This is an essay i wrote some time ago. I guess about a year or so ago.
UPDATE MAY 7, 2008
Oh i know because of my page stats that many people read my essay on cannibals. I reread that the other night, and wow… thats poorly written… It was a first run of that, more so I could get a majority of the words on “paper.” So to let people know… I am working on rewriting that. I am also going to try to flesh (pun intended) it up, and add some notes for further reading. My hope is that with ALLOT of revision (already mostly done) and if I can double the size that I may be able to sell it to a magazine or something. If I am able to I will be sure to post about that. I am not going to post the new improved version on here though, because I would like that just for who ever I sell it too. I am sure you can understand.
Cannibalism: Mankind’s Oldest Funeral Right
can·ni·bal (kān’ə-bəl)
–noun
1. a person who eats human flesh, esp. for magical or religious purposes, as among certain tribal peoples.
2. any animal that eats its own kind.
–adjective
3. pertaining to or characteristic of a cannibal.
4. given to cannibalism.
Cannibalism has become a thing of horror movies and taboo. Something almost hard to believe in modern times. Horror movies like “Hill Side Cannibals” have given us a grim and Psychopathic ideal of such acts. We are also reminded of such cases of the Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer. What is not remembered is that cannibalism is the oldest and longest practice of disposing of the dead.
Humans have been around for a long time. Longer than most people realize due to the fact that written history dose not cover it all. In the times before written history we have to look at the artifacts, to paint a picture of what happened. In some cases we have to look at what is not present to try to get an idea of what happened. Of 100,000 years of humanoid existence why is so little left behind. The truth is there are more bones of dinosaurs than early man. One could go to any museum to see the truth in that. Now this is something that could easily be looked over, and seen as unimportant. In the case of human remains the lack of evidence tells us as much as the evidence that we do have.
The easiest evidence to see cannibalism is in wild Chimpanzees. Chimp mothers have been known to kill the young of other mothers. This has been seen by Jane Goodall, in the Gombe Chimps. In the wild Chimps are meet eaters and even to prefer the meat of smaller baboons.
Early man took advantage of the easily gotten food from the dead. No doubt it was seen as a no risk meal to eat and butcher the already dead. It was also covenant as the smell of the rotting corpse would no doubt summon nearby scavengers. This helps explain the lack of bones from early man. The proof of this can be found on many of the surviving bones from this time. Many bones from this time show tool marks where the hole on the back of the skull is enlarged and tool marks on the inside of the skull. This was caused by retrieving the brains of the deceased. Also on many skulls there are tool marks on the inside jaw and mandible from removing the tongue. Some digs recover bits of bone that have been shattered. Most of the time this is only in the marrow bones only. Tool marks caused by butchering are also seen. The most obvious sign though is when bones have been cook or boiled. Marrow bones, and the skull being the most popular to boil in many of the more modern cannibal tribes. Just keeping these things in mind brings a good point as to why many of ancient man’s bones are unfound.
At what point did we learn that we are edible? Are we born knowing it, as in some kind of DNA memory, or instinct? Dose it come from hunger, or even the realization that we are meat? I do not think it is so much instinct as this is not really a common practice anymore. If there were an internal drive to eat your dead then we would see more cases of that now. There is though an internal drive to keep our beloved dead a part of us always. This can be one drive to cannibalism.
This brings me to the different types of cannibals. Early cannibals most likely started as a source of survival. The dead make for easy food. In times of famine or isolating accidents it is the only way to stay alive. In some cases someone may even sacrifice themselves so that others may stay alive. Today this is the most accepted type of cannibalism. The thought behind the eating of our dead changed ever so slightly at some point beyond the need of survival.
We began to add ritual behind it. The actual ritual varies from tribe to tribe, from culture to culture. Most cases though involve the eating of the dead so that they in part become a part of us. This way we carry the dead with us. This can be carried out by the whole village, or sometimes just those closest to the decedent. This type of cannibalism is still found in many remote parts of the world. Some of these tribes also are able to see them as able to keep the beloved family member warm and safe by eating them. This is also a way to keep them safe from being destroyed by animal and enemy. There is a modern variant of this thought as well though. It is an old and still accepted custom to plant fruit trees on the graves of those we love. As their bodies brake down and become vitamins for the earth, they nourish the tree. We can then eat the fruit of the tree, and absorb a part of them into us. This is though indirect cannibalism, as we do not eat any of the actual dead person.
What about though those who enjoy the eating of the dead? that like to cook them? This type of cannibal is also known as gustatory or culinary cannibals. This means they cook the dead. Many times this is done in a stew, soup or roasted. Children are rarely roasted due to the lack of meat, wear as an adult male leg could serve as a good lunch for someone. This thought though led other groups to just like the taste of human meat.
This leads us to the less common type of cannibal is the aggressive type who hunt humans for meat. To them other tribes and peoples are just animal prey to be hunted. These can still be found in places like Borneo, and South America.
So at what point dose cannibalism become taboo? I know that cannibalism as the main form final disposal, ended around the end of the Ice Age. Although many areas still have cannibal tribes and some have only vanished in the last century. There are good reason to work away from cannibalism sometimes as well. The Disease known as Kuru or laughing disease (variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease) is only caused from cannibalism. It is similar to “Mad Cow,” and caused by the eating of certain parts of the brain, and spinal column. This became a problem among most of the women and children of the Fore tribe in New Guinea. It turned out the problem was caused by the fashion that the women were boiling their dead. The Men of the tribe often partook of the eating of the dead in a different way leaving only the scarps behind for the rest. Knowing what caused this did the people stop eating the dead? No, they only changed how they did this. This brings me back to wondering when did eating the dead become so wrong? I do not yet know this, but aim to find out.
I do think it has something to do with the widespread of “mainstream” religion (Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc). With the change of religion you also find a change of culture. People are told that this practice is unclean, not right, and savage. Yet the Christian church is told to believe that by eating bread and drinking wine at communion they are in fact taking part of the ingestion the blood and body of Christ. I still do not understand the why this practice is so feared and taboo. I will add more to this as I learn more.
Bibliography
Taylor, Timothy The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death Boston. Beacon Press 2002
cannibal. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved May 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cannibal
