They
finally traced the disease to a virus, but it was the mode of transmission that
was most disturbing. The virus was contracted by members of the tribe who were
eating the infected flesh of their dead.
Cannibalism,
known in nerd-speak as “anthrophagy," is nothing new. There is even evidence,
in the form of cut marks on bone, that Neanderthals may have been consuming
other Neanderthals. Humans certainly have a long tradition of eating their own,
and there is a range of reasons for snacking on Sapiens. Let's discuss.
Some will only eat outsiders - what we term, exocannibalism. For example, following a battle, some groups will consume their fallen foes as a statement of power. It was reported in 2003 that Congolese rebels supposedly ate the bodies of pygmies taken in battle. Some cannibals do it simply for sport. The Mianmin of New Guinea would actually hunt down neighboring tribes when they craved an exotic treat.
Endocannibalists are those who restrict their consumption
to members of their own group. It's traditionally tied to spiritual beliefs; a
way of holding on to the dead or acquiring aspects of their personality.
Perhaps they view it as a form of "comfort food." Like Americans and their fried chicken.
Some
forms of cannibalism are part of a broader deviancy. We've already discussed
Jeffrey Dahmer's exploits in October's Dead and Lovin' It, but Jeff isn't alone in his quest for flesh. Here's a case
from my home state of Florida... In May of 2012, police shot and killed Rudy
Eugene after he was found naked on the interstate munching on the face of an
elderly homeless man. To this day, no one knows why Mr. Eugene suddenly turned
cannibal (although I truly believe Miami brings out the “weird” in all of us).
In
the 1600s, cannibalism was part of the early medical landscape. It was believed
the pulverized flesh of Egyptian mummies contained curative properties, thus
medicinal cannibalism became a widespread practice across Europe, persisting
into the 1900s. But medicinal cannibalism predates by a long shot the
"mummies as medicine" approach. Galen, one of the founding fathers of
medicine, prescribed human blood to treat a range of disorders. Of course, he
also believed blood flowed through two separate systems in the body and venous
blood was produced in the liver, but even geniuses get it wrong sometimes.
There
is much debate among anthropologists about the accuracy of many accounts of
cannibalism. During the era of colonialism, the accusation of cannibalism was a
means of categorizing a group as subhuman; as monsters. It was much easier to
justify enslavement and genocide when those you were capturing or killing were
lowly “eaters of the flesh.”
But
cannibalism has also been undertaken out of sheer desperation, in some cases,
fairly recently, where people have been forced to choose between cannibalism
and starvation. This is known as survival cannibalism, and those who partake are
compelled by that most basic ultimatum: eat or die.
New
evidence points to cannibalism among the Jamestown settlers who came to
Virginia in the early 1600s. Bioarchaeologists identified cut marks and signs
of dismemberment on the remains of a teenage girl. Out of the original three hundred settlers, only sixty survived what became known as the “starving time” - the
intense winter of 1609.
A
more recent incident occurred in 1972 when a Uruguayan rugby team flying to
Santiago, Chile, crashed high amidst the Andes Mountains. Of
the original forty-five passengers, some of whom were killed in the crash, sixteen managed
to survive for over two months on the barren mountains by eating the flesh of the
dead.
And
who can blame them? Yes, there will be those who claim they would rather die
than eat a fellow human, but no one can truly say what they would do in such a
situation. As far as I’m concerned, meat is meat and survival is a heck of a
better alternative than death.
Besides,
consider some of the fast food garbage we enthusiastically consume… A human’s gotta taste
better than that.
