​water . Later the remaining three were rescued by a German sailing ship. Three months later, they were charged and convicted of murder in England .

20th century

During a famine in Russia, 1921

In the Soviet Union , cannibalism occurred in the wake of great famines and in the wake of deportations during the Stalin era , such as the Nasino tragedy . The consumption of corpses in emergency situations often occurred during World War II , for example during the Leningrad blockade (1941–1944). There is also evidence of hunger cannibalism among prisoners of war in Soviet camps at the time. A German doctor who was taken prisoner by the Soviet Union said when he was later questioned: “ From the camp I was in, I know from my own experience that the hunger there led to cannibalism. Body parts of those who died at night were visibly nibbled on the next morning. "

Additional cases of cannibalism during World War II occurred in the Pacific . In 1942, 160,000 Japanese were stationed in Papua New Guinea , where they fought against the Allies. The soldiers were no longer supplied with food by the Japanese army and the food situation there rapidly deteriorated. Therefore, fallen Australians were first eaten. But living Australian prisoners of war were also quickly killed for consumption, as well as isolated Japanese soldiers. Of the Japanese soldiers, only around 10,000 survived. The Japanese historian Yuki Tanaka believes that the majority of these survivors practiced cannibalism. Similar reports are known from Japanese soldiers in the Philippines.

Between 1959 and 1961, during the Great Leap Forward Campaign, the Great Chinese Famine occurred , which led to various forms of cannibalism, which are reported in extensive oral reports as well as some official documents. Due to the magnitude of the famine, the resulting cannibalism has been described as unprecedented in 20th century history.

A plane crash in the Chilean Andes in 1972, also called Survival! was filmed.

In the documentary Children of the Secret State (2001), refugees from North Korea report on the famine there, which also leads to cannibalism. Human meat is reportedly sold as pork on the black market.

Psychiatric manifestations, psychology

In psychiatry , cannibalism is classified as paraphilia or sexual fetishism .

The terms Gynophagie ( ancient Greek γυνή gyne "woman", φαγεῖν phagein "eat"), and similarly Androphagie ( ἀνήρ Aner "man", genitive ἀνδρός Andros ), called paraphilias, where cannibalistic acts subject of sexual fantasies are or deeds. Since the 1990s, cartoon drawings by Dolcett have been distributed on the Internet , which mainly deal with gynophagia.

The theory of the psychoanalysis based on Sigmund Freud interprets the suckling of the baby on the mother's breast as both sexual and cannibalistic identification of the child with the mother.

Depth psychologists see stories that deal with cannibalism, problems , fears and trauma of the onset of sexual maturity and mother / child detachment, sexuality and instinct , but also the fear of one's own age and death in a literary way.

Criminal cases in the 20th and 21st centuries

Well-known cases of cannibalism in the 20th and 21st centuries have often found widespread dissemination and attention via the media and caused a great stir in the public.

Karl Denke murdered at least 26 men and 5 women during the First World War . Containers with cured human meat were found with him . The serial killer Joachim Kroll was arrested by the police in 1976 while he was preparing the hand of his last victim for consumption. Issei Sagawa killed a woman in Paris in 1981 and ate parts of her body.

The American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer , who became known as the Cannibal of Milwaukee , committed 17 murders in the United States from 1978 to 1991 and, after his arrest, confessed to practicing cannibalism in three cases and consuming a heart and muscle meat from his victims. The Ukrainian-Russian serial killer Andrei Tschikatilo was executed in 1994 as a monster of Rostov for 53 murders mainly of women and children, some of which he ate.

In 2001, a man volunteered as a victim for a cannibalic meal made by Armin Meiwes from Rotenburg . With the victim's consent, Meiwes ate parts of this body in front of the camera. Meiwes became known as the Rotenburg cannibal .

