Cannibalism

Introduction Cannibalism is defined as the ingestion of members of one's own species. As used in zoology, it refers to species that prey on their own kind. In anthropology, it is used specifically to refer to the eating of humans by humans. Around the 16th century in English-speaking countries, the term cannibalism began replacing the Latin-derived term anthropophagy. The word cannibal is usually traced to the Caribbean and the voyages there of Christopher Columbus. Richard Hakluyt's Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent (1582) popularized the word in its English form.

Discussion

Analytic categories of cannibalism vary. A recent archaeological study used the threefold classification of survival, funerary, and gastronomic cannibalism. Other categories commonly found in the literature, both anthropological and otherwise, include aggression, criminal, epicurean, nutritional, ritual, sexual, spiritual, and, less commonly, medical and autocannibalism.

The social stigma against cannibalism has been used as an aspect of propaganda against an enemy by accusing them of acts of cannibalism to separate them from their humanity. The Carib tribe in the Lesser Antilles, from whom the word cannibalism derives, for example, acquired a longstanding reputation as cannibals following the recording of their legends by Fr. Breton in the 17th century. Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture.

During their period of expansion in the 15th through 17th centuries, Europeans equated cannibalism with evil and savagery. In the 16th century, Pope Innocent IV declared cannibalism a sin deserving to be punished by Christians through force of arms and Queen Isabella of Spain decreed that Spanish colonists could only legally enslave natives who were cannibals, giving the colonists an economic interest in making such allegations. This was used as a justification for employing violent means to subjugate native people. This theme dates back to Columbus' accounts of a supposedly ferocious group of man-eaters who lived in the Caribbean islands and parts of South America called the Caniba, which gave us the word cannibal.

The Korowai tribe of southeastern Papua could be one of the last surviving tribes in the world engaging in cannibalism, although there have been media reports of soldiers/rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia eating body parts to intimidate child soldiers or captives. Marvin Harris has analyzed cannibalism and other food taboos. He argued that it was common when humans lived in small bands, but disappeared in the transition to states, the Aztecs being an exception.

A well known case of mortuary cannibalism is that of the Fore tribe in New Guinea which resulted in the spread of the prion disease Kuru. It is often believed to be well-documented, although no eyewitnesses have ever been at hand. Some scholars argue that although postmortem dismemberment was the practice during funeral rites, cannibalism was not. Marvin Harris theorizes that it happened during a famine period coincident with the arrival of Europeans and was rationalized as a religious rite.

In pre-modern medicine, an explanation for cannibalism stated that it came about within ...