Cannibals

So, when writing or thinking about writing fantasy books or short stories, you end up researching some very odd things, and it can be really interesting! A while back, I wrote a book that had some cannibals in it, so I did some research to see - what's the deal with cannibals?

Historically, cannibals have been geographically scattered around the world. You name the continent or island, seems like there have probably been some cannibals there. Neanderthals ate themselves and/or were eaten by us. Yeah, we would! Early racism at its finest! But also, it seems that a lot of early Homo Sapiens ate themselves too (maybe to keep the saber tooth tigers away, gotta keep the cave area tidy). Also, ancient Egyptians. Yup. So, with all this cannibalism all over the place, it has become a real big challenge for anthropologists who might feel they need to come to a conclusion about what is socially acceptable for humans. This thought makes me pause, because I made my cannibals naughty (i.e. the evil minions!), and perhaps that was unfair of me. Maybe next time I'll have nice, acceptable cannibals.

And let's skip over the Dahmers of the world; for my fantasy research I'm looking into, like, tribes of people, not one-off weirdos. Another category of sort-of cannibals are the ship-wrecked, besieged, or otherwise desperate folk. Totally eat people if you have to! That's what I always say. But yeah, this is good to keep in mind for fantasy; ship wrecks and sieges happen. You must discuss eating people in these situations to be an authentic fantasy writer.

So, some societies of cannibals ate people as a ritual to help guide the soul of a dead relative into their own bodies, and it was part of a grieving process (so, the people naturally died, and they were sad). I will call these - sad cannibals. The sad cannibals might think that they could gain some good quality of that person. Like, say grandpa was a bad-ass spear fighter, well, maybe after eating his heart I will also become mighty with the spear. Then, there are the cannibals who like to eat their enemies to celebrate a victory after a battle. I will call these - mad cannibals. The mad cannibals might also think they could get some bad-ass fighting skills from eating a mighty enemy. So, both sad and mad cannibals might want to eat from a dead, mighty warrior, but might not be so thrilled about Auntie who spent her life, say, weaving rugs. Eating dead people is called necro-cannibalism, which is a cool word we should all remember.

Lots of societies have had scary stories about cannibals (Greek mythology and Native Americans); however, many argue that a lot of these stories are deeply rooted in racism and trying to promote fear about a group of people - yup, sounds right to me. It definitely seems to be a good idea - if you are trying to take over a group of people, convince your followers that the people you are taking over would like to eat you. Good strategy to round up some devotees. One famous jerk who did this? Christopher Columbus, guys. He said the Caribbean Islanders were all a bunch of cannibals, which allowed him to try to take them over for Spain. Queen Isabel had said he was not allowed to enslave any indigenous people, unless they were cannibals, so, low and behold - Christopher saw cannibals! The English said this about the Irish too; it's all over the place. An interesting tidbit to work into your fantasy book if there are conquerors.

The Aztecs apparently liked to do human sacrifices, and then eat them. This would be a creepy thing to build into a fantasy story for sure! The Inuit supposedly liked to eat the hearts of 'witches'; watch out ladies! New Guinea tribes, not that long ago, wanted to eat the dead because they were not dead people but had been taken over by an evil spirit - the Khakhua. The Khakhua was the explanation for all the mysterious reasons people die - germs/diseases and such that they don't know about and can't see. You have to kill the evil Khakhua by eating the person it has taken over, of course. So, sort of a possession thing (a cool thing for a fantasy story!). But also, for various reasons, people might begin to suspect a live person has the Khakua living in them - then they get killed and eaten. Not a fun thing to have people pointing fingers at you in that culture; perhaps this helps them all get along better.

Eating humans can cause you to get some diseases or brain problems. Specifically, eating brains can cause you to get Kuru, which often involves getting the shakes (i.e. muscle twitches that make it hard to walk), and some dementia-like symptoms. So, perhaps the cannibals in your fantasy book should be, like, uncoordinated. Also, Kuru is known to cause people to have hysterical laughing, creepily enough. Seriously, crazy laughing as a symptom! So some twitchy, giggly cannibals could be called for. Nay, should be called for.

I researched teeth filing, and while it seems tribes have done this for various spiritual reasons, to imitate animals, to look more threatening, to look attractive, as a rite of passage, to show your ranking, or as a tradition for your gender. I didn't find anywhere that cannibals specifically did this. However, that doesn't mean that couldn't be the case! So, why not; it's fantasy.

The thought I'm left with after all this, is that cannibals really have gotten a bad rap over the years. I think if I have cannibals again, they will maybe be some of the good guys. They're just trying to make sure Great-uncle Unkunk's legendary rock-throwing skills get passed down to all his children.

BTW - those who know, say that although human meat looks like beef, it tastes like pork.

So let me know how you feel about cannibals, sad and mad, and whether one or the other makes them more or less socially acceptable to you. Did you learn anything new about cannibals? Do you think you'd like a book with a cannibal protagonist? Have you read a book with a cannibal protagonist?

Have a good one! Check in next time to see what else I've researched for books!