This subject has been brought up frequently lately. Cannibalism is that subject that your brain is conditioned to automatically think "Oh, ew, gross. No one should eat another human being." It's a practice that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and many other species of animals engage in this behavior, so why is it different for people?
Humans are complex beings. We have highly developed abilities to think, speak, and feel emotion. With these abilities, it makes us the only species that can consume another person with malicious intent. People assume that when a person is eaten, the consumer must have killed the "consumee". Others can't fathom putting another thing that has the capacity for thought and emotion into their body.
However, when a person engages in cannibalism only a very, very small percentage is done by killers. It's mostly done out of honor for a deceased community member, medicinal purposes, or survival. Various tribes around the world will consume a deceased tribe member as a way to preserve other food supplies and out of their honor; they see it as a means for that person to live forever and provide nourishment. This is discussed in Mary Roach's book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. She also discusses the medicinal use of human remains in Arabia.
To be specific, Roach describes the delicacy of "mellified man". She states, "The verb 'to mellify' comes from the Latin for honey, mel. Mellified man was dead human remains steeped in honey...One administered it topically...and orally...". She further informs that these people willingly would give themselves to medicinal use when they were 70-80 years of age. They would follow a strict diet and only bathe in honey to they point that they would only excrete honey, including their urine and feces. It turns out this was a treatment for broken limbs!
Roach isn't the only one to write about this topic, however. Dating back to 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal". In this essay, Swift anonymously advocates for the selling of impoverished children for consumption to ease Ireland of its population issue. While this is a satirical piece, it shows that cannibalism could have been less hush-hush as it is today even though citizens didn't agree with the practice.
Lastly, I believe it's people like Armin Meiwes and romanticized crime shows that paint a bad portrait of cannibalism to the public. Armin Meiwes is a German man that made an online post, requesting the availability of a young man he could kill and cannibalize. Surprisingly, he received a willing answer. However, the authorities caught up with him and tried him for the crime. He was even set up with a psychologist to determine his mental stability and was found to be perfectly "normal".
I don't honestly have a stance on cannibalism. I can agree with the nutritious/medicinal or honoring aspects of it, but I don't agree when it comes to purpose. We don't have a reason to practice cannibalism anymore (but a very big one for today could be out of evil, like I mentioned before). We have numerous other foods to choose from, even other animals that would, more than likely, pose the same nutritional benefits as Uncle Billy.
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Here's a video I one of my YouTube subscriptions uploaded recently:
http://youtu.be/MvFI27hJoLQ
I think it solidifies the points I've made in a more entertaining way.
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Things On My Mind
Non-FictionThese are a collection of essays in which I discuss random thoughts I have. Each one is different and is a thought that, for some reason unknown to me, I keep thinking of. I hope this is as much an unorganized adventure for you as it is for me.
