Why do cannibals exist

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Cannibalism was practiced among prehistoric human beings, and it lingered into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, notably in Fiji. But today the Korowai are among the very few tribes believed to eat human flesh.

They live about miles inland from the Arafura Sea, which is where Michael Rockefeller, a son of then-New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared in while collecting artifacts from another Papuan tribe; his body was never found. Most Korowai still live with little knowledge of the world beyond their homelands and frequently feud with one another. Some are said to kill and eat male witches they call khakhua. The island of New Guinea, the second largest in the world after Greenland, is a mountainous, sparsely populated tropical landmass divided between two countries: the independent nation of Papua New Guinea in the east, and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya in the west.

The Korowai live in southeastern Papua. My journey begins at Bali, where I catch a flight across the Banda Sea to the Papuan town of Timika; an American mining company's subsidiary, PT Freeport Indonesia, operates the world's largest copper and gold mine nearby.

The Free Papua Movement, which consists of a few hundred rebels equipped with bows and arrows, has been fighting for independence from Indonesia since Because Indonesia has banned foreign journalists from visiting the province, I entered as a tourist.

After a stopover in Timika, our jet climbs above a swampy marsh past the airport and heads toward a high mountain. Beyond the coast, the sheer slopes rise as high as 16, feet above sea level and stretch for miles. Waiting for me at Jayapura, a city of , on the northern coast near the border with Papua New Guinea, is Kembaren, 46, a Sumatran who came to Papua seeking adventure 16 years ago.

He first visited the Korowai in , and has come to know much about their culture, including some of their language. He is clad in khaki shorts and trekking boots, and his unflinching gaze and rock-hard jaw give him the look of a drill sergeant. The best estimate is that there are some 4, Korowai. Traditionally, they have lived in treehouses, in groups of a dozen or so people in scattered clearings in the jungle; their attachment to their treehouses and surrounding land lies at the core of their identity, Smithsonian Institution anthropologist Paul Taylor noted in his documentary film about them, Lords of the Garden.

Over the past few decades, however, some Korowai have moved to settlements established by Dutch missionaries, and in more recent years, some tourists have ventured into Korowai lands. But the deeper into the rain forest one goes, the less exposure the Korowai have had to cultures alien to their own. After we fly from Jayapura southwest to Wamena, a jumping-off point in the Papuan highlands, a wiry young Korowai approaches us. In Bahasa Indonesia, he says that his name is Boas and that two years ago, eager to see life beyond his treehouse, he hitched a ride on a charter flight from Yaniruma, a settlement at the edge of Korowai territory.

He has tried to return home, he says, but no one will take him. Boas says a returning guide has told him that his father was so upset by his son's absence that he has twice burned down his own treehouse. We tell him he can come with us. The next morning eight of us board a chartered Twin Otter, a workhorse whose short takeoff and landing ability will get us to Yaniruma. Once we're airborne, Kembaren shows me a map: spidery lines marking lowland rivers and thousands of square miles of green jungle.

Dutch missionaries who came to convert the Korowai in the late s called it "the hell in the south. After 90 minutes we come in low, following the snaking Ndeiram Kabur River. At Yaniruma, a line of stilt huts that Dutch missionaries established in , we thump down on a dirt strip carved out of the jungle.

Now, to my surprise, Boas says he will postpone his homecoming to continue with us, lured by the promise of adventure with a laleo, and he cheerfully lifts a sack of foodstuffs onto his shoulders. As the pilot hurls the Twin Otter back into the sky, a dozen Korowai men hoist our packs and supplies and trudge toward the jungle in single file bound for the river. Most carry bows and arrows. The Rev. Johannes Veldhuizen, a Dutch missionary with the Mission of the Reformed Churches, first made contact with the Korowai in and dropped plans to convert them to Christianity.

Gerrit van Enk, another Dutch missionary and co-author of The Korowai of Irian Jaya , coined the term "pacification line" for the imaginary border separating Korowai clans accustomed to outsiders from those farther north.

In a separate phone interview from the Netherlands, he told me that he had never gone beyond the pacification line because of possible danger from Korowai clans there hostile to the presence of laleo in their territory.

Entering the Korowai rain forest is like stepping into a giant watery cave. With the bright sun overhead I breathe easily, but as the porters push through the undergrowth, the tree canopy's dense weave plunges the world into a verdant gloom. The heat is stifling and the air drips with humidity.

This is the haunt of giant spiders, killer snakes and lethal microbes. High in the canopy, parrots screech as I follow the porters along a barely visible track winding around rain-soaked trees and primeval palms. My shirt clings to my back, and I take frequent swigs at my water bottle.

The annual rainfall here is around inches, making it one of the wettest places on earth. A sudden downpour sends raindrops spearing through gaps in the canopy, but we keep walking.

