Hannibal Lector, Jeffrey Dahmer, Issei Sagawa - they chill our blood. The image of a pith-helmeted European explorer in an African cooking pot is a cartoon cliché, but cannibalism is not as uncommon as might be expected. Some modern cultures still preserve the bodies of their deceased relatives, grind their dessicated remains into a powder and drink them. The tragedy of the Chilean rugby team marooned in the Andes and forced to eat their dead companions was made in to a popular movie (Alive, 1993).
Classical Cannibalism
Cannibalism was a stock theme in Classical (Greek and Roman) novels, drawing on the horrors for salacious impact. They were forerunners of 19th-century 'Penny Dreadfuls' and Hollywood films and videos of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Greek mythology tells of Atreus killing and cooking the sons of his brother Thyestes and feeding them to him in a pie. Kronos (Saturn) the father of Zeus (Jupiter) ate his sons to prevent them usurping his throne, depicted by Goya in his painting Saturn Devouring One of his Children, Madrid, 1820.
Biblical Cannibalism
The Bible records several instances of cannibalism (Dueteronomy 28:53; 2 Kings 6:28; Lamentations 4:10). "With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed."
Early Christians were persecuted by the Romans because of the Eucharist, the symbolic eating and drinking of the Lord's body and blood. Indeed, many of Jesus' early disciples abandoned him after this teaching; he never sought to clarify the literal misunderstanding. "For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink" (John 6:55). Theophagy, the eating of a god, is well known in many ancient religions.
American and Pacific Cannibalism
Aztec records outline detailed religious rituals associated with the feast day of tlacaxipeualiztli in the Sahagun Codex Florentino (Book 2, The Ceremonies). As well as religious, cannibalism may have been an economic necessity among the Aztec (Science, 12 May 1972).
In the Pacific as late as the 19th century, Irian Jaya head-hunters consumed enemies as a means of imbuing themselves with their opponents' attributes and preventing the soul of victims haunting the living. Similarly, New Zealand Maori killed and ate slaves and enemies and cooked them in earth ovens called umu.
European Cannibalism
It is easy to attribute cannibalism to blood-thirty "savages," however there are several recorded instances among recent Europeans. Captain John Smith documents a gruesome event among American pioneers at Jamestown.
The great Arctic explorer John Rae was defamed because of his truthful account of cannibalism among the Franklin expedition. There was further scandal concerning cannibalism around the Greely expedition sent to the Arctic in search of the lost Franklin expedition (tragically not re-supplied by Abraham Lincoln's bureaucrat brother Robert). Such was the taboo, that the remains were returned in sealed lead coffins.
Cannibalism in Modern Media
Equally horrific were reports in the Hong Kong Eastern Express that accused Chinese doctors in 1995 of processing foetuses as a dietary supplement and tonic at the Health Center for Women and Children in Shenzen. It was believed that the tonic improved the skin, made bodies stronger and was good for the kidneys.
Whether listening to the Fine Young Cannibals' album Raw & Uncooked, the band Dahmer, or watching Silence of the Lambs (1991), its sequel Hannibal (2001), or Alive, history reveals cannibalism as an established practice among human societies ancient and modern.
Further reading:
Turner, Christy, Man Corn: Cannibalism & Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest,
Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 1999.
Guttridge, L. F., The Ghosts of Cape Sabine, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2000.
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