CANNIBALISM, the eating of human flesh by men (from a Latinized form of Carib, the name of a South American tribe, originally from the West Indies), also called "anthropophagy," from Greek words meaning the eating of men. Evidence has been found in some of the palaeolithic deposits which point to occa sional cannibalism. Herodotus, Strabo and others tell of peoples like the Scythian Massagetae, a nomad race north-east of the Caspian sea, who killed old people and ate them. In the middle ages reports, by Marco Polo and others, attributed cannibalism to the wild tribes of China, the Tibetans, etc. Cannibalism pre vailed until recently, over a great part of West and Central Africa, New Guinea, Melanesia (especially Fiji), Australia, New Zealand, the Polynesian islands, Sumatra, other East Indian islands in South America, and in earlier days in North America. Sporadic cannibalism occurs among more civilized peoples as a result of necessity or as a manifestation of disease.
Food cannibalism for the satisfaction of hunger may occur sporadically as a result of real necessity or may be kept up or the simple gratification of a taste for human flesh. Cannibalism from necessity is found not only among the lower races, such as the Fuegians or Red Indian tribes, but also among civilized races, as the records of sieges and shipwrecks show. Simple food cannibalism is found in West Africa. Human flesh formerly was exposed for sale in the market, and some tribes sold the corpses of dead relatives for consumption as food. The practice of de vouring dead kinsfolk as the most respectful method of disposing of their remains, in a small number of cases, is combined with the custom of killing the old and sick, but in the great majority of peoples it is simply a form of burial, in parts of Australia, Melanesia, Africa and South America, and less frequently else where. To this group belong the customs described by Herodotus with, as a variant form, the custom of using the skull of a dead man as a drinking cup. Another modification of an original ritual cannibalism is the custom of drinking the ashes of the dead, practised by some African and South American tribes. The custom of holding burial feasts has also been traced to the same origin. Another form of cannibalism is the custom of partaking of the products of putrefaction as they run down from the body. The Australians smoke-dry the bodies of tribesmen; and con sume the portions of the body which are rendered liquid by the heat. Ritual cannibalism shades over into and may have been originally derived from magical cannibalism, of which three sub species may be distinguished. (i.) Savages eagerly desire some foods in order that they may, by partaking of the flesh, also come to partake of the mental or bodily peculiarities of the man or animal from which the meat is derived; thus, eating the heart of a lion is recommended for a warrior to make him brave; analogous motives lead to the eating of those slain in battle, both friends and foes. (ii.) An entirely different kind of magical cannibalism consists in the consumption of a small portion of the body of a murdered man, in order that his ghost may not trouble the murderer. (iii.) The practice is also said to have the effect of causing the relatives of the murdered man to lose heart or to prevent them from exercising the right of revenge. It may point to a reminiscence of a ritual eating of the dead kinsman. The custom of eating food offered to the gods is widespread, and we may trace to this origin Mexican cannibalism, perhaps, too, that of Fiji. For the origin of penal and revenge cannibalism, we may perhaps look to that of protective magic, but there may also be some idea of influencing the lot of the criminal in a future life; and the whole of the body is seldom eaten in protective cannibal ism. Other cases, especially where the victim is an enemy, may be due to mere fury and bravado. In the west of North America a peculiar kind of cannibalism was confined to a certain body of magicians termed "Hametzen" and a necessary condition of ad mission to their order. Another kind of initiatory cannibalism prevailed in the south of Australia, where a magician had to eat a portion of a child's body before he was admitted.
Most kinds of cannibalism are hedged round with ceremonial regulations. Certain tribes go to war to provide human flesh; in other cases it is only the nearest relatives who may not partake of a body; in other cases it is precisely the nearest relatives on whom the duty falls. Sometimes the killer of the victim does not par take in the feast ; in other cases the whole of the clan to which belonged the man for whom revenge is taken abstains also; else where, this clan, together with any others of the same inter marrying group, takes part in the feast to the exclusion of (a) the clan or group with which they intermarry and (b) all out side clans. Some peoples forbid women to eat human flesh ; in others, certain classes may be forbidden to eat it. But the varia tions are too numerous for any general account to be given of ceremonial limitations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Steinmetz, in Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. Wien, N.F. xvi.; Bibliography.—Steinmetz, in Mitt. Anthrop. Ges. Wien, N.F. xvi.; Andree, Die Anthropophagie; Bergmann, Die Verbreitung der Anthro pophagie; Schneider, Die Naturvolker, i. 121-200; Schaffhausen, An thropologische Studien, Internat. Archiv. iii. 69-73 ; xii. 78 ; E. S. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, vol. ii.; Dictionnaire des sci. med., s.v. "Anthropophagie"; Dr. Seligman in Reports of the Cook-Daniels Expedition to New Guinea; C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (1g10) ; P. A. Talbot, Life in Southern Nigeria (1923) ; J. Roscoe, The Bagesu (1924) ; C. K. Meek, Northern Nigeria 0925); W. Robertson Smith (ed. S. A. Cook) The Religion of the Semites (1927).