Cannibalism; Anthropophagi, the answer to eliminating famine

During times of desperate need for the basics of human survival, such as food, water and rest, a civilized, righteous human being will do the unthinkable, unmoral or downright evil to survive. Of all the basic needs of a human being famine is perhaps the biggest drive for some people to commit horrid acts just to live. Throughout our human history there are many accounts of famine and documentation of what the starving individuals did during those times.

In the 1930’s a study was done on the Bantu and Bemba tribes of Rhodesia showing that during the lowest food yielding time of year the people became less willing to share their food not only with others in the tribe but there closest relatives as well.

In 1941the Siriono Indians of Bolivia were also studied during a time of little accessible food. Again, as with the tribes of Rhodesia, a selfishness of food was present. Even when food was plentiful they would overeat and horde any food they could lay claim to. Because of the prolonged shortage of food this tribe would abandon older tribe members and the sick to fend for themselves.

Another study of the Gurage people in Ethiopia during food shortages in the early 60’s showed the same patterns of hording what food there was, even letting it rot and go to waste before sharing it with others. Children were also malnourished as the adults took care to feed themselves first. Infants were even left to cry for the day out of pure hunger and lack of attention.

These actions caused by hunger may not seem that extreme, but at the same time the shortage of food in the previous cases isn’t that extreme either. Take the Ik of Uganda for example. Due to laws forbidding hunting on national parks and only being allowed to reside on land unsuitable for growing any type of crop the Ik have spiraled into an all out famine. In the Ik tribe there is a huge lack of sharing of food. In fact the concept doesn’t seem to even exist. The way Russell puts it is “Only the strong, the selfish, and the predatory survived”.

This way of survival starts as early as three years old. As soon as the child is weaned from breast milk they are kicked out of the household to completely fend for themselves. If they make it thru childhood alive they don’t have much to look forward to as they grow old either. The old, which was usually around thirty years of age, were simply ignored until they starved to death. Feeding them was simply seen as a complete waste of food.

A very eye opening story that Russell retells is about a thirteen year old girl who is obviously starving with her skeleton showing and her stomach distended. This little girl went against the norm of the Ik tribe and was actually a very kind hearted person. This kind heartedness made it easy for the others to take what food she had and beatings for this little girl from others became normal. During this time Adupa continually tried to go home to be with her mother and father. Each time they would shoo her away. Finally out of desperation they allowed Adupa back into the household where instead of welcoming their thirteen old daughter home they locked her inside and left for an entire week. Upon the parents return Adupa was dead. She had been starved to death by her own mother and father. The parents then took Adupa’s body and discarded it in a local ravine.

Famine is by far one of the most horrific events that various individuals around the world must endure and is at the same time one of the most curable, yet unresolved issues. To find a cure however one must look into the many reasons why we have famine. Poor government, as in the case of the Ik tribe who has been forbidden to hunt or to move to fertile land is one reason. War is another reason, whether it is the deliberate sabotage by the enemy or simply not having access to the exports and imports of needed food due to where the battle lines are drawn. Another reason is Mother Nature and her droughts, extreme storms, volcanic eruptions, plagues of insects or simple disease.

Amartya Sen (1998 Nobel prizewinner) discovered that even a countries economics can cause famine. One of Sen’s studies was in Bengal, India where famine was widespread due to an economic growth spurt the caused the cost of food to go up so substantially the rural people would die from lack of food simply because they could not afford it.

So why haven’t any of the cures for famine worked? Some of it is the lack of attention the local government gives it. Some of the ideas have been to teach the famine stricken areas how to grow crops, however in areas of infertile lands no matter how often you teach them it still will not grow. Not only will the crops not grow but there is no protein source which is needed for a healthy diet. Unlike the U.S. you can’t just buy a protein supplement in these areas. Other areas rely so heavily on outside sources of food and yet too few volunteer to help. Some groups that do help will only help with the price of religious conversion on the starving individuals’ part.

A cure for famine that will not only provide enough food for all the famine stricken areas but will also supply a well rounded healthy meal, would be to utilize what is known as anthropophagi or cannibalism. Yes, the legal, socially acceptable consumption of human flesh. Well, making it a legal and socially acceptable practice under certain circumstances. The certain circumstances being after the natural human death process has taken place. Everyone dies eventually. Most by what is considered a natural death. By utilizing the natural death process and processing the meat we are opening a whole smorgasbord of untouched food resources. Now, I’m not talking about having human farms or even allowing random killings in the name of food. What I am talking about is simply when you die your natural death, whenever that may be; the remains are processed thru a USDA like establishment but for human meat instead of animal. Then the meat would be distributed to the famine stricken areas of the world.

But, wait! There are even more positives to giving all of you after your natural death to your brothers and sisters in need. The amount of land that is saved on not having so many cemeteries would be converted to crops that are dedicated to only the famine areas. Just as an idea of how much land that would be; on average it takes up to 700sq feet of land for just one person to be buried. The crops grown on these would be cemeteries would be easily watered by using the amount of water already being used to maintain the cemetery grounds.

Not only will we have dedicated famine farming grounds but we would also have access to human organs. Organs desperately needed for different life saving organ transplants in our own country. This way would not only help the hungry but also the sick waiting for the life saving liver, or lung, or heart, thus saving countless more lives.

I know what you are thinking. We can’t utilize cannibalism! We are a civilized society and besides, it’s just gross. Well guess what, cannibalism is a known fact of survival during times of starvation. A famine in India in 1631 had reports of children being roasted and eaten or sold as food. Men would have chunks of meat cut away for consumption and yet hope to walk away with at least his life but disfigured. As soon as someone died they were utilized for food. In Australia the Kaura aborigines would consume the newborns to help feed the tribe as well as control the population during famine. In 1016 famine in Europe has accounts of cannibalism, in 1200 Egypt has accounts of cannibalism during a famine, Hungary in 1505 has the same accounts of consuming human flesh for survival during a famine.

