Topic in relation to anthropology: Explore the taboo subject of cannibalism and show its relation to cultural practices, beliefs, and rituals.
Thesis Statement:Cannibalism is often portrayed as a heinous and repulsive act that is carried out by the most twisted psychopath who washes down the flesh of his victims with a nice glass of Chianti. Imagination and movies have made cannibalism into the stuff of nightmares. And when thought of in a more realistic context, it can only be conceived because perhaps some drug-crazed lunatic has completely gone mad, or some poor individual was in extreme desperate survival situation. For most the consumption of human flesh or human body parts of other human beings can only be representative of dark times
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“Cannibalizing your dear old dad like the Callatians may never be for you. It’s not for me, either; I’m a vegetarian (kidding, Dad). Still, it is demonstrably wrong to claim that the West has death rituals that are superior to those of the rest of the world” (Doughty, 2017, p. 14-15). Mortuary cannibalism can be seen in many different cultures thought out the world. There is a belief that when consuming one’s own dead, they are reinforcing a connection between the living and the dead. Both the Wari tribe of the Brazilian Amazon and the Fore People in Papua New Guinea practiced endocannibalism as a part of their mortuary practices. In the Wari culture is was custom for the relatives by marriage, not by blood to ingest the deceased out of compassion. The reasoning behind the practice of consuming the corpse was not for the blood relatives since it would akin to eating one's self; which is taboo. The relative by marriage would eat the body to remove the grief and to remove the memories as an act of compassion for the family. They also cremated all of the individual's belongings as well (Neufeldt, 2012, p. 5). The Fore People in Papua New Guinea a female would prepare the body by cutting pieces to wrap them into banana or bamboo leaves
The three variables influencing female behavior related to cannibalism are aggressiveness, food deprivation, and male-female interactions. Female’s aggressiveness is related to the aggressive spillover hypothesis. This suggests that sexual cannibalism emerges as a product of selection and sexual cannibalism could be a facet of aggressiveness. Selection that favors aggressiveness can indirectly increase incidence of sexual cannibalism. Under these circumstances, sexual cannibalism threatens to sterilize highly aggressive females. With male-female interactions, mate choice hypothesis comes as a theory. Sexual cannibalism may represent an extreme form of mate choice. This is when females attack undesired males but allow preferred mates to copulate. Lastly, food deprivation can occur in aggressive and nonaggressive females.
Olson, Kirby. "Gregory Corso's Post-Vegetarian Ethical Dilemma.(Gregory Corso)(Essay)." Journal Of Comparative Literature And Aesthetics 1-2 (2004): 53. Academic OneFile. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.
Narrowly escaping the attack of the coast guard on the Vietnamese refugees, the refugees were stranded on an island and unable to escape starvation. Some of the survivors had to turn to “human flesh as a source of food” in order to avoid imminent death (par. 3). The limitation on food was the cause that led to the people participating in survival cannibalism. The effect was that “there was only one survivor” who was found (par. 4). When faced with death, people adopted unorthodox behaviors to increase their likelihood of existence. This example of cause and effect emphasized that cannibalism is not always a choice, but sometimes a necessity. Such a situation could theoretically happen to anyone, if placed under certain circumstances. Once having to put themselves into that place, people truly realize that cannibalism isn’t only a myth, but a possible survival
Goldman, Laurence R. "Cannibalism." Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. 2003 ed. N.p.: Gale Group, 2002.Encyclopedia.com. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. .
In McCarthy’s novel The Road, one of the main issues deals with cannibalism and the moral/ethic issues of survival. Though McCarthy depicts cannibalism negatively in this post-apocalyptic world, it is apparent that cannibalism is necessary for humans to survive when there is no real food to eat. Whether they know what’s actually good vs what is actually bad, they still have a reason to try and stay alive even though things are absolutely terrible around them. Staying alive, to carry the fire for the good of humanity. In a world where everything is just coming to an end, people resort to eating each other in order to stay alive. Where there are bad and good people, but what does it actually mean to be bad? Eating human beings or not helping those people in need of help?
Christopher McCandless, a young American who was found dead in summer of 1992 in wild land in Alaska, wrote in his diary about his moral struggle regarding killing a moose for survival. According to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris had to abandon most of the meat since he lacked the knowledge of how to dismantle and preserve it (166-168). Not only did he have a moral dilemma to kill a moose, but also had a deep regret that a life he had taken was wasted because of his own fault. He then started recognizing what he ate as a precious gift from the nature and called it “Holy Food” (Krakauer 168). Exploring relationships between human beings and other animals arouses many difficult questions: Which animals are humans allowed to eat and which ones are not? To which extent can humans govern other animals? For what purposes and on which principles can we kill other animals? Above all, what does it mean for humans to eat other animals? The answer may lie in its context. Since meat-eating has been included and remained in almost every food culture in the world throughout history and is more likely to increase in the future due to the mass production of meat, there is a very small chance for vegetarianism to become a mainstream food choice and it will remain that way.
