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Cannibalism

By: Bill Schutt

I. Most people consider cannibalism appalling and unnatural, but research


shows its quite natural.

Certain things are absolutely taboo in most human societies, and the images you
conjure up when you hear the word cannibalism are likely pretty loaded. But this
practice has an interesting place in human history and deserves a closer look.

Simply put, cannibalism is defined as an individual consuming all or part of


another individual of the same species. It includes behavior like scavenging and
even certain reproductive processes through which tissues, such as the skin or
uterine lining are consumed.

However, despite of the centrality of such practices, until recently cannibalism


was considered highly abnormal in nature. It was thought only to arise from extreme
conditions like starvation or captivity.

This conception transformed in the 1970s with new research done by Laurel
Fox, an ecologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Fox discovered that
cannibalism is a perfectly normal response to all kinds of environmental factors.

She also found that its much more widespread than had been previously
believed. Cannibalism occurs in every major animal group- even those thought of
as herbivores, like butterflies.

However, this behavior depends on a variety of factors from population density


to shifts in environmental conditions.

Cannibalism is common in nutritionally marginal areas that experience


overcrowding, increased hunger and a lack of nutritious alternatives for a given
population. Conversely, its extremely rare in situations with adequate and
predictable supplies of food.

In other words, cannibalism is usually a result of specific conditions, and in the


next summary, well learn which ones.

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II. Cannibalism can play an evolutionary role.

Now you know that the risk of cannibalism increases with hunger and a lack of
access to alternative forms of nutrition but theres more to it than that.

In 1980, the ecologist Gary Polis made some more general observations on the
nature of cannibalism. Based on his work, scientists have since found an
evolutionary explanation.

Heres the logic.

Polis found that immature animals tend to be eaten more often than adults as
they represent an easy source of nutrition. As a result, infanticide is the most
common form of cannibalism.

While it might seem ill-advised to eat the next generation, such practices make
perfect sense since these young animals are a valuable source of relatively
defenseless nutrition. Just take fish, for whom cannibalism is the rule, rather than
the exception.

Fish commonly consume both the eggs and young of their species, even those
they have themselves produced. After all, fish eggs, larvae and fry, or young fish,
are vast in numbers, tiny in size and extremely nutritious. The fact that theyre also
non-threatening and easily collected makes them a prime food source.

So, cannibalism provides easily accessible food when its needed, but this
practice serves another evolutionary function in certain species: it speeds up their
developmental processes. A good example is the flour beetle, which derives a
reproductive advantage from cannibalism. Cannibal flour beetles have been found
to produce more eggs than non-cannibals.

Or consider the sand tiger shark, which practices cannibalism in utero with its
siblings. There is usually around 19 sand tiger shark embryos or fetuses per
pregnancy, each at different stages of development. The larger of them consume
any remaining eggs, as well as the smaller embryos, until just two remain.

These sharks derive both the nutritional benefit of cannibalism and earn the
valuable experience of killing for survival before they are born.

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III. Environmental factors can necessitate cannibalism, but the practice has
drawbacks

What do a lack of access to alternative sources of nutrition and overcrowding


have in common? Theyre both examples of stressful environmental conditions that
are prone to producing cannibalistic behavior.

Look at chickens: these birds are packed by the thousands into cramped poultry
farms. The crowded, inadequate and stressful conditions prevalent in such spaces
often cause them to misdirect their foraging and pecking behavior into attacking
their neighbors.

Or take hamsters, a popular pet for kids. These domestic creatures suffer from
captivity-related stress, like that caused by a small cage, excessive noise, a damp
environment, or living in proximity to their natural enemies, dogs and cats. Stresses
like these readily lead hamsters to cannibalize their own young.

Of the 5700 species of mammals out there, just 75 have been known to practice
some type of cannibalism. This overall low ratio is likely a result of the generally
low number of offspring produced by mammals and the high level of parental care
they engage in relative to other animals.

While cannibalism is not an everyday behavior in chimpanzees, occasional


cannibalism does occur among them. Not just that, but certain researchers believe
that, as humans encroach into the areas surrounding chimpanzee preserves, the
animals will experience rising population density an increased competition for
fewer resources, thereby, prompting an increase in cannibalism among our closest
evolutionary ancestors.

However, while there are certainly ample examples of this behavior, cannibalism
in nature does inevitably present problems. For starters, it can increase the
transmission of dangerous diseases, because parasites and pathogens are often
species-specific, having evolved ways of overcoming certain animals immune
defenses.

So, animals who eat their own are at a higher risk of getting a disease than those
who eat other species. The Fore people of New Guinea are a great example. They
practically went extinct because of their ritual of eating the brains and other tissues
of their dead kin. These corpses had been infected by kuru, an incurable and highly
contagious neurological disease.

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IV. Real-life cannibals exist today, and you might know some of them

By now you know a lot about how cannibalism plays out in other species, but
what about humans like the Fore?

Well, while most modern people consider eating other humans to be grotesque,
lots cannibals beg to differ. Just take Armin Meiwes, who, in 2001, killed and ate
Bernd Brandes, a 42-year-old computer technician who asked to be eaten.

