Cultures in which cannibalistic practices are well-attested

[Junghalli]

This came up in the cannibalism and ethics thread in SLAM:

It's not just "Westerners". Cannibalism has never been socially accepted in any known society in human history.

What about all those peoples (Native Americans, New Guineans, Polynesians, etc.) that practiced ritual cannibalism?

Bill Arens debunked most of this pseudo-science over 30 years ago. For example, if the Aztecs had no qualms about eating human flesh, why did they starve to death in droves when Cortes laid siege to their main city and thanks to war and disease, tens of thousands of dead bodies were ripe for the picking?

It's bullshit of the worst kind. The closest example than anyone has come up with was an examination of feces from an Anasazi village that found human remains. This was more than likely the result of starvation, since the region was suffering a drought that lasted for decades.

The reason societies are accused of cannibalism is to justify robbing, raping, enslaving and killing them -or stealing their land. Columbus described the inhabitants of Hispañola as docile and the ideal for being enslaved. The king and queen of Spain decreed that only islanders who ate human flesh could be enslaved and suddenly those docile natives became bloodthirsty cannibals!

This got me curious. How many examples are there of cultures that are unambiguously known to practice some form of cannibalism on routine basis (or to have done so in the past)?

A quick look around the internet got me Consuming grief: compassionate cannibalism in an Amazonian society By Beth A. Conklin about the Wari in Amazonia.

[adam_grif]

The Carib people were reportedly the root of the world cannibalism, but did not eat to satisfy hunger. It was part of war rituals and the like, and from what I can tell didn't even involve consumption of flesh, just chewing on it. Columbus and crew apparently "creatively misinterpreted" this stuff (or didn't really understand what was going on, take your pick) for reasons already mentioned.

[The Dark]

The Korowai culture in New Guinea still engages in cannibalism, which is based upon their understanding of disease. The Maori killed and ate the crew of the Boyd, but it's been suggested that Maori cannibalism was mostly ritual and related to combat, rather than specifically "hunting" humans. Titokowaru (a Maori warleader in 1868-69) also claimed to have eaten the flesh of Europeans, although it's possible this was done to intimidate. The Aghori in India still consume bodies floated down the Ganges, as recorded by Sandeep Singh in 2005.

In short, Elfdart's partially correct, in that no culture accepts cannibalism broadly as a means of gathering food. Within particular ritual occurrences, however, there are cultures that accept limited cannibalism.

[spaceviking]

If I remember correctly the Wari cannibalism was very symbolic, they would often eat only very small amounts. While the idea of any cannibalism is abhorrent to the majority of people, to me transubstantiation does not seem that far off.

[Junghalli]

In short, Elfdart's partially correct, in that no culture accepts cannibalism broadly as a means of gathering food. Within particular ritual occurrences, however, there are cultures that accept limited cannibalism.

That's what I suspected.

If I remember correctly the Wari cannibalism was very symbolic, they would often eat only very small amounts.

As I remember from reading the book, the ideal was to eat as much of the body as possible but they had to complete certain rituals first that can take a couple of days, and by that time the body was sometimes so decomposed that the flesh was virtually inedible (dead bodies rot fast in that climate), so they'd just force themselves to swallow a few pieces of it and dispose of the rest by other means.

[Elfdart]

The Carib people were reportedly the root of the world cannibalism, but did not eat to satisfy hunger. It was part of war rituals and the like, and from what I can tell didn't even involve consumption of flesh, just chewing on it. Columbus and crew apparently "creatively misinterpreted" this stuff (or didn't really understand what was going on, take your pick) for reasons already mentioned.

Columbus claimed in his ship's log that the natives he first encountered told him that they lived in fear of the Caribs, a race of humanoids with the heads of dogs who devoured human genitalia and drank human blood. First of all, dog-headed men are mythical creatures from medieval Europe (like gorgons, unicorns, the cockatrice et al), such as St. Christopher, a dog-headed monster who served the devil until he almost drowned carrying Baby Jesus across a river and repented his evil ways:



Columbus assumed such creatures existed because it was an article of faith in Europe that faraway lands were inhabited by man-eating monsters, fire-breathing dragons and all sorts of other fanciful creatures. It was also an article of faith in Europe that Jews celebrated passover by drinking the blood of Christian babies.

