Talk:Human cannibalism

Mary Kingsley

I wondered if anybody else had come across mention of cannabilism in this book? Unfortunately it was some time since I read it and my copy has long gone but my recollection is that she went travelling in mid/late nineteenth century in west africa hunting and collecting specimens of small water creatures and plants and what have you. On her return she published a book of her travels which caused something of a scandal, she having gone as a women 'alone' on a long trek through jungle with 6 african men from various tribes with whom she worked, lived and slept for many months. The scandal arose I recall because she described them all as the individual human beings and friends they were as opposed to being just 'natives' or whatever and this was scandalous at the time because she was female and white. Any way - from recollection at least one of them came from a tribe who allegedly practiced cannabilism and the trip was held up at one point due to difficulties passing through a village where a man to whom this chap owed a debt tracked him down and proposed to get his recompense in flesh from him. MK and the other 5 were held up while this was sorted out. He came from the Fan or the Fang - not sure how it was spelt. It may be that this was just what the others said about him or a joke regularly perpertrated on whites but Mary Kingsley was no fool and also seemed to have no moral preconceptions about how people should live. I'll continue looking for the book but I just wondered if anybody else here had read it? Fainites ^barley 11:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Health ramifications

A major discussion missing from this article is the health ramifications of eating human flesh. It has been documented, for example, the the feeding of animal parts to bovines is a contributing factor (if not the major factor) in the development of things such as mad cow disease. However as noted here there are some cultures who have thrived on cannibalism. So what are the ramifications of humans eating humans? Can diseases such as AIDS be transmitted? Can it cause long-term health problems? Etc. 68.146.41.232 (talk) 17:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

!!!!(Reply- Heather, UK- Cannibalism causes Prion disease actually, though only through eating it in the long term (for insatnce if you ate it once it wouldn't develop, but if you make a habit of it- then yes). 'Prion disease' i actually just a term encompassing certain considtions which detrimentally affect the nervous system- mainly it causes a decline in brain function, it can cause memory loss, dementia and even a full blown personality change- in short they tend to go mad alot of the time. Prion disease can occur without cannibalism but it certainly increaes your likelihood of doing so. Cultures may 'thrive' but they certainly not healthy mentally at the very least in general terms)))

You definatly can get HIV from it. I also heard that you can get addiceted to human blood if you drink it too much, but I have no idea if it is true.

List of cannibals

I think wikipedia could do with a list of cannibals or cannibalism or something such the like. Anyone have the expertise? WLU (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. Let's make a list of cannibals. By the way, were the Tibareni also cannibalists ? I couldn't find them as anthropophagi in the Latin text of Hieronymus's "Adv. Jovinian.". Hadrianvs et antinovs (talk) 00:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)hadrianvs et antinovs

Eastern Kentucky cannibalism

I cut this section, as it seems to be based on dubious data. The Crissman citation doesn't pan out (it's in Google Books), the Register reference seems to refer to a bibliography of Lexington in the journal's TOC, and the section in Noodling for Flatheads that discusses prions (also in Google Books) only refers to eating squirrel brains. 4.157.11.171 (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was too quick on the revert, sorry. The sources do look quite dubious so I've no problem with the section being removed. WLU (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Cannibalism in India

The Aghori distinguish themselves from other Hindu sects and priests in India by their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.[1] The corpses afloat on the river Ganges are pulled out and consumed raw as the Aghoris believe it gives them immortality and supernatural powers. Why is this statement being constantly removed from the article despite a link to a documentary?Anwar (talk) 11:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hufu

See the wiki article Hufu for a discription of the tofu-like simulated human flesh. Gross...HopieG (talk) 19:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction

"There is little evidence that cannibalism was ever practiced as a routine source of nutrition. It is generally agreed the practice always carried a ritual meaning for its practitioners.[citation needed]"

This is later (partially) contradicted by many records relating non-ritual cannibalism, practiced as a means of survival only. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.238.240.222 (talk) 17:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I modified the claim to mention this. -- Beland (talk) 12:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

A bit of cleanup required

Generally it's a bad idea to have entire sections of text in list format, especially if they're full paragraphs; lists weren't really meant to do that. Perhaps the simplest way would be just to remove the bullet points and turn the thing into stand-alone paragraphs (perhaps with further subsectioning), but if anyone has any better ideas on reorganising the text, it'd be great. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:27, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

There are too many examples. Every single case of an insane dude eating flesh isn't required here. I've removed a couple that scream out "recentism".139.48.25.60 (talk) 21:09, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

about Jakupek

"Police reported that Jakupek rehearsed several cannibalistic acts on approximately 20 cats"

How *cats* can be cannibalised? One may eat cats or not (most probably never tried). I don't know if cats are edible (probably they are), but it's not a cannibalism of any sort. What if he had eaten 20 chickens, or 20 pigs, or 20 cows? --80.50.43.90 (talk) 11:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Werewolf

What about the cases of the so called werewolfs, I'm not talking about the myth and people with magical skills (that's fake), but the real "werewolfes", I mean those men who claimed to have the ability to turn into this creatures as an excuse for their murders and cannibalism or men who driven by insanity commited cannibalism and claimed to be werewolfes.