Cannibalism can transmit disease

The prions responsible for the bovine disease BSE and scrapie in sheep are transmitted in particular through the consumption of affected organs of the central nervous system (CNS) or other contaminated parts. This is also the case with the Kuru disease , which was epidemically observed in the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea in the middle of the 20th century and which was ascribed to ritual cannibalism. After the ban on cannibalism in 1954, the incidence of the disease also steadily decreased, only to go to zero by the end of the century. Alternative explanations are also discussed.

Cultural adaptations of the topic

In mythology

Francisco de Goya : Saturn eats one of its children
  • In Greek mythology, Kronos eats his children because he fears for his rule . Zeus survives because his mother Rhea gives Kronos a stone wrapped in a diaper instead of him.
  • The goddess Athena arises from the head of her father Zeus, who had previously eaten her together with her pregnant mother. Athena, however, survives and migrates in her father's body to his head.
  • Prokne , the wife of Tereus , cooked their son and put him in front of the ignorant husband for dinner because he had raped her sister Philomele . The subject was retold by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Legend of Good Women around 1387 .
  • The creation story of the South American Yanomami is about how the "first beings" exterminate each other in an interplay of murder, rape and cannibalism, so that a surviving spirit becomes the first Yanomami. Among other things, two young men kill an older man who ate a child, whereupon they rape a woman and turn her vagina into a mouth with teeth so that he can eat the next penis. As the story progresses, the woman turns into a large snake that still lurks to eat Yanomami men. The numerous remarks of “hunger for each other” in the founding story are ambiguous, since copulating and eating are identified by the same verb in the Yanomami language.
  • In a story in the summer, the mythical creature Wendigo of the North American Algonquin marries the daughter of a family whom he has helped with food over her famine to eat in winter.

In the literature

  • In Shakespeare's early tragedy Titus Andronicus , the Gothic queen Tamora is served a pie made from the meat of her two sons.
  • The man-eating witch is known from Grimm's fairy tales , who Hansel and Gretel first want to bake and then eat. Similar motifs appear in some of Wilhelm Busch's picture stories .
  • In French pre-Grimm Little Red Riding Hood versions, the wolf gives him to drink the blood of her grandmother and eat her meat.
  • A Scottish legend tells of Alexander "Sawney" Bean , who lived at the beginning of the 15th century and is said to have eaten more than 1,000 people with his family.
  • The satire A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift proposes the export of human flesh to fight poverty in Ireland of its time.
  • William Blake , in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , describes how stronger monkeys trap weaker ones, have sex with them, and then physically tear them apart.
  • In his short story "Diary of a Madman", Lu Xun uses the allegory of cannibalism to criticize traditional Chinese culture and Confucian ethics.
  • The story of Alfred Packer was written in Cannibal! The Musical satirically filmed with black humor.
  • In Sławomir Mrożek's absurd play on the high seas, three castaways vote in a pseudo-democratic process about which of them should be eaten.
  • In the novel Robinson Crusoe , published in 1719, the protagonist lives on a desert island that is repeatedly visited by cannibals who kill and eat prisoners on the beach. One day one of the prisoners escapes, Robinson saves him, takes him in and names him Friday.
  • In the American author Herman Melville's first work, Typee , published in 1846, he describes a captivity in the valley of the Taipi, which is known as cannibalistic.
  • In the carnival burlesque Chieftain Abendwind or Das gräuliche Festmahl by Johann Nestroy , which premiered in 1862, cannibalism "on one of the most distant islands in Australia" is an ironic theme.
  • In Jules Verne's novel The Children of Captain Grant , published in 1867/1868, seafarers who were shipwrecked off the coast of New Zealand are arrested by cannibalist Maori .
  • The short story The Survivor Type (original title Survivor Type ) from the book Der Fornit by Stephen King is about a doctor who is stranded on a desert island and is forced by his hunger to amputate various body parts one after the other and to eat them.
  • A few short stories and novels by Jack London depict cannibalism in the South Seas, such as "Jerry the Islander". Researchers of his time criticized him for exaggeration, but London repeatedly defended the authenticity of his stories through reports and documents.
  • The novel Die Strasse , set in a post-apocalyptic setting, addresses, among other things, people's turn to cannibalism after the fall of society.
  • In the short story volume A cannibal on the railroad - and other stories by Mark Twain , the topic of cannibalism is satirically taken up together with politics.
  • The American Pulitzer Prize winner Willa Cather describes in her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), which is set in the time of slavery in the US southern states , how the white slave owner tries to attribute sexuality to the young slave Nancy control, for which she arranges, among other things, a rape of Nancy, while the slave Jezebel rediscovers her cannibalistic instincts when she thinks of Nancy. Apparently Sapphira and Jezebel work together and act in mental-emotional harmony. In the book itself there are several indications that Sapphira is gaining more and more weight, while at the same time the slaves mysteriously disappear.
  • In Das Liebesopfer , the Croatian author Slavenka Drakulić tells how a violent physical relationship ends with the protagonist dissecting and eating her partner with a butcher's knife and bone saw.
  • Patrick Süskind's novel Das Parfum ends with a cannibalistic scene: the protagonist Grenouille, who has created a perfume from the body scents of young women, a drop of which had already led a whole crowd to a mass orgy, showered himself in a slum in Paris (his place of birth) with the whole bottle of scented water, whereupon the beggars and outcasts standing by, who take him for an angel because of the effect of the perfume, devour him skin and hair with the intention of owning a part of him.
  • The German writer Orla Wolf theme in her 2008 in the Berlin theater under the roof , first performed play gutted the accomplished with the consent of the victim on camera killing by the offender, who is also body parts eaten his victim.