Second, the islanders of Hispañola didn't have dogs until they were imported by the Spanish.

Third, Columbus turned around (after edicts from the pope and Isabella) and claimed that the friendly natives whom he said were docile and would make perfect slaves were in fact Caribs (man-eaters) all along.

In other words, it's some of the most ridiculous bullshit ever written.

[adam_grif]

So what you're saying is that in addition to being full of shit, Columbus was a prolific author of terrible Christianity fan-fic?

[Elfdart]

Not the author, but a promoter of them. He appears to have been a big fan of John Mandeville, a charlatan whose bogus travel tales were a best-seller in the late Middle Ages and were re-printed in a number of languages. He in turn was heavily influenced by Pliny the Elder, who also believed in all sorts of fanciful humanoids, such as the headless Blemmyae, two-headed Pygmies, monopods, cyclopes and other critters that are better fit for the Monster Manual than actual history:

[adam_grif]

And these douches get remembered fondly by history. I still run into people from time to time who thinks that Columbus proved the Earth was round and that nobody knew about it before that.

[Akhlut]

Apparently, cannibalism was a part of Aztec human sacrifices, but it was mostly symbolic, and turkey often substituted for human flesh in those rituals anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

And these douches get remembered fondly by history. I still run into people from time to time who thinks that Columbus proved the Earth was round and that nobody knew about it before that.

Well, say what you will about the idiotic bullshit Columbus believed, he did something pretty bold that it's hard for modern "Westerners" to call a bad thing. It can be done, but... I'm writing this in a country that could quite easily have wound up being called "The United States of Columbia" if it hadn't been for some other self-aggrandizing Italian getting the drop on Columbus with the mapmakers.

So granted that he was bold in large part because of the idiocy he believed. And granted that his idiocy led him to completely misunderstand what he was dealing with in the Americas... but to be blunt, how was he to know that there weren't two-headed men or guys with dog faces lurking on the next island?

"There are no such thing as unicorns" is obviously sensible when you've been everywhere and seen anything and not found any. But when you've just discovered a whole new freaking continent with all kinds of bizarre plants, animals, and people, where the natives speak no intelligible language and don't look like any people you've ever seen... you're pretty much exploring an alien planet. Why should he be any more surprised to find two-headed humanoids on Cuba than we would to find them on Omricon Persei VII?

[Thanas]

*snip*

I haven't read his logs, so I cannot really speak for the accuracy of your summary, but from what I understand, the caribs did butcher one of Columbus garrisons and apparently did eat parts of the flesh.

[Elfdart]

I don't have an English translation of subsequent logs, only for the first expedition. I'm going by the modern English translation published by McGraw-Hill (ISBN 0-8774-2316-4) . After claiming that the locals told him of a place called Bohio (generally agreed to be Haiti) with unlimited gold to the Southeast, Columbus writes:

I also understand that, a long distance from here, there are men with one eye and others with dogs' snouts who eat men. On taking a man they behead him and drink his blood and cut off his genitals.

Columbus set sail around the Caribbean looking for Bohio and its vast amounts of gold and pearls:

Beyond the cape, visible in the distance, is another land or cape that extends to the east. The Indians aboard call this Bohio and say it is very large and has people there with one eye in the forehead, as well as others they call cannibals, of whom they show great fear. When they saw I was taking that course, they were too afraid to talk. They say the cannibals eat people and are well armed. I believe there is some truth in this, although if they are armed they must be an intelligent people. Perhaps these people may have captured some of the other Indians; when the captives did not return to their own country, it was said they were eaten. The Indians we have encountered believed the same thing at first about us Christians.

Three days later, Columbus has a theory of just who these one-eyes trolls and dog-headed ogres really are:

The Indians with me continued to show great fear because of the course I was taking and kept insisting that the people of Bohio had only one eye and the face of a dog, and they fear being eaten. I do not believe any of this. I feel that the Indians they fear belong to the domain of the Great Khan.

[boldface mine]

So Columbus is skeptical that the Caribs are man-eaters. That is, until the Spanish tried to disarm them the following January:

Without a doubt, the people here are evil, and I believe they are from the island of Caribe, and that they eat men.

