Dinner with a Cannibal, The Complete History of Mankind’s Oldest Taboo

Cannibalism is has always been a taboo topic in western culture. Most people are familiar with the concepts of cannibalism because of movies like Silence of the Lambs, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and many others. However, very few people understand the truth and the definitions behind what cannibalism really is and the reasons its done. When most people consider the topic of Cannibalism it is typically thought of as a non-western practice. People are generally willing to exploit the practice in media until it hits closer to home. Many Americans are not aware that Cannibalism occurred in the United States, though it was hundreds of years ago, the topic is not considered common knowledge. There are hundreds of cases providing evidence of humans eating other humans in America spanning from prehistoric Native Americans to the first Thanksgiving and even now in the 21st century.

Background

Many are unaware that cannibalism is still practiced in other areas of the world that one might even consider modern. There are still areas of China and India that practice cannibalism regularly. These practices may be out of necessity or they are religious practices as a way to be be closer to their ancestors after death. Religion and cannibalism have been closely connected for thousands of years. There are even possible cannibalistic practices seen in the Christian Bible, however there is no hard evidence to confirm whether these cases ever actually occurred (Lindenbaum 2004: 480). other countries

Carole A Travis-Henikoff says that cannibalism is recorded in the Qumran texts, which is part of the dead sea scrolls. She says that according the Qumran text, Enoch -- which has been connected to the biblical text of Genesis,...

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Travis-Henikoff, Carole A.

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Monica Press, Santa Monica, California.

Goldman, Laurence R.

1999 The Anthropology of Cannibalism. Bergin & Garvey, Westport, Connecticut.

M. Anne Katzenberg

1994 Prehistoric Cannibalism; Mancos 5MTUMR-2346 by Tim D. White, Review by M.

Anne Katzenberg. Plains Anthropologist 39 (149) 83-85.

In Memory,

2013 In Memory: Influential Anthropologist Christy G. Turner II, asunews.asu.edu.

Accessed 12/8/13

Photos and tables

Figure 1 Guest Blog: ‘Cannibalism In Archaeology Part 2: Mancos Canyon And Herxheim Case Studies’ by Kate Brown. http://thesebonesofmine.wordpress.com/category/anasazi/ (Kate Brown)

Table 1, 2, 2a, and 3 created in IBM SPSS Statistics 21