Being other people's lunch is no joke. While some articles stated that, in the past, a normal-sized mammoth can feed approximately 25 Neanderthals for a month, humans can barely past the day without eating after having other humans for lunch. The question is, in which situation will you be willing to eat the meat of your kin? What if you were forced to feed on your relatives after 2 months being caged by your captors without being provided with foods? Are humans considered nutritious? Most of the study out there related to cannibalism have determined that the act itself is primarily ritualistic; people wouldn't eat humans to fulfil their dietary requirements, they eat them to satisfy some kind of ritual that they were practising. This can be due to the fact that humans contained fewer calories than any other animals do.
An average human body can provide up to 130,000 calories while in the prehistoric era, a mammoth can provide at the very least 3,600,000 calories which would allow it to be eaten by a large crowd sustaining them for a longer period of time. Compared to the risk that will be imposed by hunting animals rather than hunting humans, it would then be reasonable to eat animals instead and that's why any human's population which has been associated with cannibalism are speculated to eat humans as a part of their ritualistic behaviour. Even if the behaviour seems bizarre and novel, eating other humans is actually ancient, dated approximately 2 million years ago. The issue of having humans for a meal was not only limited to how much calories it can provide to a single human but also how likely for the hunter to be killed as well. I mean, it is easier to catch and eat horses which in fact, a single horse can feed up to 6 adults; they were easy to be caught too.
It's odd to consider cannibalistic behaviour as a norm now, but in the past, people are opportunistic. We sought all kind of possibilities to survive which include eating other human's meat; a meat is still a meat. In a book written by Bill Schutt entitled Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, he mentioned a few perspectives on how eating other humans can be considered as a normal behaviour among our ancestors and in a few scenarios, humans tend to consider their peers as food rather than who they are. We have tonnes of evidence that cannibalistic behaviour is a natural behaviour among animals and I've written about that a few months ago which I will mention here some of it. Again, committing those act among humans can be considered foolish this day as we have access to foods and the fact that cannibalism is considered bizarre but one might be in a situation whereby cannibalism is the only way they can live. Would you do it if cannibalism could potentially save you from dying of hunger? Would you do it?
Victorian Cannibalism
What if I told you between the 1600s to the Victorian era (1800s), people have been consuming various part of humans organs, blood and in some cases, mummies for medical purposes, what would you do with that kind of information? Do you think human's blood or any of the human's body parts and organs could possess some kind of restorative power that ancient people have been eating them for hundreds of years? Typically, all of the foods which contain humans extract will be served in the form of pudding, cakes or any kind of foods which look appetising when in fact they were actually just to be used as a mean of transferring those "therapeutic" substances into the human's digestive system hence curing illnesses. The cannibalistic behaviour has been somewhat a norm among the poor and the British royalties but all of them were committed to achieving the one and only purpose; curing illnesses.
Would you eat human's fat if you know that they can provide a certain level of anaesthetic properties while you were struggling with chronic pains? Of course, it is meaningless to assume we will eat human's fat nowadays since there are a lot of effective painkillers in the market available today in which some of them can be bought over the counter, but for the poor, killing and eating fats might be much more reasonable. During the Renaissance era, in Rome, people who suffer from epilepsy could have committed a branch of medicine which have existed during that particular time called the medical vampirism. They will drink blood extracted from slain gladiators and be done with it. Most of the medical text that has been the primary source of guideline for such behaviour was derived from a book written by a scholar in 1559 which stated that the blood of a healthy man can be distilled and use to cure all manner of diseases; it would be unfortunate for people to be healthy at that time while people look so desperate to kill and suck your blood out.
Some of the practice of medical vampirism doesn't assume an extreme measure (such as killing people); they extract a small amount of blood from the living and made it into a powder form. That powder will be used to treat minor symptoms such as nosebleed, mild epilepsy and low appetite. If you want something a little bit more fancy, then those blood can be mixed in jam and be served during your breakfast with a bread or something. The recipe was provided by an apothecary in 1679 to make it more convenient for people to adhere to treatment outlined by medical vampirism. The procedure of acquiring substances to make those medicine is quite selective. People who were willing to donate a portion of their blood should be examined and usually, they prefer to use the blood of a healthy, war and plump individual as this is considered as hallmarks of a healthy individual.