But of course they were evil and ate men.

[Thanas]

^None of that answers my question.

[Elfdart]

I was referring to this:

I haven't read his logs, so I cannot really speak for the accuracy of your summary,

So I quoted the relevant parts of the log.

[Thanas]

I was referring to this:

I haven't read his logs, so I cannot really speak for the accuracy of your summary,

So I quoted the relevant parts of the log.

Ah, okay. I was more referring to the "garrison killed and somewhat eaten" charge.

[Imperial Overlord]

Apparently, cannibalism was a part of Aztec human sacrifices, but it was mostly symbolic, and turkey often substituted for human flesh in those rituals anyway.

There was cannibalism as part of Aztec sacrifices (recipes for human flesh survive), but it was a limited ritual, religious practice. Hell Catholicism has (symbolic) ritual cannibalism as part of its rites and practiced religiously mandated ritual murder at the time.

[Simon_Jester]

I would argue that symbolic cannibalism (eating what is, in fact, bread) is not actual cannibalism (eating people), unless you can find a man made out of bread to eat.

I agree, though, that ritual murder for religious reasons is ritual murder for religious reasons; auto-da-fé is no better than sacrificing some large number of POWs to make sure the sun comes up tomorrow.

[Stuart]

This got me curious. How many examples are there of cultures that are unambiguously known to practice some form of cannibalism on routine basis (or to have done so in the past)?

Imperial Japanese Army, World War Two (both in China and in the Pacific Campaign).

[Simon_Jester]

Was that a "routine basis" thing, though, or a "Oh shit, our logistics train is nonexistent and we're out of food" thing?

I mean, cannibalism in the event of famine is a fairly well known phenomenon even in societies that abhor cannibalism: "Donner, party of 57... 56... 54" and all that. The question is when (whether?) we see it as a routine practice, rather than something people do when it's that or starve to death.

[Stuart]

Was that a "routine basis" thing, though, or a "Oh shit, our logistics train is nonexistent and we're out of food" thing?

It was a routine basis thing with strong religious overtones. It started in China when Japanese troops were encouraged by their officers to eat parts of the bodies of Chinese soldiers (and to kill Chinese PoWs specifically so that their body parts could be eaten). It spread from there until it was commonplace throughout the Imperial Japanese Army and it long predated the point in WW2 when isolated garrisons were cut off by the American advance. For many years, it was covered up, not least because U.S. authorities in particular didn't want to tell the immediate families that their sons/husbands had been killed and eaten.

The religious aspect to this can be illustrated by the fact that very often the liver was cut out of the victim (very often while said victim was still alive), cooked and shared out in small portions across a unit while the rest of the body was unceremoniously dumped. Obviously, had the cannibalism been the result of starvation, most or all of the body would have been eaten. A well-documented case occurred in Chichijima in February 1945, when Japanese soldiers killed and consumed five American airmen. This case was investigated in 1947 in a war crimes trial, and of 30 Japanese soldiers prosecuted, five (Maj. Matoba, Gen. Tachibana, Adm. Mori, Capt. Yoshii, and Dr. Teraki) were found guilty and hanged. During his trial, Major Matoba described a number of occasions on which the flesh of murdered prisoners of war was consumed in the Japanese officers' mess. This took on the character of a festive occasion, with the flesh being washed down with sake. Very senior army and navy officers attended the officers' mess when human flesh was consumed and they encouraged this behaviour.

In his book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, James Bradley details several instances of cannibalism of World War II Allied prisoners by their Japanese captors. This included not only ritual cannibalization of the livers of freshly-killed prisoners, but also the cannibalization-for-sustenance of living prisoners over the course of several days, amputating limbs only as needed to keep the meat fresh.

In New Guinea, there is an abundance of easily grown natural foods, including paw paw, coconut, and various types of sweet potato. Cannibalism was, however, widespread amongst Japanese troops serving in New Guinea with numerous recorded cases of Australian troops finding bodies of captured personnel having been butchered for meat. 'Toshiyuki Tanaka, a 43-year-old scholar from Fukui in western Japan, working at the Political Science Department in Melbourne University found documents concerning cannibalism include captured Japanese army memos as well as sworn statements by Australian soldiers for war crimes investigations. Mr Tanaka says he has amassed at least 100 documented cases of cannibalism of Australian and Indian soldiers as well as Asian forced labourers in New Guinea. He has also found some evidence of cannibalism in the Philippines.'

