What is cannibalism: the most famous cases of cannibalism

😉 Greetings to my dear readers! Gentlemen, this article “What is cannibalism: known cases of cannibalism” is not for the faint-hearted readers. The topic is unpleasant, but many are interested in learning the history of this horror.

Cannibalism – what is it?

Anthropophagy – (from the Greek anthropos man and phago em), cannibalism, is usually identified with necrophagia (corpse-eating) and cannibalism. The word “cannibals” as an association with cannibals comes from the Caribbean or Canib tribes who lived on the islands of the West Indies.

The discoverers of America were the very first Europeans to encounter man-eating peoples. Although European aliens, in order to justify the extermination of the Indians, often exaggerated their cannibalism. But it is still known that even in Mexico – a country of ancient advanced civilizations – they used human meat.

For example, the Maya ate the body of someone who sacrificed himself to the gods by jumping from a high pyramid. German Erich Wustman was told in the 1950s that the Whitoto Indians of Colombia still eat their slain enemies.

The case of cannibalism

Eromanga Island

The Isle of Martyrs was the name given to the island of Eromanga in the Pacific Ocean, north of Australia. So many missionaries were killed here by the cannibalistic Vanuatu tribe in the 1839th century. At the end of XNUMX two Britons came ashore here – John Williams and John Harris.

The islanders armed with spears came out to meet them. The captain of the missionary ship subsequently reported: Harris, who farther away from the shore, was immediately knocked down and beaten with sticks. Williams turned and ran towards the sea. They caught up with him. Hit with a spear, and then finished off with a bow. Both missionaries were eaten.

170 years after those events, the inhabitants of the island apologized for the act of their ancestors to the descendants of the eaten John Williams.

From Britain, his great-great-great-grandson, 65-year-old Charles Milner-Williams, and 17 members of his family were invited to the island Republic of Vanuatu. The islanders bowed to the guests. And then they played a scene, which once again reminded the story of the missionaries.

Finally, the Vanuatu stated that the apology ceremony lifted the ancient curse from them. What – they do not say.

Cannibalism was a sacred act. It’s not just that – he took and ate a neighbor for lunch. Everything was accompanied by rituals and had a sacred meaning. It was often a way to defeat the enemy, gain his strength. John Williams was eaten, perhaps because he represented the threat of an invasion of European civilization.

James Cook

People ate people in many parts of the world, not out of hunger, but out of belief. Allegedly, having consumed human meat, you will take possession of his qualities – courage, strength, intelligence, authority. And above all – with vital energy.

The “great white leader” James Cook, who was eaten by the Hawaiians 230 years ago, had enough of all these features. A head without a lower jaw and 10 pounds of meat – less than 5 kg – is all that remains of the English navigator. And even then the aborigines did not give the captain’s companions immediately, but after several volleys, from the ship’s cannons.

Pedro de Valdivia

For cannibals, the eaten body parts had their own hierarchy. In 1553, in present-day Chile, the Spanish army, led by Pedro de Valdivia, was defeated in a battle with the Araucanian Indian tribes. He himself died, and every Araucanian leader ate a piece of the heart of the enemy commander.

Because the courage of the slain, which is concentrated in the heart, should go primarily to the leaders. The soldiers were satisfied with the pieces of the Spaniard’s body. At cannibals’ feasts, the Araucans often cut meat from prisoners still alive.

Then, they believed, all the qualities of their sacrifice would certainly be transferred to them. Warriors of the Pancha tribe in the Magdalena River Valley, in present-day Colombia, considered it an honor to be eaten. “You are such a weakling that you will never be killed to eat your meat and become a great warrior,” they reproached the coward.

Cannibalism Papua New Guinea

The real reserve of cannibalism is the island of New Guinea. It is inhabited by Papuan tribes. “Women, like men, eat human flesh, and nothing is left of the victims, since both the penis and the vagina are eaten.”

The traveler Nikolai Miklukho-Maclay wrote about this in his diaries. On the cannibals’ meals in New Guinea in the 1870s.

Human flesh, the natives told him, tasted like pork. But the Papuans, Maclay notes, give priority to the meat of the people. The greatest fame of cannibals on the Maclay Coast was the Erempa tribe. It was distinguished by the custom of eating after wars all those killed, regardless of gender and age.