The local Korowai have laid logs on the mud, and the barefoot porters cross these with ease. But, desperately trying to balance as I edge along each log, time and again I slip, stumble and fall into the sometimes waist-deep mud, bruising and scratching my legs and arms.

Slippery logs as long as ten yards bridge the many dips in the land. Inching across like a tightrope walker, I wonder how the porters would get me out of the jungle were I to fall and break a leg. Hour melts into hour as we push on, stopping briefly now and then to rest. With night near, my heart surges with relief when shafts of silvery light slip through the trees ahead: a clearing.

Korowai children with beads about their necks come running to point and giggle as I stagger into the village—several straw huts perched on stilts and overlooking the river. I notice there are no old people here.

After we eat a dinner of river fish and rice, Boas joins me in a hut and sits cross-legged on the thatched floor, his dark eyes reflecting the gleam from my flashlight, our only source of light.

Using Kembaren as translator, he explains why the Korowai kill and eat their fellow tribesmen. It's because of the khakhua, which comes disguised as a relative or friend of a person he wants to kill. The khakhua finally kills the person by shooting a magical arrow into his heart.

I ask Boas whether the Korowai eat people for any other reason or eat the bodies of enemies they've killed in battle. The killing and eating of khakhua has reportedly declined among tribespeople in and near the settlements. Rupert Stasch, an anthropologist at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, who has lived among the Korowai for 16 months and studied their culture, writes in the journal Oceania that Korowai say they have "given up" killing witches partly because they were growing ambivalent about the practice and partly in reaction to several incidents with police.

In one in the early '90s, Stasch writes, a Yaniruma man killed his sister's husband for being a khakhua. It's more ambiguous who served as the inspiration for Thomas Harris' Hannibal but apparently the author once told a librarian in his hometown that the character was based off of murderer William Coyne who escaped prison in and went on a cannibalistic murdering spree. Other notable real cannibals are the Stella Maris Rugby team who ate fellow teammates after their plane crashed in the Andes in ; Jeffrey Dahmer, American necrophiliac cannabilistic serial killer who was murdered in prison; Armin Miewes, mentioned throughout this story; and Albert Fish, cannibal, serial killer and pedophile who was executed at Sing Sing in A lot.

Many of the references to cannibalism have to do with the siege of Jerusalem and what would happen if the Israelites disobeyed God. Here's one from Jeremiah :.

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives. There are also numerous verses where human sacrifice is mentioned. In some verses it is demanded by God and in others child sacrifice is forbidden.

The Korowai tribe of Papau New Gunieau are the last known group of cannibals. According to a story from Smithsonian Magazine , the practice is still ingrained in their culture:. Using Kembaren as translator, he explains why the Korowai kill and eat their fellow tribesmen. It's because of the khakhua, which comes disguised as a relative or friend of a person he wants to kill.

The khakhua finally kills the person by shooting a magical arrow into his heart. I ask Boas whether the Korowai eat people for any other reason or eat the bodies of enemies they've killed in battle.

But the practice has declined. Many tribes that practiced ritualistic cannibalism began dying en masse from a disease called Kuru , like the human equivalent to Mad Cow disease, which affects the brain and nervous system.

Consuming animal or human flesh that contains an infected protein or prion causes brain deterioration, loss of motor control and eventually death. Even if you don't die from a prion disease, mass consumption of human anatomy doesn't appear to be good for the body. An autopsy was performed on Tarrate , a famous French cannibal from the 18th century, to find that his body was filled with pus, ulcers and an abnormally large stomach, liver and gallbladder.

The answer is overwhelmingly pork, which may be why the idiomatic culinary term for human flesh is "long pig. It tastes quite good.

In the s a couple of German serial killers sold human meat on the black market labelled as pork. But occasionally, what's cannibalism and what isn't has been surprisingly hard to define. Further reading: For a more detailed story about cannibalism, try this one about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.

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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: 7 surprising facts about cannibalism. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. An engraving depicting cannibalism in Brazil.

Getty Images Cannibalism can show up at the most unexpected points in history. Here are a few surprising things experts have learned: 1 Humans are mostly hard-wired against cannibalism — but not always There's a good biological reason why cannibalism is taboo in virtually every culture: Eating other humans can make you sick. Not all of them fell victim to the disease Montaigne writes: I have a song composed by a prisoner which contains this challenge, that they should all come boldly and gather to dine off him, for they will be eating at the same time their own fathers and grandfathers, who have served to feed and nourish his body.

As Howard Zinn excerpted in A People's History of the United States , one government report painted a grim picture of that winter: Driven thru insufferable hunger to eat those things which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man as well of our own nation as of an Indian.

Apothecaries regularly stocked fat, flesh, and bone As described in Kathy Stuart's Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts , human fat was sold as a remedy for broken bones, sprains, and arthritis. Watch: The fascinating process of human decomposition. Next Up In Almanac. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy.

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