second paper

Jeff Goodman
Professor Adolph
English 1000
9 July 2009

A Cannibalistic Mentality

Throughout the history of man, there exist those humans that indulge on the flesh of other humans. These humans are known as cannibals. According to Roland Littlewood, there are three types of cannibalism: endocannibalism, exocannibalism, and survival cannibalism. Today’s society often evaluates the morality of cannibalistic rituals and cannibalism in regard 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.

As Richard Rhodes discusses in Deadly Feast, Endocannibalistic peoples, such as the Fore, believed 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.
Stories of survival cannibalism have become engrained into American society. Most Americans have heard of the Donner Party. In the late 1840’s, a group of families set out for California, became trapped in the cold winter of the Sierra Nevada, and resorted to eating the remains of their dead loved ones and friends. Western society would show revulsion because of this, but then realize that this was only a brief moment of savagery performed by the individuals of a pre-evolved society. However, this “savagery” has occurred a little closer to the twenty-first century and within our own civilized society.

As stated in the History Channel special “Cannibals,” In October of 1972, a rugby team and some members of their families set out for Chile for an international competition; unfortunately, their plane crashed in the Andes Mountains and fifteen died on impact. In thirty degree below weather, they all huddled together for warmth and started getting a little desperate. On the tenth day of their unfortunate situation, their food supply ran out; the same day that they overheard on their radio that the search for them had been abandoned. On December 23, 1972, they were saved! “Twenty-six chose to live by eating their dead loved ones,” and interviews with the survivors today reveal that they would do it again if necessary even though the media called them murders. (“Cannibals”). In times of dire emergencies people get desperate. Desperation often leads humans to exert such behaviors that they are not necessarily proud of, but do anyway to survive. The survival instinct is powerful enough to override the disgust emotion acquired by societal conditioning.
According to Conflict Theory, any frenzy caused by cannibalism is indicative of the society’s views of morality and disgust. Because cannibalistic societies had conditioned their citizens to find pleasure in devouring or mournfully eating victims, those people, although some were physically stricken by the Kuru disease, were not mentally damaged. Because this was a social norm, Conflict Theory played no role in this situation with these people. However, in American society a man was convicted of murder, not because the evidence of the trial pointed to homicide, but because he openly admitted that he had resorted to cannibalism to survive. Conflict theory argues that all types of cannibalism are unacceptable in American society. Through this case study and the previous one, we can see how fact can be skewed into abominable fictional legends. Hype around these scenarios always entailed mass hysteria. Emotion becomes dominant over reason, and conflict is elevated to scapegoating as the situation becomes “popularized” by the news. J.S Kidd argued that during the 1970’s, “cannibalism –an exotic topic to begin with…entered the same set as Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, and flying saucers” (Kidd 5). The media devoured those who survived in the Andes like it convicted Alfred Packer in the 1880’s.

In 1883, Alfred Packer and five others set out west to find gold in the river valleys of California. Before they crossed the Sierra Nevada, a native tribe urged them to wait in the tribe camp until the winter had passed; their lust for gold and prosperity, however, forced them to forge on. Freezing in the cold winter wind and running low on food, they were immobilized in a campsite while trying to cross the mountains. After five days of waiting, Packer began to feel a little uneasy. He continued up the mountain to try to find a shelter not far off from where the camp believed they were. However, he was unsuccessful, and when he returned, he found his friends murdered by the largest of the group and cooking their flesh in a tin cup. The large man lashed out at Parker with an ice pick, but Parker shot him. Parker lived off the remains of his friends while traveling to the shelter where he was charged with murder.

The town turned into a circus. The court proceeded under the guise of innocent until proven guilty, but everybody who stepped into that courtroom already knew the outcome. Parker was sentenced to death for the murder of three men. In his testimony, Parker said he now wished he would have died on the mountains with his friends. This is because of the negative pressure that was placed on him. Conflict theory argues that “societies are made up of groups with conflicting values, and those with the most power will define certain behaviors of the weaker groups [or in this case the submissive being parker]” (Pontell 107). The prosecutor’s, part of the power structure that ultimately dominated Parker, questions were aimed to dehumanize Parker while trying to subdue him into a guilty penance. On a technicality, Parker was sentenced to life in prison where he confessed that he would never be the same again. “I tasted the salty flesh of my friends, and not a day goes by in this forsaken pit that I regret it.” There was no evidence that actually proved that he had killed those men. The jury, the judge, and the people of the courtroom were all influenced by mass hysteria.

Humans naturally fight for their survival. It is a trait that has been engrained in our genetics since the dawn of our species. Although society tries to remove the necessity of those primal instincts, they will always be there regardless of how far and how advanced our species and our society evolves. As conflict theory explains, society’s anti-cannibalistic value ultimately dominated over the innate individual’s lust to live. I, now, am writing my analysis under the conditioning of our close-minded society which has taught me that all cannibalism, whether it tender endocannibalism, barbaric exocannibalism, or necessary survival cannibalism, is never acceptable under any circumstances. However, there is another way to break conditioning and that is an in depth analysis of a topic of which society has, on the surface, forbidden the study. But my pursuit of knowledge and fascination of the psychological ramifications of this cannibalistic topic has allowed me to re-open a closed book.

When events in history arise that go against the grain of societal norms, the general public tends to rely more on rumors than on fact. Because of societal conditioning, any idea, event, or act that goes against what is considered in the realm of normal is automatically deemed immoral and unjustified. Two values were in conflict here – the most basic to humanity being survival and also the eating of human flesh. Conflict Theory discord within society derived heavily from the hyperbole the media perpetuates. Even today, there are people whose fear of the outside world affects their daily lives due to the news sensationalizing patterns of crime and deviance.









Works Cited
“Cannibals.” Larry Engel. 2005. Television. The History Channel, 2007.
Kidd, J.S. "Scholarly Excess and Journalistic Restraint in The Popular Treatment of
Cannibalism." Social Studies of Science 18(1988).
Pontell, Henry N. "Conflict theory."5th ed. 2005.
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.
Turkington, Carol. "Human Prion Diseases." The Journal of the Brain and Brain
Disorders, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2002. Facts On File, Inc. Health Reference Center. .
Warwick, Andrew. "The Possession of Kuru: Medical Science and Biocolonial Change."
Cambridge University Press 42(2000).