Human Cannibalism

Human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal. Some people have argued, however, that no evidence exists that cannibalism has ever been a socially acceptable practice anywhere in the world, at any time in history.

Cannibalism has recently been both practiced and fiercely condemned in several wars, especially in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was still practiced in Papua New Guinea in 2012, for cultic reasons and in rituals.

People suffering from hunger crisis have practiced cannibalism, as a last resort. Famous examples include the Westward expedition of the Donner Party (1846–47) and, more recently, the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which some survivors ate the bodies of dead passengers to survive. Also, some mentally ill people obsess about eating others and actually do so, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Armin Meiwes. There exist disputes over labelling cannibalism a mental disorder or not.

The idea of people eating parts of other people is something that has occurred wherever and whenever humans have formed societies. The concept of cannibalism and its cultural expression in history and myth are unquestionably universal. Anthropophagy (Cannibalism) is pinned into the architecture of human imagination. Cannibal giants, ogres, goblins, and other “frightening monsters” populate the oral and literate traditions of most cultures, produce images of grotesqueness, physical deformity, and exaggerated size.

All this information leads us to the following question: What makes a living being become a cannibal?

To answer this question, we divided our assignment into 2 parts, first we talk about cannibalism in general, we present the definition, we will explain why we have chosen this theme and highlight the origins and differences of cannibalism, we will finish of by showing some examples of cannibalism in the modern world. Later, in the second part, we will give attention to some examples of cannibalism, with information of the person, their motivation and the sentence given to these people. With this presentation, we want to make sure that people understand that sometimes several affected people, if it is because of psychological problems or because of the history of their tribes, can’t change the way they act, you will learn that a few people know exactly that what they doing is wrong, but they can’t fight it.