Papuans from the hinterland of New Guinea still hold ritual meals today. Cannibalism and secret terrorist magic unions of “lion people”, “leopard people”, “crocodile people”, and the like, common in countries of tropical Africa, are practiced.

Cannibalism has not disappeared among some other tribes of remote regions of the globe, which are not very much attracted by globalization.

Michael Rockefeller

23-year-old Michael Rockefeller, the son of billionaire Nelson Rockefeller, in 1961 traveled with the Dutchman Rene Wassing and two Papuans along the southern coast of New Guinea. She then belonged to Holland. Michael collected materials for the New York Museum of Primitive Art.

For the Papuans from the Asmat tribe, which lives in the swampy jungle, Rockefeller brought iron axes. This is a terrible weapon for people who live in the conditions of the Stone Age. Having set them against neighboring tribes, the American wanted to film a primitive battle.

Once, when the anthropologists were sailing past the mouth of the Eilanden River, their catamaran capsized, the engine stalled. Rockefeller and both Papuans swam to the shore. Since then, no one has seen them.

Wassing could not swim, he was later picked up by a Dutch seaplane. The coast, which Rockefeller reached with the Papuans-guides, is hard-to-reach swamps in the jungle. The investigation, which was carried out subsequently, gave several versions of the death of Rockefeller and his companions.

But they are hypothetical, because none of the Papuans wanted to tell the truth. The Asmat warriors, most likely, decided that having eaten Rockefeller, they would get all his amazing things, including the promised axes.

And what good – and the very ability to get them – from somewhere they are taken by aliens. In any case, the billionaire Rockefeller did not have time to film the primitive battle.

Human meat

What is cannibalism? About human meat. Eating human meat for a ritual purpose, some cannibals tried to get the maximum gastronomic pleasure at the same time.

German Alexander Humboldt at the beginning of the XNUMXth century. wrote. That the Indian tribes of the upper reaches of the Orinoco and Rio Negru rivers in South America first fattened those they were about to eat.

And in present-day Venezuela, an Indian mayor ate one of his women, whom he chose on his plantation. Well fed so that she gains fat.

The inhabitants of the islands of Oceania baked their victims in earthen ovens, adding spices, and as a side dish, local tuberous yams and taro. On the Fiji Islands, female meat was preferred. The brain, parts of the arms above the elbows and thighs were considered the tastiest.

When the war did not give enough victims for cannibalistic meals, people were bought from neighbors, who took more prisoners. During especially large celebrations, the Fijians baked and ate hundreds of women and girls.

“The enemy’s liver brings good luck”

In World War II, a US military tribunal sentenced several high-ranking Japanese officers to death for ritual cannibalism. According to the most ancient samurai custom, they ate the liver, always warm, of American and English prisoners.

In the second half of the twentieth century. it came to the surface that the rulers of some African countries also resorted to cannibalism. In particular, the dictator of Uganda (in 1971-1979), Idi Amin, ate his subjects.

During his reign, from 300 to 500 thousand Ugandans were killed. 2 thousand of them were allegedly killed by the dictator. He began by eating the genitals of castrated men. Then one of his entertainments was treating guests with a fresh cut from a human body.

– I ate human flesh. It is salty, even saltier than leopard meat, – said Idi Amin. In a war, when there is nothing to eat, and one of your comrades-in-arms is wounded, you can finish off and eat him in order to survive on your own …

About the emperor of the Central African Empire (now the republic) Jean-Bedel Bokassa, after he was thrown from the throne, it became known that he was especially fond of the meat of students.

Obviously, in this way I wanted to improve my educational level. Subsequently, at the trial, he argued that he kept parts of human bodies in the refrigerator not for eating, but for ritual purposes. “The enemy’s liver brings good luck,” he explained.

In Europe, ritual cannibalism existed in prehistoric times. In the burials of the III-I millennium BC. archaeologists find dismembered skeletons, in particular children. Herodotus writes that to the north of the Scythians, who inhabited the south of modern Ukraine, androphages live, that is, the eaters of people.

What is cannibalism (video)

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