CANNIBALISM

Cannibalism

Introduction

Cannibalism is as old as humanity itself, and we certainly were not the first to come up with an idea. The animals were eating members of their own species from time immemorial, and think nothing of it. For them, it is quite natural (Sanday Reeves 2006). Many species of arachnid, for example, instinctively begin to chow down on their mothers as soon as they are born and some mammals are known to do the same thing. In fact, in some cases, mammalian mothers have their children if they feel the conditions necessary for the rear offspring were not fulfilled. Ever seen a hamster do this? This is quite alarming.

Of course, the thing that separates us from animals,is making it impractical and immoral, to kill and eat our kin (Sagan 2004). If you live in a group structure is much better to let your friends and family to live so they can help you carry that massive carcasses of mammoth home (Barker Hulme Iversen 2008). But what if your alleged victim is not a member of your tribe? Making food rival tribe you not only gets rid of the troublesome neighbor, you also get a family sized bucket of tasty human flesh as a special treat for children. This is one of the most widely accepted answers to the question of where all those pesky Neandertals went. That's right, we ate them (or some of them at least - the rest are likely to eat each other).

Our prehistoric ancestors could hardly be called civilized, however, and everything changed greatly with the dark days before the KFC. Most of us agree that the idea is another person grim and stomach turning, but, historically speaking, not all human cultures have shared this view (Arens 2009). Many cultures have used cannibalism as simply a convenient way to get rid of the dead, while others even took it as a religious and ceremonial practice. Aghori India, for example, believe that eating meat is a recently deceased person (or not so recently deceased, depending on the circumstances, it might be) would give them magical powers. Aghori, extreme and widely condemned by the Hindu sect, to get their feet by the removal of bodies from cemeteries and funeral barge, and sometimes eat them raw. Cannibalistic societies in history

The Carib

The Carib people of the Lesser Antilles, not only was the whole Caribbean in honor of them, their name and origin of the word cannibal (Lestringant 2001). Christopher Columbus was first reported cannibalism among the Caribbean, which he called Caniba (mispronunciation of "Karibna", the word for Carib "man"). Since then, many Europeans formed the belief that the Caribbean is practiced cannibalism in common, but it was not, Carib practiced ritual cannibalism and only ever against their enemies.

Any conquistador stumble upon society of cannibals would be extremely excited. At that time it was considered a Christian duty to punish and subdue every society known to practice cannibalism. This has led to many tribal cultures in Africa ...