In the movie

The cannibal film is a genre introduced in the 1970s that belongs to the exploitation and splatter film category .

Cannibalism in the animal kingdom

Active and passive cannibalism

A pond frog devours a smaller conspecific

When it comes to cannibalism among animals, zoologists differentiate between active and passive cannibalism. An active cannibal hunts and kills conspecifics before eating them, while a passive cannibal only eats conspecifics that are already dead. The latter are often predators and omnivores such as crows and seagulls or scavengers such as various types of crabs or even many snails .

  • Active cannibalism is very common among fish. It is estimated that up to 90 percent of all young pike are eaten by larger conspecifics. The same applies to the perch and many other predatory fish. In this way, the perch can survive in waters where it is the only fish species to enter.
  • Branch cannibalism describes the act when parents attack their own offspring. This behavior is very common among Teleostei .
  • Male alligators , monitor lizards and snakes often kill conspecifics they are superior to and eat them.
  • In intrauterine cannibalism, which occurs in some ovoviviparous sharks , the embryos eat other (mostly) unfertilized eggs ( oophagia ) while they are still in the womb . In the case of the tiger sharks and other large deep-sea sharks, the juveniles eat other fetuses , so that only two juveniles are born from the entire litter, which have grown in two separate uterus ( adelphophagy ).
  • Real spiders in particular sometimes eat careless conspecifics as prey. Often this also happens during mating, although the males try to surprise their partner, to woo them or to immobilize them by shackles or "bridal gifts" ( predatory spiders ).
  • In praying mantises ( Mantodea ) it occasionally happens that the female begins to eat the smaller male during mating.

Cannibalism in (mass) animal husbandry

Cannibalism can also occur when keeping mice and rats . With a sharp increase in population density , young animals are often killed and eaten by highly stressed adults. This phenomenon also occurs in factory farming . Here pigs eat each other's tails or ears, chickens injure or kill each other by pecking.

