First Paper

Jeff Goodman

Professor Adolph

English 1000

2 July 2009

A Cannibalistic Mentality
“Down in the garden in the flaring firelight, the dead woman’s daughters ringed her wrists and ankles, sawed through the tough cartilage, disjointed the bones and passed the wrinkled dark hands and splayed feet of her brother’s wife… They opened the woman’s chest and slack belly and the smell of death wafted among the sweet-potato vines. Out came the heavy purple liver, the small green sac of the gallbladder cut carefully away from the underside and its bitterness discarded. Out came the dark red heart gory with clotting blood. [And] out came the looping coils of intestines, dully shining” (Rhodes 22). This vivid, and to most cultures, morbid scene was established by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Rhodes pertaining to the endocannibalistic Fore People of Papua New Guinea. The scenery depicts only one of, according to History.com, three types of cannibalism: endocannibalism, exocannibalism, and survival cannibalism.
While endocannibalism was a sign of love and compassion for dead relatives or members of one’s own tribe, brutal exocannibalism refers to eating humans who are not members of one’s own tribe in times of war; obviously, with survival cannibalism, humans eat other humans to survive. The discussions in today’s society often evaluate the morality of cannibalistic rituals and cannibalism relevant to the survival instinct. Society will provoke the idea that all cannibalism is wrong without any in depth study of the topic or circumstances that surround those who are or forced to become cannibals. Further analysis leads me to believe that out of the three types of cannibalism, survival cannibalism is the only acceptable form under the circumstances
With endocannibalistic peoples such as the Fore, it was unthinkable to eat the dead as if they were animals or enemies. During their cannibalistic ceremonies, the bodies were treated as delicately as possible. The deceased would be eaten slowly as to be mourned and their life celebrated. However, taking part in a mystic ritual, the exocannibals of Papua New Guinea (contrast to the Fore people) would devour their enemies in order to trap their souls as well as to gain super natural powers. These rituals involved torture and disembowelment of the prisoner of war in order to disgrace their body.
In Deadly Feasts, Richard Rhodes discussed anthropologist Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek who came to Papua New Guinea in 1957 to investigate the “strange, deadly disease the Fore called Kuru” (Rhodes 27). The natives thought that Kuru was caused by sorcery, but Dr. Gajdusek knew better. Kuru, the human form of mad cow disease was causing the Fore people to basically decompose. Closely related to the brain destroying Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, someone with Kuru would degenerate in five stages: kuru laik i- kamap nau, wokabaut yet, sindaun pinis, slip pinis, and klostu dai nau respectively. First they would come down with the shakes and walk unsteadily; then the person was unable to walk and soon lost the ability to swallow. Once these symptoms set in, death was eminent; the person would swell up and die a painful death. Dr. Gajdusek was the first to “officially” show a connection between cannibalism and the deadly Kuru. According to Warwick Anderson, Gajdusek made this connection through noticing a concentration of Kuru within the Fore population. This discovery led him to view Kuru as an infectious disease passed through some medium. This medium was found to be an encephalitis, infection of the brain, that was passed on by a human prion disease, “diseases primarily affecting the nervous system that are characterized by microscopic holes and pits in brain tissue (spongiform degeneration) and an abnormal form of a protein called a prion. Prions are a normal component in brain tissue, but mutant forms of these proteins become deformed and resist to being broken down into normal proteins, instead building up in the brain. The prion diseases can be spontaneous (sporadic), transmitted by infection (acquired), or inherited” (Turkington). In this case, it was discovered that Kuru was an acquired prion disease and transmitted through cannibalism.
Exocannibalism and endocannibalism become so concentrated in a group of people that they promote human prion disease. Because these two types of cannibalism cause the brain eating disease Kuru, these two types of cannibalism cannot be perpetuated. Survival cannibalism, however, in life-or-death situations could be necessary and should be accepted. It is a one-time event and lacks prion mutation concentration; thus, it promotes no human prion disease. Therefore, there are no physical consequences for survival cannibalism.
However, when judging these three types morally, exocannibalism should be the most immoral. This type was used to desecrate the body and spirit of the prisoner of war. It was used to trap the victim’s soul; therefore this type was only used for malicious purposes and should be considered immoral. On the other hand, endocannibalism was used to love, cherish, and honor a dead family member. The ultimately goal of endocannibalistic people was benign, and if it were not for the deadly disease Kuru, this cannibalism could well be acceptable. Survival cannibalism should be seen as a last resort. Western society should take pity on those who are forced to be this type of cannibal.
Works cited
“Cannibals.” Larry Engel. 2005. Television. The History Channel, 2009.

Kidd, J.S. "Scholarly Excess and Journalistic Restraint in the Popular Treatment of Cannibalism." Social Studies of Science 18(1988).

Littlewood, Roland. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Mar 2000 155. Web. 2 Jul 2009. .

Rhodes, Richard. Deadly Feasts. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.