Mummies are another kind of substances which has been quite popular with its rumour of curing various ailments and has been the main prescription (if they were available) used by medical practitioners in the Renaissance era. People have been exploring all kind of tombs and when they return with mummies in their possession, they would be rich as people want to buy them. Eating dead bodies couldn't be fun but the proposed effects for taking such medicine would make you squander your own sanity and beg to the explorer so that they would have sold to you a portion of those dead bodies with a reasonable price. It is also documented in some literature that those mummies were not only used for medical purposes but some of them were used to make paints. I can't provide any kind of explanation on how they grind the dead bodies into paints but if you knew the colour stained on the house you were about to buy is actually derived from a dead body, would you still buy it? In the past, people would buy them as they believe any products which derived from mummified remains are considered high quality; kinda like a handbag which made up of a dead animal's skin.
Most of the organs or blood procured from the dead was not from someone significant, rich or someone who was loved from the society but they were taken from the poor, any executed criminals and any bodies who can't be identified as belonging to someone specific. The practice remained for 200 years and even during the war erupted in 1700, after everything has settled down, plunderer will take a few skulls and bone so that they can be ground into powder form and of course, sold as medicine. It will be relatively easier to take the body of someone you don't know so that you can pluck whatever organs or parts that are available and can be made into medicine. During the reign of King Charles II, a particular medicine is quite popular which is called the King's drop and only available to the royalty for medicinal purposes. It was a solution which derived from a mixture of human's skull powder and alcohol which can cure various diseases and sometimes be drunk for the purpose of staying young.
Revenge Of The Maori
Don't ever mess with any population which have any history of cannibalistic behaviour among them because you can potentially be the victim. In 1809, an indigenous people who were living in New Zealand attacked a European ship, killing approximately 70 ship's crews and eat them all. Cannibalism is a prominent characteristic of Maori people during the war erupted in 1500 whereby they build the largest ship they could to fight against the European settlers. It has been known through the records written by Captain James Cook in 1769 that the European and Maori people haven't been that nice to each other. Often they will have some kind of misunderstanding, wars and fatal encounters, usually described as fighting fierce warriors who want to kill and eat you.
When the young chief of the Maori's people was mistreated in 1600, he was accused of thievery and sentenced to being tied and deprived of any food or water. This, of course, would make the Maori's people enraged which result in the attack launched on the ship which brought 70 people in total including prisoners. The assumption that the young Maori's chief committed the act of thievery was described as hasty and caused their demise. He was whipped under the jurisdiction of the British law and then when his people realised those marks, they started to perform an ancient ritual which leads them to Utu (revenge). The young chief shouldn't be violated in any way possible as they were considered sacred and shouldn't be tied to any form of authority. Punishing the young lord equal to threatening the whole clan and according to their ancient teaching, this will require an act of retribution; a violent one at that.
None but five people were spared and some of them are considered suitable to be brought as hostages and as a sign that no one should be messing with Maori's people. Some of them were hiding in the closet but I'm sure they were traumatised having to see with their own eyes, how their family, friends and acquaintances are being eaten by the Maori's people on the ship. Some of the corpses were brought to their own village to be shared with the rest of the community but then again, it's a nasty ritual which makes us think twice before doing something hideous with their chief or people for that matter.
References And Further Reading Materials
- The weirdest things we learned this week: wild weather, Victorian cannibalism, and the female orgasm (as told by a 12th-century nun). Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
- A Brief History of Medical Cannibalism. Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
- Why don’t we eat each other for dinner? Too few calories, says new cannibalism study. Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
- Cannibalism Study Finds People Are Not That Nutritious. Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
- Cannibalism: It's 'Perfectly Natural,' A New Scientific History Argues. Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
- Boyd massacre - Wikipedia. Retrieved on August 24th, 2018
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