Cannibalism
101 quotes
Biography
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species.
"He then cut up the body into pieces, amputated the prominent parts from the shoulder, and the fleshy portions from the arms, from the ligamentous attachments, which connected them with the body, with unshaken nerves! He strips off the flesh from the various limbs, and chops up the different bones,—he keeps back the heads, however, and those very hands, which had once signalized their confidence in him!"
"Why should I speak of other nations when I myself, a youth on a visit to Gaul, heard that the Atticoti, a British tribe, eat human flesh, and that although they find herds of swine, and droves of large or small cattle in the woods, it is their custom to cut off the buttocks of the shepherds and the breasts of their women, and to regard them as the greatest delicacies?"
"Cannibalism was another last resort for surviving famines. In the winter of 618–619 the army of a warlord, some 200,000 troops in all, surrounded a district south of Luoyang and exhausted all the stores of millet there... Famine broke out, so the natives began to devour each other. The rebel soldiers were also starving, so they took to abducting children, whom they steamed and ate. That led the warlord to conclude, "Of all the delicious things to eat, none surpasses human flesh. As long as there are people in neighboring districts we have nothing to fear from famine." He had a large bronze bell with a capacity of 200 bushels [7 cubic metres] inverted, stewed the flesh of children and women in it, divided the meat, and gave it to his officers."
"On that island we seized twelve beautiful and very fat females, aged between fifteen and sixteen, with two boys of the same age whose genital members had been cut away clean to the belly. We figured that they had done it to keep them from mixing with their women or perhaps to fatten them up and eat them later. These boys and girls had been captured by the Cannibals; we sent them to Spain as an exhibit for the king."
"The Cannibals, when they capture some Indians, eat them like we eat young goats, and they say that the flesh of a boy is much better than that of a female."
"Peter Margarita, a Spaniard whose word cannot be impugned, went out to the Orient with the Admiral, attracted by the prospect of visiting the new lands. He says that with his own eyes he saw here a large number of Indians fixed on spits and roasted over hot coals to tickle the debauched palates of these people, while many bodies lay in heaps, minus head and limbs. The cannibals do not deny this but openly affirm that they eat human flesh."
"The Caribs ... sail to the neighboring islands, making their way by paddling to people who differ greatly in manners and character. Sometimes they go greater distances, even as far as thousand miles, in search of plunder. They customarily castrate their infant captives and boy slaves and fatten them like capons. The thin and the emaciated are carefully nurtured, like wethers. Soon, when plump and fat, they are devoured all the more avidly. They hand over the female captives as slaves to their womenfolk, or make use of them to satisfy their lust. Children borne by the captured women are eaten like the captives."
"Such suffering from hunger grew up around these cities that the Christians, in the face of the scarcity about which you have heard, did not fear to eat – wicked to say, much less to do – the bodies, cooked in fire, not only of the Saracens or Turks they had killed, but also of the dogs that they had caught."
"They went further, and reached the stage of eating little children. It was not unusual to find people [selling] little children, roasted or boiled."
"When the poor first began to eat human flesh, the horror and astonishment that such extraordinary meals aroused were such that these crimes formed the topic of every conversation... But eventually people grew accustomed, and some conceived such a taste for these detestable meats that they made them their ordinary provender, eating them for enjoyment and... [thinking] up a variety of preparation methods... The horror people had felt at first vanished entirely; one spoke of it, and heard it spoken of, as a matter of everyday indifference."
"Nothing was more common than this kind of thing, and it would be difficult to find in the length and breadth of Egypt... anyone who has not been eye-witness to such atrocities."
"A merchant friend of mine... had seen five children's heads in a single cauldron, cooked with the choicest spices."
"I presented to the king of this place... a quantity of salt which he accepted and he sent to me two most comely slave girls. A few days later I was in his presence and he said to me: "I sent those girls to you, so slaughter and eat them! Their flesh is the best thing we have to eat. For what reason have you not slaughtered them?" I replied: "This is not lawful for us.""
"In time, the Chinese developed a taste for human meat.... T'ao Tsung-yi, a writer during the Yüan dynasty [1271–1368], remarked on the taste of human meat (hsiang jou) in his Cho Keng Lu (Records of Stopping Cultivation), in which he said that children's meat was the best food of all in taste, and next to this were women and men. Chuang Ch'ao, a Sung [960–1279] writer, was more specific about the taste of human meat in his Chi Lieh Pien (Chicken Rib Section) in which he referred to children's meat as well-boiled bone (...), which means that because of their superior tastiness children could be eaten whole, including their bones, when they were well-boiled. He also characterized women's meat as more delicious than mutton (...). Men's meat was less so, and was referred to as "jao pa huo" — the least tasty of all human meat. Generally, he referred to men and women as two-legged sheep (liang-chao yang), but he believed that both young children and beautiful women were particularly good for mutton soup (...)."
