Cannibalism’s bad rap?
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History Bill Schutt Algonquin Books Though it’s often portrayed as the ultimate act of human depravity, zoologist and author Bill Schutt thinks cannibalism has gotten a bad rap. He makes these points in his new book.
1 Honey, I…
Cannibalism is a rather common phenomenon in the animal kingdom. The preferred meal is often of one’s own children — larvicide and infanticide take the cake. They eat it, too.
2 Sibling rivalry
Some sharks, called sand tigers, are known to eat their siblings in utero. Mom might start gestation packing 20-plus kiddos in her pouch, but on average only two will see the ocean. A protein punch is one purported motivation for the meal, but ichthyologists also suspect these gluttons have even more to gain from good instincts — hunting for a meal on the inside is likely to improve their predatory skills in the wild.
3 Hammy-bal Lecter
Though a low-maintenance lifestyle makes golden hamsters a favourite first pet for kids, the precious puffballs are prone to offer their young owners lessthan-aspirational lessons. In captivity, especially stressed by mishandling humans and squishy digs, hamsters frequently cannibalize their own pups.
4 Revisionist retelling
Parents, Disney and bored babysitters alike have leaned on the fuzzy fables from Charles Perrault’s 17th-century story collection Tales of Mother Goose when it’s time for little ones’ lights out. But history and, perhaps, best intentions have altered Perrault’s feel-good fables. In today’s representations, Snow White escapes unharmed, but in Perrault’s source material, the wicked queen doesn’t simply request Snow White’s doom, but her bones for soup as well — his original story ends with the queen slurping down a pot of what she believes to be our fair princess. Likewise, Uncle Walt left out the part of Little Red Riding Hood when our wolf arrives to granny’s hearth first, bloodletting nana and offering unwitting Red his cannibal’s Cabernet. She downs it, wolf ’s clotted cocktail pairing nicely with a side of granny’s own organ meat stew.
5 Mao down
Chairman Mao Zedong tried to cook up his China’s best future with a utopian agricultural strategy known as The Great Leap Forward. More let-down than leap, Mao’s concept consolidated China’s farmland so drastically that crops and their byproduct economy bottomed out within a couple years. Many farmers starved to death, robbed of their bounty and ability to gain from its sale. Those who didn’t were forced to consume farm animals, pets and eventually their own deceased countrymen. Mao’s reign marks China’s most cannibalism-related deaths on record.
6 Filial pie-ty
In a show of self-sacrifice and adoration, children in some cultures have historically offered themselves —quite literally — to their parents. Author and historian Key Ray Chong reports that in pre-modern China, some children would remove parts of their body (often fingers) to use in soups prepared for mom and dad’s pleasure: a symbol of true fidelity and youthful redemption.
7 Rock, roll and no regret
Perhaps the most infamous example of modern cannibalism belongs to Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. In 2002, gossip mags ran headlines reporting he had snorted the ashes of his late father Bert several years after they’d been drying on his mantle. He has since corroborated the story with one little tweak, clarifying that he’d been lovingly burying Bert’s ashes when a little flew wayward. It was just that small morsel Richards scavenged and sniffed, quote: “Ashes to ashes, father to son.”