In a world filled with taboos few even come close to cannibalism. The act of
consuming human flesh is viewed today as abhorrent and unforgivable. Early explorers sailed the world and returned
home with tales of savages eating their enemies. There have been cases, such as the infamous
Donner Party, where people resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. A case from Papua New Guinea last month made
headlines, not only because it involved cannibalism, but also because the
cannibal was the young victim’s father.
Early last month in the island nation of Papua New Guinea,
north of Australia, two boys reported witnessing more than just a murder to
authorities. The boys had climbed a tree
near a settlement in Lea. From their
perch they saw a man dragging what turned out to be his 3-year-old daughter
into a clearing and began biting her neck.
The boys told officials they were spotted and the father, Rex Eric,
laughed at them while he continued to eat the flesh and suck the blood of the
child. The father was quickly arrested.
While this story may seem horrific among today’s headlines,
it isn’t all that uncommon in such areas. The past couple years have witnessed
a rash of vigilante violence in Papua New Guinea. 29 individuals who were members of a cannibal
cult were arrested last July for the murders of seven men suspected to have
been witchdoctors. The cult members ate their brains, and made soup with their
penises. In February the town of Mount
Hagen witnessed a 20-year-old woman tortured and killed by the townspeople
after she was suspected of practicing witchcraft.
Responding authorities watched helplessly as a mob of nearly
all the town’s citizens poured gasoline on Kapari Laniata and burned her alive.
Firemen and police officers who tried to
intervene were attacked and ran off by the mob. Leniata was accused of sorcery after a young
boy in the village fell ill and died. Her
brutal death attracted attention from the United Nations. Even more recently a former schoolteacher was
decapitated by an angry mob after being accused of using witchcraft to kill a
colleague.
There is a widespread belief in witchcraft and sorcery in
Papua New Guinea, especially in rural and isolated areas, and recent years have
seen an increase in black magic-related crimes.
In 1971 the country passed the Sorcery Act which criminalizes the
practice of witchcraft and recognizes the use of sorcery as an acceptable
defense in murder cases. Suggestions
have been made, by the United Nations human rights office among others, to
repeal the Sorcery Act as a solution to vigilante witch hunts. Amnesty
International has also gotten involved in the crisis.
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| Papua New Guinea natives |
The current law distinguishes between “innocent sorcery,”
such as healing methods, and “forbidden sorcery,” which carries a sentence of
up to five years. Broken down, the crime
is not practicing magic, but doing so with harmful intent. False accusations of sorcery can land you up
to a year, and possession of sorcery “tools” can also get you a year. Sources inside the country say while the
number of headlines have risen lately, the actual number of witchcraft-related
crime has actually decreased, although the actual number of deaths each year
may be in the hundreds. Very few, if any
Sorcery Act cases are ever tried in court, but some feel it’s criminalization
fuels the public’s view that it is punishable.
To civilized nations practices of witchcraft are laughed
off, but in lesser developed regions, such as Papua New Guinea, sorcery and
cannibalism play a big role in the cultural history. People have eaten other people all throughout
history, for a number of reasons. History,
legends, mythology and fairy tales are filled with tales of humans eating
humans.
Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism. Some
anthropologists think our early history saw humans practicing ritual
cannibalism. Ancient Australian
Aborigines are thought to have consumed any opponent killed in battle. The Bible tells the story of a pact between
two mothers to kill and eat their children (2 Kings 6:25-30). During Europe’s
Great Famine of 1315-1317 cannibalism was frequently reported among the
starving population. War has seen
soldiers resorting to cannibalism often.
It was reported during the First Crusade, in China during the Tang
Dynasty, and throughout the history of Mesoamerica to name a few.
The Aztecs practiced exocannibalism, the practice of members
of one group consuming the members of another group. This form of cannibalism was used to show
tribal power and to scare off invading armies.
Often those consuming the flesh believed in doing so they were acquiring
the knowledge and skills of those they ate.
Conversely the consumption of members of ones own group is known as
endocannibalism and is often associated with ritual burial ceremonies. Mortuary cannibalism is thought to be the most
widely practiced form of endocannibalism, excluding murder to only consume
those already dead. It was not uncommon for tribes to practice a mix of these
types of cannibalism, along with others, such as cannibalism for survival and
consumption for taste or nutritional value.
The Iroquoian Indians of North America believed sacrificing
and consuming the bodies of their enemies would please their war god and allow
them to absorb the person’s spirit, empowering them with their enemies’
attributes. Stories of cannibalistic
tribes in Africa still persist today, often involving organ trade on the black
market as well. Cannibalism took its
name from the Carib Tribe of the West Indies.
Early Spanish explorers encountered what they described as savage
natives who ate the bodies of their dead enemies. The history of the South Pacific islands are
filled with tales of cannibalism. Fiji
used to be known as the “Cannibal Isles.”
Other than being a major taboo for most people, the practice
of cannibalism brings with it the risk of contracting a disease known as
Kuru. It has been described as the human
equivalent of mad cow disease. The name
comes from a native word that means “to shake,” referring to the symptom of
body tremors. It is also referred to as “the laughing disease” because
sufferers are prone to pathological bursts of laughter.
Kuru was first noted among the Fore tribe of Papua New
Guinea in the 1950s. Investigations into
the regional epidemic found the disease rose from eating human flesh, especially
the brain. An infectious protein, prion,
causes the illness which has no known cure and usually causes death within one
year. The following video shows a native suffering from kuru and may be disturbing to some viewers:
When Lost Creek researchers first came across this story it
was very timely. Our team was
simultaneously involved in putting together a haunted house for our local
community center, and sadly, the Medicine Show was neglected. We plan to pump out several more new blogs in
the very near future that were began but had to be pushed to the back burner in
order to meet our community obligations.
Hopefully this hiatus has given these ideas time to simmer and will be
more in depth than they originally would have been. Stay tuned for the next stops
along the journey.
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