However cannibalism isn’t linked only to widespread famine but also during desperate situations. Situations like when a Vietnamese refugee boat in May of1988 escaped from a Vietnamese port hoping to make it to Malaysia had its engine break down and became a drift in the ocean. After all food and water resources were expended and people had begun to die of starvation the remaining survivors took it upon themselves to kill two of the near death passengers for food. Shortly after three other passengers died and were consumed as well. Near the end of June of the same year the survivors were rescued.

But this is all during times of extreme need, why should we succumb to non-violent cannibalism to feed the hungry when we live a life of plenty? I believe the answer lies with a question. Why did we succumb to the end of cannibalistic practices in the first place? What I am suggesting, along with other anthropologist and their findings, is that humans have been cannibalistic for over 2 million years. During many excavations of human remains evidence has presented itself for the confirmation of a long history of human cannibalism. For example an archeological dig of a cave in China showed over 40 human skeletons that had been blackened from a heat source, presumably a fire used for roasting, and their skulls fractured in specific places to gain access to the brains. The chronological testing of the bones dated them as far as 500,000 years ago.

Ok, so we were once savages, but we have become civilized creatures with morals that let us know it is just wrong to practice any form of cannibalism. As Deborah Nichols puts it, “Cannibalism divides people into two groups: 1. Moral, Sane, Civilized persons and 2. Depraved, insane savages who devour human flesh” . But this is all in perspective. Take the Wari tribe in the rainforests of Brazil for instance. Until it was stopped by outside religious means in the 1960s they practiced a form of cannibalism called mortuary cannibalism. Family members would consume their loved ones when they passed in a very ritualistic way. To be consumed by your family after your death was to be considered one of the highest displays of respect. The Wari also viewed it as a way to mourn, a way to let go of their loved ones.

The biggest protestor of cannibalism is modern day religions with their ideas of right and wrong. However the view of cannibalism as a lower moral standard comes from a long recorded history of past explorers coming upon tribes, such as the Wari, and witnessing the cannibalism of the tribe’s enemies. When the Wari cannibalizes their enemy they demoralize them by treating their bodies like the animals they hunt. There are no rituals or care taken in the preparation of the meat. Since most outsiders only saw the more animalistic sides of cannibalism, a negative, savage view was placed on the idea of human consumption. Cannibalism was also seen as a way to distance oneself from another. To take what is different from another so as to demoralize them to nothing more than animals, thus removing any remorse in the extermination of peoples for one’s own personal gain. This was seen during many of the European ‘conquest’ of other nations, such as the Americas. Not only did the Europeans use cannibalism as a way to prove a righteous reason to annihilate or convert a indigenous ‘monstrous’ people but those indigenous people would also find the Europeans to be monsters as well. Again it is all in perspective. Even with religion being the biggest backer of moral right and wrong and a condemner of cannibalism there are cannibalistic like practices amongst their rituals. Thru perspective they may not view it that way but think about it. Take the Catholic ritual of consuming the flesh and blood of Jesus. The flesh being symbolized by bread and blood by wine still depicts a cannibalistic undertone.

Here is a question I have. If it is, for the most part, acceptable for one to volunteer their organs for transplant or even their whole body to a science lab then why would we not accept the idea of giving one’s body for the life of others. As a whole we don’t have anything against giving of our physical heart in our death so that another can live, nor do we mind that our body will be dissected while future life saving doctors look on. How is this acceptable, even commendable but we will allow someone to suffer from starvation than to give one’s body to their life.

The only sound argument I have had presented to me is the potential health risks to cannibalism. One of these health risks is the spreading of species-specific pathogens. At the University of North Carolina a group did a study of a tiger salamander which is cannibalistic. They took diseased tiger salamander larvae and fed them to healthy larvae. The larvae that had consumed the diseased tiger salamander grew at a much slower rate and had a below normal survival rate during metamorphosis. Another possible disease is known as Prion disease. This disease is caused by a foreign protein enters the brain and causes other Prion proteins already in the brain to group up and kill cells. What is interesting with this disease however is that most modern day humans have a gene that protects them from this disease. Since the disease is only associated with cannibalism, Scientists of the University College London team believe that a history of humans being cannibalistic have actually caused humans to evolve so that they can consume the proteins without ill effects.

But what about those that do not have the gene to protect against this protein, like the Papua New Guinea tribe who would routinely eat their dead and then suffered from widespread Prion disease? In most cases of cannibalism they simply cook and eat the meat without ever knowing if it was infected with anything. It is the same as if one was to simply slaughter a cow, cook and eat the meat without the meat ever being tested by current USDA standards they would put themselves at risk for a well known disease called Mad Cow Disease. Since both Prion disease and species-specific pathogens can be detected in the meat before processing and consumption establishing a USDA for human meat just like we do for animal meat would eliminate the potential health risks.

 It is obvious that famine is one of the most horrible ways to live and die, and when looking at the benefits of utilizing cannibalism thru the natural death process one can see how famine can be cured. Cannibalism provides an endless supply of food, and a greater resource for needed organs. It provides a protein source needed for optimal health. It not only eliminates the wasted land for cemeteries but allows conversions of those acres upon acres to crops that can be used only for famine areas and all without using any more water than we already do for keeping the flowers pretty for the dead people. And the possibility of disease can be overcome by the simple use of a human USDA. The only thing that stands in the way is the individual perspective, one’s perceived ideas of what is right and wrong, one’s morals but this moral selfishness only prolongs the suffering of others.

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