American Anthropological Association. (2009, February). Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association. Retrieved March 09, 2012, from American Anthropological Association: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/Code-of-Ethics.cfm
Too much human meat causes a buildup of vitamin A and amino acids such as homocysteine in the bloodstream, which could cause congenital defects in future offspring. However, if human organs which are rich in B vitamins and folic acid are eaten along with the human meat, homocysteine is not able to metabolize in the bloodstream. This means that cannibalism could hypothetically be the basis of a healthy diet (“Natural Food”). Contrary to human meat and organs actually being healthy to a human diet, cannibalism is also said to cause madness and addiction based on sexual urges and gratification. Kate Rix depicts that sexual cannibalism in its truest sense may in fact lead to the development of necrophilia tendencies.
Every society has it’s own cultural traditions and norms. Many of the traditions are passed down from generation to generation for so long that they become the norms of the culture. The Wari’ are no different than anyone else in that their traditions become cultural norms. In Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society, Beth A. Conklin travels to the Wari’ people in order to study illness and death from both before and after they had foreign contact. While there she finds herself going into depth on the lifestyle of the Wari’ people and how their norm of cannibalism came about and how it was phased out by the outside world.
Jonathan Safran Foer wrote “Eating Animals” for his son; although, when he started writing it was not meant to be a book (Foer). More specifically to decide whether he would raise his son as a vegetarian or meat eater and to decide what stories to tell his son (Foer). The book was meant to answer his question of what meat is and how we get it s well as many other questions. Since the book is a quest for knowledge about the meat we eat, the audience for this book is anyone that consumes food. This is book is filled with research that allows the audience to question if we wish to continue to eat meat or not and provide answers as to why. Throughout the book Foer uses healthy doses of logos and pathos to effectively cause his readers to question if they will eat meat at their next meal and meals that follow. Foer ends his book with a call to action that states “Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.” when dealing with the problem of factory farming (Foer).
“The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that their treatment has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality."(Schopenhauer). I always wondered why some people are not so drawn to the consumption of meat and fed up with only one thought about it. Why so many people loathe of blood, and why so few people can easily kill and be slaughter animal, until they just get used to it? This reaction should say something about the most important moments in the code, which was programmed in the human psyche. Realization the necessity of refraining from meat is especially difficult because people consume it for a long time, and in addition, there is a certain attitude to the meat as to the product that is useful, nourishing and even prestigious. On the other hand, the constant consumption of meat has made the vast majority of people completely emotionless towards it. However, there must be some real and strong reasons for refusal of consumption of meat and as I noticed they were always completely different. So, even though vegetarianism has evolved drastically over time, some of its current forms have come back full circle to resemble that of its roots, when vegetarianism was an ethical-philosophical choice, not merely a matter of personal health.
One cannot generalize or predict all human behaviors, thought processes, morals, and customs. Because human nature is dominated by different types of cultures and societies in various parts of the world, this can often lead to misunderstanding which ultimately leads to the illusion of cultural superiority, and in most cases this can lead to genocide - the systematic murder or annihilation of a group of people or culture. Anthropology is the study of humans, our immediate ancestors and their cultural environments this study stems from the science of holism - the study of the human condition. Culture is crucial in determining the state of the human condition, as the cultures are traditions and customs that are learned throughout an individual
Rachels, J. (2013). The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism. In L. Vaughn, Contemporary Moral Arguments - Readings in Ethical Issues Second Edition (pp. 617-622). New York: Oxford University Press.
Is it morally permissible to eat meat? Much argument has arisen in the current society on whether it is morally permissible to eat meat. Many virtuous fruitarians and the other meat eating societies have been arguing about the ethics of eating meat (which results from killing animals). The important part of the dispute is based on the animal welfare, nutrition value from meat, convenience, and affordability of meat-based foods compared to vegetable-based foods and other factors like environmental moral code, culture, and religion. All these points are important in justifying whether humans are morally right when choosing to eat meat. This paper will argue that it is morally impermissible to eat meat by focusing on the treatment of animals, the environmental argument, animal rights, pain, morals, religion, and the law.
Cultural anthropology has taught me a lot in such a short time. This class has been very eye opening to me and has made me think more about the different cultures around me and just how important it is to learn about them. One of the things I have learned is how religion is related to culture. Culture is behaviors of a community such as the food they make, the music they listen to, and the rituals they take part in. This can be very similar to religion because a culture is based off of their religious beliefs. Some cultures do not eat pig because it is against their religious beliefs. Some cultures listen to particular songs because it is based off of their religious beliefs. Another thing cultures relate closely to is languages. Without language