Essay On Cannibalism

Cannibalism

"Cannibalism, or institutionalized anthropophagi, has been part of human culture from the earliest times. Human teeth marks in ancient human bones offer clues cannibalism was commonplace. When Christopher Columbus explored the Americas, the term cannibal was coined after the Caniba, “a ferocious group of man-eaters who lived in the Caribbean islands” (Salisbury, 2001, Brief history . . .). The idea of cannibalism in the New World evoked paranoia in Europe. Any such practice was considered demonic and sacrilegious. Cannibalism was a topic of ancient horror stories. In Greek mythology, “after Thyestes unwittingly ate the flesh of his own children, the Sun was so appalled that he turned back on his course and plunged

Salisbury, Assistant Director of Science and Research Communications at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, covered his colleague’s research in a national newswire article and supported Conklin’s findings with expert opinions. According to Salisbury (2001), two Brazilian scientists who visited the Wari’ around the same time as Conklin produced similar findings. Conklin is the author of Consuming grief: Compassionate cannibalism in an Amazonian society (University of Texas). She has visited the Wari’ to collect medical data and interview tribal members who had witnessed cannibalism before it was

The Ukrainian famine of 1932 and the North Korean famine as late as 1999 both resulted in widespread cannibalism. In each case, people were forced to slaughter their families for food after severe poverty and starvation struck the region. One of the most remembered stories of cannibalism in recent history was the 1972 crash of a Uruguayan airliner into the snowy Chilean Andes. An amateur rugby team en route from Montevideo to Santiago met with disaster and was lost in the high wilderness. Of the thirty-two passengers who survived the impact, only sixteen endured ten weeks of subfreezing weather and avalanches before their rescue. Their story was chilling. The survivors admitted to eating the flesh of the deceased, one by one, after each teammate consented to provide their bodies for food after they died. The world was shocked. Their dramatic accounts were re-created in the 1993 movie, Alive. The deceased victims were seen as heroes because they sacrificed themselves for the lives of the others. In times of disaster, cannibalism is often the only way of