Cannibalism: A Study of Culture and Morality

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind” (Genesis 9: 5-7). If God created man in his image, what does eating a fellow human being suggest? We would certainly agree that it is wrong to eat the image of God. Unlike vices like murder or lying, cannibalism is hard to justify even when you’re deserted on an island with a few others with no food in sight. However, to believe that cannibalism is wrong or unnatural in every case might make us ignorant of what it can tell us about the breadth of human culture or about the balance between revenge and justice. Either way, our stance on cannibalism depends on our understanding of what it represents and the role it plays, as reflected

There’s something about cannibalism and children that Herodotus and Aeschylus cannot ignore—that usually children on the receiving end of an act of cannibalism are innocent. When this occurs, parents suffer excruciating pain from seeing their child subjected to cannibalism. For example, in the battle between the Persians and the Egyptians, the Egyptians slit Phane’s son’s throats as Herodotus describes, “When they had finished with all the children, the mercenaries poured wine and water into the bowl, and when they had all drunk some of the blood they joined the battle” (3.11), which details the Egyptian’s cruelty by drinking blood casually, like wine or water. Although we don’t know for sure how Phanes felt, the murder of his children like animals, coupled with the soldiers drinking their blood, would probably intensify his anger and sorrow. Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia is another case of a child as a victim of cannibalism but this time by the parent. When the winds won’t give way for Agamemnon’s ships to enter into battle, he decides to offer her to the gods as the Chorus