The pair first met in an online chatroom, then in Meiwes house in Rothenburg,
Germany. At that in-person meeting, they decided to cut of Brandes penis and eat
it raw. However, finding it tough and chewy, they ended up feeding it to Meiwes
dog. Brandes later died from the combined effects of blood loss, pills and alcohol.

From there, Meiwes stored Brandes remain in freezer, eating them over the
course of several months and describing the taste as like pork; a little more bitter.

Then there was Issei Sagawa, who murdered and consumed a Dutch student in
1981. He got away with the crime because of his family connections and said the
flesh of his victim tasted like raw tuna.

But much more common than that, is a form of cannibalism practiced primarily
by white, middle-class women. Its the consumption of their own placenta, either
raw, in smoothies, Bloody Marys, or as jerky. There are even companies that turn
placenta into easy-to-take nutritional supplements.

How come?

Well, some midwives and alternative health advocates claim that the placenta has
therapeutic benefits, like the ability to replenish nutritional loss caused by
pregnancy and delivery. However, theres little official research to support such
claims.

The author tried some placenta for himself and likened the taste to dark meat or
organ meat. Yet he also described it as entirely different to anything hed ever
tasted. The flavor was strong, although not overpowering, somewhat like the
chicken gizzards he ate fried as a college student.

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V. Western cannibalism taboos may have originated in the Christian tradition
and played out through storytelling

The first generally accessible scholarly text on cannibalism was published in 1975
by the British historian, Reay Tannahill. Called Flesh and Blood, this work
theorized that the Judeo-Christian belief that the dead needed a complete body in
order to be resurrected is at the heart of the cannibalism taboo.

However, theres more to the human distaste for cannibalism than religion.
Theres also a cultural process by which people distinguish between insiders and
outsiders- a distinction often based on diet.

Just take the British, who came up with the derogatory nickname frogs to
describe the French, who enjoy the legs of these jumpy amphibians as a delicacy.
Similarly, Western colonialists labeled the inhabitants of the lands they invaded
savages or primitives to justify their own land grab. And frequently they
described the locals as cannibals.

Western scholars and casual readers alike were subjected to a 500-year


indoctrination that told them little of the genocidal mistreatment of native
populations. Rather, they were taught that Columbus and other European explorers
were brave men who had fought off raving hordes of subhuman cannibals.

Then, by the dawn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Western
taboo on cannibalism was easily perpetuated through fairy tales. Just take the
French courtier, Charles Perrault, who wrote the classic versions of Little Red
Riding Hood and Snow White.

In Perraults Snow White, the wicked queen eats what she believes to be the
organs of her dead stepdaughter, Snow White. But the benevolent hunter whom the
queen told to murder Snow White has spared the young girl and given the queen
meat from a boar instead. Or consider Perraults Little Red Riding Hood, in which
the wolf really does murder the grandmother, cutting her up and storing the meat,
which Red Riding Hood eats without knowing its origin.

Then, of course, theres the famous Hansel and Gretel, collected and written
down by the German Grimm Brothers. In this tale, an old woman makes plans to
eat little children.

All of these stories offer examples of evil, maniacal cannibals. The horror they
inspire was used to perpetuate the threat of cannibalism and terrorize children into
behaving.

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VI. Although humans evolved cultural norms that make cannibalism
unacceptable, it might resurface.

Alright, so Western culture has a long history of considering cannibalism taboo.


But where did such proscriptions come from?

Well, the father of modern psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, said that the rules
associated with taboos were produced to prevent people from regressing into the
violent, animalistic urges of the past.

But despite such ideas, some non-Western cultures, like the Chinese, or the Fore
people of New Guinea, have participated in a variety of cannibalistic activities. Tao
Tsung-yi, a Chinese writer from the Yuan Dynasty, which lasted from 1271 to 1368,
wrote that childrens meat tastes best, followed by that of women and then of men.

Naturally, that was hundreds of years ago, and the modern world is a different
story. Given the hegemonic nature of Western culture, its unlikely that any ritual
cannibalism is practiced today.

However, that could all change. As humans begin to face more serious
environmental stressors, cannibalism could become more widespread. Warning
signs of such a shift are all around us. Just take the desertification thats ravaging
states like Texas and California, where the period between 2012 and 2014 was the
driest on record in 1,200 years!

At the same time, huge swathes of China, Syria and central Africa are turning
into desert, while Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, three of the poorest countries in the
world, are suffering the worst drought in 60 years.

The results are famine, reduced access to freshwater and rampant political
conflicts, all of which constitute environmental stresses on the human race. You
already know that cannibalism is a natural response to severe stress in nature and,
for humans, this is especially true during times of famine and war.

According to sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, cannibalism caused by famine occurred


11 times in Europe between 793 and 1317, as it did in ancient, Greece, Egypt,
Rome, Persia, China, India and Japan. The truth is, there might not be much that
can be done to prevent cannibalism from happening again, especially in the poorest
and most vulnerable nations.

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