A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is

A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is

Introduction

Cannibalism is the skill of consuming another distinct creature of identical species. A cannibal is a human or an animal that nourishes from its specific species. Cannibalism is also referred to as man-eaters from the Arakwan dialect name for the Carib Indians of West Indies. In humans, cannibalism is derived from back in the day where people used to feed on human flesh. Cannibalism was believed to be practiced in New Guinea (Cole, 2017). A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is  West and Central Africa still practiced the act until recently. Some Indian tribes in South and North American among Aborigines and Maoris of Australia and New Zealand were known to practice cannibalism.

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Cannibalism was practiced for several reasons. One, it was a ritual act among those societies. They ate the remains of a hero to absorb the strength to become like them. They also ate the remains to signify honor and respect for the fallen soldiers. This mostly occurred if the hero was known to have led in battles or solved mysteries that had never been solved before, known as endocannibalism. Other times cannibalism was revenge on some communities after capturing them during wars or raids (Cole, 2017). This was used to signify victory in the communities and where unique parts like the heads were given to the elders and other elements to the rest of the community, known as exocannibalism A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is.

Cannibalism has been practiced in the modern world as a survival measure. This happens when a sick individual exits among many people who have been starving for days. They use the sick member as a form of nourishment to survive before they can have an opportunity to have food. A good example is the Donner Party in American Borderline history, where they used their members as a survival skill in the snow (Fouilloux et al., 2019) A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is

Still, some other communities ate the remains of their loved ones as a way of fulfilling their dying wishes. Some elders in the community would leave specific instructions to the families of their want to have their bodies eaten instead of rotting in the graves. This was used as a form of burial and is known as crisis cannibalism. Criminal cannibalism was practiced after capturing a criminal who was attributed to a community’s threats and insecurities. They ate their remains to signify victory and warn people to stay away from crimes and to bring peace among the people A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is.

Some versions of cannibalism have been witnessed globally; for instance, some verses in the book of Jeremiah 19: 9, “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh” and Leviticus 26:  29 “you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.” (Old Testament, 2018).

In the animal kingdom, cannibalism is not uncommon. Animals practice cannibalism as a survival measure to control the population to a manageable number, especially when the offspring is sick, for example, playing mantis, tadpoles, and pelicans. Other animals eat the young ones if they have been fathered by another male to mark territories, seen in lions and bears and apes (Nishank & Swain, 2019) A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is.

Conclusion

Cannibalism is not common among humans, but it is legal in the United States; however, some rules have been implemented that complicates the idea of consuming human flesh. Most of the communities globally consider cannibalism as a taboo and has been discarded by the majority, especially with the emergence of Christianity. In the animal, kingdom cannibalism is common for survival skills for some species and others for marking their territories.

References

Cole, J. (2017). Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic. Scientific reports, 7(1), 1-10.

Fouilloux, C., Ringler, E., & Rojas, B. (2019). Cannibalism. Current Biology, 29(24), R1295-R1297 A Brief Overview Of What Cannibalism Is.

Nishank, S. S., & Swain, S. (2019). Cannibalism in animals. Science Horizon, 4, 33-39.

Testament, O. (2018). The holy bible.