Cannibalism is one of the most problematic behavior problems in the keeping of hybrid chickens for egg and meat production in large groups. The chickens often damage the feathers of their fellow species by pecking their feathers - until the skin and the cloaca are bare. In the further course of the picking attacks, individual animals are then "properly eviscerated" via these points. In free-range husbandry, damaged feathers can also lead to the death of the animals as they cool down. Some researchers see a misguided exploratory behavior as the cause of cannibalism and feather pecking. Wild chickens explore their surroundings by pecking the ground and finding food such as worms, insects and grains. If concentrated feed is used in industrial farming, this natural urge cannot be lived out. Feather pecking and cannibalism can therefore be classified as a substitute act. As a countermeasure, day-old chicks often have their bills shortened, which is questionable for reasons of animal welfare and prevents the animals from eating. Feather pecking can increase the death rate in large stables by up to 20 percent. Genetic causes are being researched. It can also be observed that the animals learn feather pecking and cannibalism in large herds, and that the phenomenon occurs in waves.

Turkeys also have a typical instinct to look for food in their environment. If they cannot live out this urge, they will also start pecking at other turkeys, which can lead to cannibalism. Injuries are mainly inflicted on unfledged parts of the body (head, neck, neck, nasal cone) and in the vicinity of the cloaca and on the chest and back region. In addition to weak legs, this is the most serious problem in keeping turkeys. In addition to the suffering of the animals, an increased susceptibility of the animals to infectious diseases and the resulting deaths could be demonstrated. In addition to other factors, the density of the stables also determines the frequency of cannibalism and feather pecking. In order to reduce cannibalism in the herds, the tips of the beaks are docked .

Use of the term “cannibalism” in other areas

In astronomy , the term meant the "swallowing up" of small galaxies by larger ones.

The term was also transferred to production control : Here it refers to the removal of parts from already assembled assemblies or products with the aim of installing the “cannibalized” parts in other assemblies that have to be completed more quickly.

In business there is the synonymous term cannibalization .

The US Indian Jack D. Forbes uses the term cannibalism in his philosophy of " Wétiko psychosis " - which denotes a pathological cannibalism among the Cree Indians - figuratively for the unrestrained consumption of humans and nature through the legalized excesses of the capitalist market economy .

“ Habsburg cannibalism ” was a polemical catchphrase for the left-wing Habsburg defense in Austria in the 20th century.

literature

History of science

  • Cǎtǎlin Avramescu: An Intellectual History of Cannibalism. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2009, ISBN 978-0-691-13327-0 .

Prehistory, anthropology

  • Jörg Orschiedt : Manipulation of human skeletal remains. Taphonomic processes, secondary burials or cannibalism? (= Prehistoric material booklets. 13). Mo Vince Verlag, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-9804834-7-9 (also: Tübingen, Universität, Dissertation, 1996).
  • William Arens: The Man-Eating Myth. Anthropology and Anthrophagy. Oxford University Press, New York NY 1979, ISBN 0-19-502506-7 .
  • Michael M. Rind: Human sacrifice. From the cult of cruelty. University Press Regensburg. 2nd edition 1998, ISBN 3-930480-64-6 (small overview). P. 107

