Cannibalism is one of the most controversial and fascinating practices in human history: the consumption of human meat has been documented in different eras, since prehistory, and in multiple places in the world, even if it is often relegated to the tales of horror or colonial legends. Even today it would seem to be widespread between small isolated populations, such as the Korowai in Papua New Guinea. The word “cannibalism“derives from the Spanish term”Caníbal“, used by the first European explorers to refer to the caribi, an indigenous people of the Antilles. The colonizers, in particular Christopher Columbus, described these populations as”human meat eaters“, although many of these statements were exaggerations or propaganda constructions to justify the conquest and their slavery. But how much is it true? And in what contexts has cannibalism was really practiced?
Cannibalism between rituality and necessity
Despite the horror that arouses today, cannibalism existed in the history of humanity under different shades, from ritual practice to extreme survival strategy. In fact, some cultures considered it a sacred act, part of ceremonies to honor the deceased or to assimilate the courage and strength of the defeated enemies. Among the populations that would have practiced ritual cannibalism we find i Maori from the New Zealandfor which eating the fallen in battle meant absorbing their “Mana “that is, their spiritual essence and power. Some indigenous groups of Brazil, such as i Tupinambáthey practiced cannibalism as an act of revenge against enemies, while at the tribes of the Papua New Guinealike i Foreignthe ritual consumption of the bodies of the deceased was a sign of respect and link with the ancestors.
However, cannibalism was not only a ritual phenomenon, but also a survival strategy in extreme situations: from the shipwrecked sailors to the populations trapped under siege, despair has often pushed human beings to break the largest taboo of our species. In fact, even in Europe, during periods of extreme famine, episodes of anthropophagy for pure survival occurred. Duringsiege of Leningrado (1941-1944), in which the Russian population was trapped for almost 900 days without supplies, there were numerous documented cases of cannibalism, with the Soviet authorities that came to establish severe penalties to contrast it. There Great famine in Ireland (1845-1852), caused by the diffusion of the peronospor of the potato, led to extreme hunger conditions, with stories of desperate people who feeds the bodies of the deceased. Also in the first American settlements, such as Jamestown In the 1609the settlers, without food and besieged by environmental difficulties, resorted to cannibalism.
Eating a belonging to their own species
Cannibalism continues to be, still today, a topic of strong cultural and anthropological impact. If on the one hand it arouses repugnance, on the other fascinates, and feeds stories, films and novels. Whether it has been practiced for necessity or for religious rituals, there is no doubt that it is a historical and anthropological reality that has accompanied humanity for centuries, leaving a disturbing shadow in our collective memory. Beyond the horror that inspires, cannibalism challenges the boundaries of our identity as human beings. For many cultures, the body is not only meat, but a symbol of belonging, memory and spirituality. Consuming the meat of one’s own similar would then mean overcoming the ultimate limit of our humanity.
In a sense, cannibalism is not only an extreme food practice, but a symbolic fracture in the way a society defines the human. Eating a belonging to its own species destabilizes the foundations of culture, since it breaks the border between those who belong to the community and those who are considered “other”.
