Tags: cannibal, history, nonfiction

This is not a story, but rather a link to an academic book on the real occurrences of socially accepted cannibalism in the past. I found it a fascinating read. It's not gore, but it's full of people being purchased or captured and then killed and eaten. Such things happened, and the book describes not only how, but also asks why and how such practices could become widely accepted in some societies during certain times and circumstances.

Edible People
The Historical Consumption of Slaves and Foreigners and the Cannibalistic Trade in Human Flesh
by Christian Siefkes
Berghahn Books, September 2022
392 pages, 20 illus., bibliog., index

From the description on https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/SiefkesEdible :

While human cannibalism has attracted considerable notice and controversy, certain aspects of the practice have received scant attention. These include the connection between cannibalism and xenophobia: the capture and consumption of unwanted strangers. Likewise ignored is the connection to slavery: the fact that in some societies slaves and persons captured in slave raids could be, and were, killed and eaten. This book explores these largely forgotten practices and ignored connections while making explicit the links between cannibal acts, imperialist influences and the role of capitalist trading practices. These are highly important for the history of the slave trade and for understanding the colonialist history of Africa.

From the introduction:

This book is an attempt to look beyond the misconceptions and understand certain cannibal practices as they really were. Actual cannibalistic societies were not particularly primitive—they had their social order and their own value systems, which were not necessarily less refined than the Western ones, though they were certainly different. Analyzing the principles that governed such societies is a part of the big endeavor of trying to explore the human condition—of exploring how humans lived (and died) under conditions that were sometimes so different from our own that they are difficult to even imagine. Investigating historical practices such as slave eating also reveals close interconnections between the consumption of slaves and captives in Africa and the internationalslave (and, as we will see, ivory) trade across the Atlantic and into the Arab world—an aspect of the history of slavery (one of the largest crimes of all times) that would remain unknown if we went on to ignore the historical record.

And later:

Before turning to individual topics and regions, I will in Chapter 1 consider under which circumstances and due to which motives cannibal practices occurred in general, in order to develop a taxonomy of such practices. Understanding the different aspects influencing cannibal behaviors will provide useful background knowledge regarding the context of the specific practices explored in this book.

Chapters 2 to 10 are all dedicated to slave eating—a well documented, but so far deplorably under-investigated topic that may be considered the main focus of this book. Chapter 2 deals with the practice among the Maori in New Zealand; Chapter 3 investigates the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea and takes a look at Sumatra. Subsequent chapters are dedicated to the Congo basin, where the practice is particularly well-documented. Chapter 3 starts by exploring the interconnections between local cannibalism and the international trade in slaves and ivory. Chapter 5 investigates how two particular groups of foreigners—Swahilo Arab slave and ivory traders from the African east coast as well as European officials of the colonial Congo Free State—benefited from and sometimes actively encouraged cannibal practices, without being cannibals themselves. Chapters 6 to 8 aim to deepen our understanding of Congolese slave eating: Why, in which ways, and where did it take place? How did it work from an economic viewpoint and in which ways was it tied to commercial practices? How was it shaped by patriarchal social structures, and what were its connections to the exploitation of slaves in general? Finally, Chapters 9 and 10 are again dedicated to foreign—in particular, European—influences. Chapter 9 is a case study of a particularly well-documented and controversially analyzed example of the involvement of a European explorer in a case of cannibalism which took the life of a young enslaved girl Chapter 10 takes a step back to consider more generally thequestion of European influences on cannibal customs elsewhere of the world—in Central Africa in particular. In this context we will also explore what is known about the beginnings and the end of Congolese cannibalism.

Chapters 11 and 12 are dedicated to foreigner poaching, the murder and consumption of unwanted foreigners. Three regions where such acts were common will be studied: New Guinea and the neighboring Bismarck Archipelago, Fiji, and Central Africa. Chapter 13 investigates commercial aspects of cannibalism not directly connected with slavery—the sale of human flesh and of corpses destined for consumption.

Chapters 14 and 15 explore commercial and culinary aspects of cannibalism in China, where human flesh repeatedly appeared on marketplaces during times of famine and warfare, and where it was occasionally eaten even outside such times of hardship, sometimes due to culinary choice. While the rest of book deals with regions that were highly decentralized and, before the imposition of colonial regimes may well be considered as “stateless,” China is a huge country with a very long tradition of statehood. These chapters will allow an understanding of how and under which circumstances the consumption of and the trade in human flesh could gain a certain social acceptance even in such a very different setting.

The Conclusion includes a review and a discussion of certain questions that arise when exploring cannibalism, including parallels and differences to meat eating in general and why and how cannibalism denial could, for some time, spread widely even in academic circles. A final topic is the pitfalls cannibalism poses for philosophic positions such as moral relativism.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in cannibalism as a real practice or in the history of violence!