In Discovery Channel's series Planet Earth, a tribe of chimpanzees is gathering. Their purpose? To attack a rival tribe of chimpanzees. Gathering up sticks to use as weapons, they ambush the rival tribe. It is a slaughter. When the carnage is complete, the tribe consumes the flesh of its victims. The narrator's voice, Sigourney Weaver, says something to the effect of, "no one knows why they do this..."
I am reminded immediately of Tobias Schneebaum's memoir Keep the River on Your Right. In it, young Mr. Schneebaum loses himself in the forests of South America. Finding himself among a tribe of indigenous people, he gains their acceptance, then integrates with them. Before long, he finds himself attacking a village, slaughtering the men, kidnapping the women, then consuming the flesh of his victims.
Opponents of moral relativism point out that certain things feel wrong to us. Sometimes cannibalism (or, as a pre-colonial word, anthropophagy) is used as a counterexample to provoke an emotional reaction against it. Murder is a far more frequently used counterexample. However, murder is far more widespread and more generally condoned in some form or other in almost any society. By contrast, anthropophagy is extremely rare. It is also far more difficult to come up with any justification for it. Personally, the idea puts me off my lunch. It is the stuff of horror movies.
Is our revulsion, our negative reaction to it, something that is intrinsic to human nature? Is anthropophagy simply an aberrant act, performed by a few sociopaths, or people who are "not right in the head?" Is the revulsion I feel merely a Western-centric attitude?
When the Donner-Reed Party crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains and became trapped by the snow, at least nineteen, but probably more, of its members were eaten in order to survive. Some of them were probably killed exclusively for the purpose of being eaten. Notably, these people were not eaten solely by the male members of the party, but, more frequently, by the women and children. Interestingly, it was the women and children above age 6 who were the most adaptable and able to survive.
Scientific research has confirmed that we carry a gene that could have only served one purpose: protection against a prion that is present in human brain tissue. Like it or not, our ancestors were cannibals. And we carry those genes, too, meaning that, yes, from nature's standpoint, we are cannibals, too.
All though I like your article, I have to say I disagree with the conclusion.
ReplyDeleteWe carry the gene to survive, that is our entire purpose in life is to live long enough to produce babies. If we have no food and have to kill and consume other people in order to fulfill our destiny, we will do it. To survive.
In situations where cannibalism is used in a religious setting, the end result is still towards survival. For example the Aztec's ate their human sacrifices because "Sacrificial victims were believed to have become sacred. Eating their flesh was the act of eating the god itself. This communion with superior beings was an important aspect of Aztec religion." (source: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/montellano.htm)
That is clearly a survival instinct to become stronger and/or not piss off the gods. Religious cannibalism is all rooted in an underlying sense of survival.
As far as I know there is no record of cannibalism that isn't linked to religious delusions or survival instincts.
As humans we feel sickened by cannibalism. "The idea of cannibalism-- teshuacrei (Nac.)-- appalled ancient Bergonians in all cultures, in all eras, appearing as a motif in their storytelling and their art. Compared to Eurasian civilizations Bergonians seemed obsessed with teshuacrei, but this is because eating someone was a common metaphor for the ultimate evil, and because teshuacrei was a figurative as well as a literal term. " (source: http://www.bergonia.org/Cul/cannibalism.htm)
Unless of course it is for survival, "Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you - so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot - will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities." Deuteronomy 28:53-57.
From a historical standpoint, our ancestors were cannibals, and so are we.
But from natures standpoint our ancestors are survivors, and we are survivors too.
Megan, the purpose of all genes is survival, discounting the "junk DNA" that builds up over time. I don't disagree with you say (in fact in many ways I am saying the same thing), so see where this idea gets explored in future posts.
ReplyDeleteBut be careful to use the term "delusion" to describe a religious ritual, even one that may conflict with your values--all religious rituals can be described that way from another person's point of view.