'In some cases the (Japanese) soldiers were suffering from starvation, but in many other cases they were not starving at all,' said Mr Tanaka. 'Many reports said the Japanese soldiers were fit and strong, and had potatoes, rice and dried fish.' The researcher also denied it was a result of a breakdown in morale: 'The reports said morale was good. Often it was done in a group under instruction of a commander. I think it was to get a feeling for victory, and to give the soldiers nerves of steel.' He said it helped the soldiers to bond 'because the whole troop broke the taboo (of cannibalism) together' (Article Here)

In fairness, it should be noted that some Japanese officers strictly forbade the practice of cannibalism in their units. The commander of the 41st infantry division issued an order on November 18 1944 stating that any soldier found eating human flesh would be summarily executed. Of course, the very fact that such an order had to be issued is indicative of the scale of the problem.

A google search for cannibalism "Japanese Army" will give you all the sources you need. In addition, I strongly recommend the book highlighted above.

[Sarevok]

Was there something unique to Japaneese culture that made cannibalism more palatable to their soldiers compared to other nations armies ? I mean they are breaking a huge taboo here by doing it ritualistically and not because they ran out of food. What were the motivation for the horrific decisions to cut up and eat living people ? Did they think they become stronger by consuming flesh of their enemies for instance ?

[Stuart]

Was there something unique to Japaneese culture that made cannibalism more palatable to their soldiers compared to other nations armies ? I mean they are breaking a huge taboo here by doing it ritualistically and not because they ran out of food. What were the motivation for the horrific decisions to cut up and eat living people ? Did they think they become stronger by consuming flesh of their enemies for instance ?

I have no idea; I suspect there are people here far better qualified than me to answer that. I would urge you to read "flyboys" on this subject, the author goes into the whole issue of Japanese Army institutional cannibalism quite thoroughly.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Cannibalism is an intensely dehumanizing act, particularly when the people you're eating don't look like you. I'd say that any cannibalism in the Imperial Japanese Army was part of a conscious attempt on the part of the Japanese officers to dehumanize the enemies of Japan in the soldiers to heighten their fanaticism. Most Japanese enlisted in the Army were very docile and obedient when they were captured, and recognized the basic humanity of other human beings. The Bushido fanatics in charge had to dehumanize their enemies to make them behave in such a horrifying fashion. I suspect that this got started very early on in China and helped contribute to things like the Nanking Massacre. You take the bodies of men killed in honourable straightforward combat and make your soldiers eat them until they've, to psychologically cope with having eaten the flesh of another human being, completely dehumanized those individuals. In short it's a powerful tool for taking the average Japanese farmer and making him think that the only kind of human on the planet is a Japanese, so that he will bayonet 3 year olds without hesitation. Remember that even SS death squads had psychological issues with mass murder of innocents to the point it was discontinued in favour of deathcamps. The Japanese never needed deathcamps, and I suspect forcing the troops to engage in collective acts of cannibalism was a way to effectively dehumanize non-Japanese so that such atrocities could be conducted in the field by regular soldiers.

[Elfdart]

Was there something unique to Japaneese culture that made cannibalism more palatable to their soldiers compared to other nations armies ? I mean they are breaking a huge taboo here by doing it ritualistically and not because they ran out of food. What were the motivation for the horrific decisions to cut up and eat living people ? Did they think they become stronger by consuming flesh of their enemies for instance ?

I have no idea; I suspect there are people here far better qualified than me to answer that. I would urge you to read "flyboys" on this subject, the author goes into the whole issue of Japanese Army institutional cannibalism quite thoroughly.

If you want to count the Japanese Army as a "culture" in and of itself, then this would certainly count.

Japanese are (or were) mostly Shintoist and Buddhist, and neither religion condones man-eating. Of course, neither religion condones the bayoneting of toddlers -a crime the IJA was willing to commit in front of the rolling cameras.