Ethnological-historical questions

  • Annerose Menninger: The Power of Eyewitnesses. New World and Cannibal Myth, 1492–1600 (= contributions to colonial and overseas history. Vol. 64). Steiner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-515-06723-X (also: Bamberg, Universität, Dissertation, 1993).
  • Simon Haberberger: Colonialism and Cannibalism. Cases from German New Guinea and British New Guinea 1884–1914 (= sources and research on the South Seas. Series B: Research. Vol. 3). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-447-05578-9 (also: Bayreuth, University, dissertation, 2005).
  • Manfred Riße: Last Supper of the Murderers. Cannibals - Myth and Reality. Militzke, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-86189-776-7 .
  • Heidi Peter-Röcher: The ogre myth. A look into the cannibals' cooking pots (= Beck'sche Reihe. Vol. 1262). Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-42062-1 .
  • Hedwig Röckelein (Ed.): Cannibalism and European culture (= Forum Psychohistorie. Vol. 6). Edition Diskord, Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-89295-582-4 .
  • Josef Nussbaumer, Guido Rüthemann: Hungry people, storms and cannibals (= violence, power, hunger. Vol. 2 = history & economy. Vol. 14). StudienVerlag, Innsbruck et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7065-1831-7 .
  • Gereon Janzing: cannibals and shamans. Common errors about foreign peoples (= The Green Branch. Vol. 247). Werner Pieper & The Grüne Kraft, Löhrbach 2006, ISBN 3-922708-59-5 .
  • Silvia Freiin Ebner von Eschenbach: Food for the dead - food from the dead. Ancestral Sacrifice and Cannibalism in China. In: Perry Schmidt-Leukel (ed.): The religions and the food (= Diederichs yellow row. Vol. 163). Diederichs, Munich et al. 2000, ISBN 3-7205-2115-X , pp. 203-223.
  • Christian game: people eat people. The world of cannibals (= Fischer pocket books 6256 books of knowledge ). Revised edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-436-01952-6 .

Individual studies

  • Hans-Volker Werthmann: The emptiness was gone! Psychoanalytic comments on the Rotenburg cannibalism case. In: Psyche. Vol. 60, Issue 8, 2006, ISSN  0033-2623 , pp. 763-775.
  • Günter Behm-Blancke: caves, sanctuaries, cannibals. Archaeological research in Kyffhäuser Dingsda-Verlag, Querfurt 2005, ISBN 3-928498-86-X .

Reception in art, cultural studies, literature

  • Annette Keck , Inka Kording, Anja Prochaska (Ed.): Entwined borders. Anthropophagy in literature and cultural studies (= literature and anthropology. Vol. 2). Narr, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-8233-5701-8 .
  • Dominik Schrey: "If I die, you can eat me" - cannibalism as a motif in the feature film. In: Christian Hoffstadt , Franz Peschke, Andreas Schulz-Buchta, Michael Nagenborg (eds.): The foreign body (= aspects of medical philosophy. Vol. 6). Projektverlag, Bochum et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-89733-189-1 , pp. 551-570.
  • Michael Schneider: Deadly desire. Cannibals and serial killers. (Cases - facts - background). Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1269-0 .
  • Walter Pape , Daniel Fulda (Ed.): The other food. Cannibalism as a motif and metaphor in literature (= Rombach Sciences. Series: Litterae. Vol. 70). Rombach, Freiburg (Breisgau) 2001, ISBN 3-7930-9258-5 .
  • Volker Mergenthaler: Völkerschau - Cannibalism - Foreign Legion. On the Aesthetics of Transgression (1897–1936) (= Hermaea. German Research. NF Vol. 109). Niemeyer, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-15109-9 .

Older publications (before 1990)

Web links

Commons : Cannibalism  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: cannibalism  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikisource: Cannibalism  - Sources and Full Texts