Do you remember the case of Gilles Garnier who killed and took the flesh of one of his victims to his wife in order to have it cooked?

Probably many would think this is out of context, I don't know I simply don't think so. I think this cases are good examples of cannibalism related with insanity, and that would be very interesting to mention and at least develop briefly in this article, probably with a link regarding the main article about werewolfes.

Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.134.69.125 (talk) 22:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Recipes

This article really needs a section about recipes. Maybe also some nutrition facts.--205.219.133.241 (talk) 13:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We should also get some opinions on how it tastes. Something other that "It depends, from person to person". 128.208.86.133 (talk) 08:26, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

From what I understand human flesh is reputed to taste similar to pork, supposedly with the potential to form crackling. Cannibals tribes having dubbed humans not of the tribe as "long pig". I would be interested to know if this is actually true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.45.184 (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Far too human-centred

For an article with a top-level title, this is far too human-centred - cannibalism is an important topic in zoology. An article that covers only human cannibalism sould have a title like "Cannibalism (human)". Best would be a disambiguation page Cannibalism with links to Cannibalism (human) and Cannibalism (zoology). -- Philcha (talk) 11:43, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this article is meant specifically for human cannibalism (the original usage of the word) and Cannibalism (zoology) is meant for cannibalism in zoology. As the word cannibalism refers specifically to humans eating other humans, and was only extended to its use in zoology, I don't think there's a problem with the current usage. Mr. Absurd (talk) 15:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

World War II

This section is totally biased against the left. Points to half truths backed by insufficient references to disputed instances of cannibalism by the Soviet Forces. It shall be less objectionable and neutral if it refers to these as rumored and states to people and solders as general rather than specifying sides. In case of Japan soldiers resorting to Cannibalism, it is completely unreferenced and backed by mere West propaganda material. Most stupidly biased is the fact that all sides who the West fought against were cannibals. Even the soviets were cannibals because perhaps they were to the Left.(Koustav2007 (talk) 20:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC))

"Biased against the left"? That's just paranoid. Isn't it obvious that people tend to resort to cannibalism when they are losing the war, not winning it? Feel free to add references to Americans eating their neighbors, if you can find some reliable sources. I'm removing the tag. Almost Anonymous (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Other cases

This section seems biased especially against Communism. Labeling almost most cases of cannibalism against China: Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution; Soviet Russia: Gulags of Soviet Prison, North Korea. The case of Pol Pot was one of implementing mad, crazy projects, but cannibalism is nowhere near to the truth. Thanks for sparing Cuba and Venezuela. The numerable cases of Serial Killing and cannibalism reported in United States and Europe, which can be traced directly to the consumerist life style that Capitalism imposes, is surprisingly missing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Koustav2007 (talk • contribs) 19:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

If these really are your reasons for adding the "neutrality disputed" tag for this section, I will remove it right now. This is utter nonsense — serial killers eating people because of a consumerist lifestyle? That is just ridiculous. Almost Anonymous (talk) 20:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Medicinal cannibalism

Medicinal cannibalism? zafiroblue05 | Talk 17:18, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

WP:LEDE says, "The lead serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic." It says more—plese read at least the introductory paragraphs there. I don't think this article conforms to that.

Specifically, it seems to me that

1. the final sentence of the initial paragraph should be removed unless a supporting source is cited;
2. the second paragraph should be reworded to say that cannibalism has been practiced from prehistoric times up until the present, and a section in the article body ("Specific cases"??) should expand on that with subsections giving cite-supported info for specific cases, including those currently mentioned;
3. the unsupported speculative third paragraph should be removed or, if support can be found, that info should perhaps be included in the article body section just mentioned;
4. the rest of the lead should be rewritten and put into a body section ("Social categorization"??).

My suggested section names are pretty awful. Suggestions? Comments? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Map

The map is from 1893. I seriously wonder if Anthropology in any modern sense existed then. Even if it did it would have been so new that there would not have been much collection of data. Many may well have been marked on the map without good enough evidence. What would be enough evidence for me? For historically recorded people this would be the people themselves claiming to be cannibals combined with human bones showing signs of being butchered and cooked. Otherwise the claimed “cannibals” may well be victims of cultural libels. This is something you should always be wary of in social sciences.

2009-03-18 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.