"You should know that they eat all manner of foul things and any kind of meat, including human flesh, which they devour with great relish. They will not touch someone who has died of natural causes, but if he has been stabbed to death or otherwise killed they eat him all up and consider it a great delicacy."
"They eat man's flesh there just as we eat beef here. Yet the country in itself is excellent, and hath great store of flesh-meats, and of wheat and of rice... And merchants come to this island from far, bringing children with them to sell like cattle to those infidels, who buy them and slaughter them in the shambles and eat them."
"The inhabitants of Hispaniola, who are a mild people, complained that they were exposed to frequent attacks from the cannibals who landed amongst them and pursued them through the forests like hunters chasing wild beasts. The cannibals captured children, whom they castrated, just as we do chickens and pigs we wish to fatten for the table, and when they were grown and become fat they ate them. Older persons, who fell into their power, were killed and cut into pieces for food; they also ate the intestines and the extremities, which they salted, just as we do hams. They did not eat women, as this would be considered a crime and an infamy. If they captured any women, they kept them and cared for them, in order that they might produce children; just as we do with hens, sheep, mares, and other animals. Old women, when captured, were made slaves."
"Birds were boiling in their pots, also geese mixed with bits of human flesh, while other parts of human bodies were fixed on spits, ready for roasting. Upon searching another house the Spaniards found arm and leg bones, which the cannibals carefully preserve for pointing their arrows; for they have no iron. All other bones, after the flesh is eaten, they throw aside."
"Most ferocious are those new anthropophagi, who live on human flesh, Caribs or cannibals as they are called."
"Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him, and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbes; and one amongst the rest did kill his wife, and powdered her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne, for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved: now, whether she was better roasted, boyled, or carbonado'd, I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of."
"Since he never fed the ten or twenty thousand impressed natives in his army, he gave them leave to eat the prisoners they took, thus setting the royal seal of approval on the establishment, in his camp, of a human abattoir where he himself would preside over the slaughter and grilling of children and where grown men were butchered for the sake of their hands and feet which were generally held to be the best cuts."
"As to the children, either boys or girls, they will live according to their fancy. If they are pleasant of countenance, they may expect a hard domestic service, yet they stay alive, but if they captured many children, a few are killed to be cooked for eating."
"(after seeing how a prisoner was killed and dismembered) The cut-off flesh, once boiled, is put into the pepperpot and eaten as good food. I have spoken to two Christians who had tried it and declared it tasted very nice."
"They have shambles for human flesh as we have of animals, even eating the enemies they have killed in battle, and selling their slaves if they can get a good price for them; if not, they give them to the butcher, who cuts them in pieces, and then sells them to be roasted or boiled. It is a remarkable fact in the history of this people, that any who are tired of life, or wish to prove themselves brave and courageous, esteem it great honor to expose themselves to death by an act which shall show their contempt for life. Thus they offer themselves for slaughter, and as the faithful vassals of princes, wishing to do them service, not only give themselves to be eaten, but their slaves also, when fattened, are killed and eaten. It is true many nations eat human flesh, as in the East Indies, Brazil, and elsewhere, but to devour the flesh of their own enemies, friends, subjects, and even relations, is a thing without example, except amongst the Anzichi tribes."
"During the Ch'ing period, Chi Hsiao-lan, a great Confucian scholar, in his Yüeh Wei Ts'ao T'ang Pi Chi (Diary at the Small Thatched-roof House), described stories of famine and cannibalism in the northwestern parts of China (Shensi Province). The sale of human meat at open markets and its consumption among the people in this region were so common that the government officially sanctioned this inhumane transaction to stave off food shortage. Those who dealt in this business were known as people cooking human meat (ts'ai-jen); their profession was to kill people and sell their meat for food. The most famous story is about a traveler and a woman. A traveler heard a screaming voice from inside a restaurant. He went in and found a woman, totally naked, who was being washed and put on the board to be butchered for food. He was shocked at the scene, and he decided to save her life because she was so young and beautiful. So he tried to buy her from the butcher; he offered to pay double the price, hoping to make her his wife. Knowing of his motive, she declined the offer with thanks because she was already married to another man. She said, however, that she was willing to work for him as a slave servant for the rest of her life. In short, she could not compromise morality for life. Finally, she was butchered and her meat was cooked and sold for food."