At the end of the 1973 futuristic film Soylent Green, Charlton Heston runs frantically through the streets shouting, “soylent green is people!” Much like H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine in which the docile Eloi are bred for the cannibalistic Morlocks, the concept of eating another human being has always been accompanied with fear and repugnance. Yet much evidence exists that forms of cannibalism existed in Europe in the pre modern period. In some cases, cannibalism was even seen in later centuries, such as during the Starving Time in colonial Jamestown.
Fairy Tales and Cannibalism
Discussing French fairy tales, historian Robert Darnton begins with the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The unaltered, original tale has the wolf not only killing the grandmother, but slicing her flesh onto a platter and pouring her blood into a bottle. Once the little girl arrives, she is invited to eat and drink. In the end, the wolf devoured her. As Darnton explains, “far from veiling their message with symbols, the storytellers of eighteenth-century France portrayed a world of raw and naked brutality.” [1]
Johannes de Trokelowe, chronicling the 1315 great famine that swept Europe in the early fourteen-century, writes of the universal hunger and of reports that, “men and women in many places secretly ate their own children…” [2] At Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, one colonist was convicted of killing and eating his wife and burned at the stake.
Fairy tales often reflected such stark examples of cannibalism. Sheldon Cashdan [3] states that, “the consumption o human flesh…occurs fairly regularly in fairy tales” and gives a number of examples, including the classic Hansel and Gretel. Even the Grimm Brothers, collecting tales from popular folklore, include stories of cannibalism.
Opinions differ, however, as to the meaning behind these stories. Beyond the psychoanalytical, both Cashdan and Darnton offer different reasons, Darnton pointing to actual rural instances that became incorporated into such tales (social conditions) while Cashdam focuses on the “witch” concept: “if the witch is to perish, as she must, the reader must be convinced that she deserves to die.”
Cannibalism, Medicine, and Death
Philip Bethge [4] comments on new research conducted by Richard Sugg of Durham University that details extensive practices of cannibalism, tied in many cases to medicine, in 16th and 17th Century Europe. Many of these instances involved the use of cadavers. Reflecting on the religious significance, Bethge writes that, “for some Protestants…it served as a sort of substitute for the Eucharist, or the tasting of the body of Christ in Holy Communion.”
Charles Panati [5] writes that, “since earliest times, one person ate a small piece of flesh of another – or drank drops of blood – to share in that person’s strength, holiness, wisdom, or courage…” Panati cites examples that include the Eskimos as well as certain African and South American cultures. James Frazer also details cultures that habitually practiced forms of cannibalism. [6]
In the 1962 Twilight Zone episode, “To Serve Man,” friendly aliens turn the planet into a Utopia with the secret purpose of breeding mankind for eventual consumption. Stories of cannibalism bridge the centuries, playing on innate human fears that are all the more stirred when confronted with the historical realities of cannibalism among common ancestors.
Sources
[1] Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (Allen Lane: Penguin Books, 1984) see Chapter 1.
[2] Johannes de Trokelowe, Annales, H. T. Riley, ed., Rolls Series, No 28, Vol. 3 (London, 1866), pp. 92-95. Translated by Brian Tierney.
[3] Sheldon Cashdan, The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives (Basic Books, 1999) pp. 46-49.
[4] Philip Bethge, “Europe’s ‘Medicinal Cannibalism’: the Healing Power of Death,” Spiegel (On Line Version), January 30, 2009.
[5] Charles Panati, Sacred Origins of Profound Things: The Stories Behind the Rites and Rituals of the World’s Religions, (Penguin, 1996), p. 176.
[6] Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966).
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