Individual evidence

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  2. ↑ Joseph Jurt : The cannibals: first European images of the Indians - from Columbus to Montaigne. (PDF file; 54 kB) 2002
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  16. ↑ this is how Herodotus already describes androphages
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  21. ↑ Beth A. Conklin: Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society , University of Texas Press, 2001. Cf. Wari ': Funerary cannibalism . English article on the Povos Indígenas no Brasil (Indigenous Peoples of Brazil) website .
  22. ↑ Review by James R. Welch, in: Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 1 (2003), p. 136 f.
  23. ↑ Georg Forster: Journey around the world. 1983, pp. 443-445.
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  26. ^ Paul Raffaele: Sleeping with Cannibals. In: Smithsonian. September 2006, p. 3.
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  29. ↑ Silvia Freiin Ebner von Eschenbach, p. 215.
  30. ↑ a b Silvia Freiin Ebner von Eschenbach, p. 216.
  31. ^ A b Richard Sugg: 'Good Physic but Bad Food': Early Modern Attitudes to Medicinal Cannibalism and its Suppliers . In: Social History of Medicine 19 (2), 2006, pp. 225-240. See also summary .
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  33. ↑ See article cannibals? We? God forbid! in GEO , April 1, 2011; Review in wochenblatt.de, March 27, 2011.
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  35. ^ Mabel Peacock: Executed criminals and folk medicine. In: Folklore. [London Folklore Society] 7 1896, pp. 268-283.
  36. ↑ History: The Healing Power of Death spiegel.de, January 26, 2009
  37. ↑ Beatrix Geßler-Löhr: Mumia vera aegyptiaca in the Occident (PDF file; 9 kB)
  38. ^ Rüdiger Glaser : Climate History of Central Europe. 1200 years of weather, climate, disasters. With forecasts for the 21st century. Darmstadt 2008, p. 58.
  39. ↑ Joseph Stromberg: Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism. New archaeological evidence and forensic analysis reveals that a 14-year-old girl was cannibalized in desperation . In: Smithsonian.com, May 1, 2013 (English). Retrieved June 17, 2013.
  40. ↑ Hans Medick: The Thirty Years' War - testimonies to life with violence. Wallstein Publishing House. Goettingen. 2018
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  43. ^ Charles McGlashan (1879): History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra Nevada , 11th Edition (1918), A Carlisle & Company, San Francisco
    Kelly Dixon (ed.) (2011): An Archeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp , University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-4210-4
  44. ^ Neil Hanson: The Custom of the Sea
  45. ↑ On this, Steven Bela Várdy, Agnes Huszar Várdy: Cannibalism in Stalin's Russia and Mao's China. In: East European Quarterly. XLI, No. 2, June 2007, pp. 223-238, here 226-233. (PDF file; 856 kB)
  46. ↑ Nicolas Werth : The island of the cannibals: Stalin's forgotten gulag . Siedler, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88680-853-X .
  47. ^ Albrecht Lehmann: Hunger Culture. On the experience of food shortages in the total institution of Soviet prisoner-of-war camps during World War II. In: Uwe Spiekermann (Ed.): Nutrition in borderline situations. Berlin 2002, p. 113.
  48. ^ Yuki Tanaka: Japan admits was crimes conducted in WWII.
  49. ^ A b Richard Bernstein: Horror of a Hidden Chinese Famine , New York Times . February 5, 1997. 
  50. ↑ a b Jasper Becker: Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine . Free Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-684-83457-3 , p. 352. (Note: the title is an allusion to the Hungry Ghosts in the Chinese religion .)
  51. ^ Frank Dikötter: 36. Cannibalism . In: Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962 2010, ISBN 978-0-8027-7768-3 , pp. 320–323.
  52. ↑ Children of the Secret State Preview (9:59 min.) And film description at topdocumentaryfilms.com (English)
  53. ↑ Film review ( Memento from May 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in the Guardian , October 19, 2000. Quotation: “There are many cases of killing people and eating the flesh”, one man attests. All the refugees we interviewed know about cannibalism. ("It often happens that people are killed and the meat is eaten," says one man. All of the refugees we interviewed knew about cannibalism.)
  54. ↑ Excerpts from the film at documentarytube.com (9:04 min.) With German-language comments. On the subject of cannibalism, see 4:45 to 5:27.
  55. ↑ Infinitive aorist of the verb ἐσθίειν esthíein "essen"
  56. ^ John McLeish: Theory of Social Change: Social Theory and Methodology. Routledge, London 2003, p. 38.
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  69. ^ Preliminary stage to cannibalism: University of Hohenheim researches feather pecking in chickens Press release of the University of Hohenheim , January 20, 2012
  70. ↑ Olga Ermakow: Results of the meat inspection of turkeys from organic and conventional farming (PDF), Dissertation, Leipzig 2012, p. 42 ff.
  71. ↑ Turkeys Albert Schweitzer Foundation, see section shortening the beak .