|
Anthropophagy
The practice of cannibalism, the eating of human flesh by
humans.
Cannibalism has been
widespread in prehistoric and primitive societies on all continents. It is still believed to be practiced in
remote areas of the island of New Guinea. It existed until recently in parts of West and
Central Africa, Sumatra, Melanesia, and Polynesia; among various Indian tribes of North
and South America; and among the aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand.
The reasons for cannibalism have
varied. Sometimes there was simply limited food. Some groups liked the taste of human
flesh. But mostly the reasons had to do with revenge or punishment for crimes, ceremony
and ritual, or magic. Some victorious tribes
ate their dead enemies. In some rituals the deceased body was eaten by
relatives, as a manner of reverence for their ancestors, or in a pious
desire for the soul of the dead to be reborn in the body of the consumer. This is called
endocannibalism. In primitive rites that involved human sacrifice, parts of the body were
often eaten. Headhunters, for example, often consumed certain parts of a body to gain
powers of the dead person. Also, in Mexico, men representing the gods were
periodically sacrificed and eaten to identify the participant with the deity.
Civilized people have to resort to
cannibalism from time to time, as a mean of survival, under desperate circumstances. The
story of the
Donner party is one of the more tragic incidents in American frontier
history. A group of about 90 immigrants led by George Donner was caught in a blinding
snowstorm high in the Sierra Nevada range of California in October 1846. Survivors, who
made their way out early in 1847, had been forced to resort to eating the flesh of their
dead comrades to survive. Also, in the 1970's, passengers of an airliner crash at a remote
area of the Andes had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
Other notorious cases
include the retreat of
Napoleon's troops from Moscow in 1812, the
survivors of the sinking of the frigate Medusse (they drifted in a
raft for many days) in 1816, the boiling and eating of a Chinese officer
sent to "pacify" the inhabitants of a region of Kwangsi (China)
in 1901, the Sumatran punishment of convicts in the 19th century
(cannibalism was part of the judicial process of punishing malefactors),
the sacrifice and consumption of a 12 year-old girl as part of a Voodoo
ceremony in Haiti (1912), and the one of
Fritz Haarmann, the "Hanover
Vampire," who in 1924 Germany was convicted of killing at least 27
boys, making sausage out of their flesh, eating them and also selling it
to unsuspecting people for human consumption.
One of the most horrible cases of cannibalism,
if it really happened (controversy abounds about the veracity of this story,
and probably it is just an urban legend), was undoubtedly the one of
Alexander 'Sawney' Bean,
whom allegedly in the time of Scotland's
King James VI (later King James I of England)
led his incestuous descendants in a secretive robbers' band apparently
consisted of
himself, his wife, 8 sons, 6 daughters, 18 grand-sons, and 14
grand-daughters. They supposedly lived in a cave in the woods, and resorted to robbing
passers-by to support themselves. Not to get caught, they made certain that
all of their victims were in no position to tell the tale, by killing
each and everyone of them. To feed his ever growing family, Alexander
provided them with the only plentiful source of food available, human flesh.
They would dismember the bodies, eating some and pickling the rest. Over the
years they allegedly killed and eaten close to 1000 people,
until getting caught and executed. As the story goes, Sawney and all of the adult males of his
family were dismembered and allowed to bleed to death, while the women and
children were burned at the stake.
See
Cannibalism,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: Article is scheduled to be reviewed.
|
|
|
