杏吧原创

IN 1967, anthropologist Christy Turner was scrabbling through a jumble of
human bones stored in an old cardboard box in a museum backroom. The bones were
all that was left of about 30 members of Arizona鈥檚 Polacca Walsh tribe who had
died some 400 years earlier. What Turner saw startled him. 鈥淭hese men and women
had not been simply slain in a battle or an attack on a village,鈥� recalls the
researcher from Arizona State University in Tempe. 鈥淭heir bones had been burnt,
broken open and cut. The conclusion was inescapable: these people had been
butchered and eaten.鈥�

In the following months Turner studied the bones in more detail. Then he
broke open others from various animals, cut and burned the pieces and compared
the results with the Polacca Walsh bones. The marks, scratches and cracks were
identical. There was no alternative, he concluded, these had to be the leftovers
of a cannibalistic feast. And that is what he told the annual meeting of the
Society of American Archaeology when he presented his results the following
year. 鈥淚 told the conference that cannibalism must have been rife around the
Polacca Walsh region,鈥� he says. 鈥淓veryone just shrugged their shoulders and
ignored me. I was swimming upstream professionally.鈥�

Next year, Turner鈥檚 opus on the subject will be published. After three
decades, the tide of opinion has now turned. Earlier this century archaeologists
had argued that our ancestors鈥� lives were nasty, brutish and short, and in many
cases destined to end in cooking pots. But in the late-1960s it was fashionable
to believe that marks on bones and skulls were not the hallmarks of cannibals,
but were the effects of weathering, burial practices, or scavenging animals.
Turner鈥檚 work reopened the debate. Now, despite some heavyweight opposition, the
idea of the human cannibal is back in vogue. And this time the theory is backed
up with rigorous analysis of bones from around the world.

Reign of terror

鈥淚 think the evidence is now clear,鈥� says anthropologist Tim White of the
University of California, Berkeley, who has been carrying out excavations in the
Four Corners region of Arizona. He concludes that throughout Mexico and the
southwest of North America people were being systematically captured, killed and
eaten. Thigh and arm bones were broken open for their marrow, and smaller
fragments were boiled in pots to extract the last fatty residues. 鈥淚t is quite
incredible,鈥� says White. 鈥淵ou suddenly catch your breath and think, my God, this
must have been ghastly. Local people鈥攖he Anasazi, the ancestors of modern
Hopi and Pueblo Indians鈥攗sed cannibalism to instigate a 400-year reign of
terror over the Polacca Walsh.鈥�

In other words, according to White, nourishment was not the Anasazi鈥檚 main
reason for eating their neighbours. The primary motivation was subjugation. The
threat of being eaten must have filled the Polacca Walsh with a terror greater
even than that of mere death, helping to cow them into submission.

The Polacca Walsh lived relatively recently. However, other research suggests
cannibalism has a long and ignoble history among humans. For example, in the
past few years, palaeontologists working at an 800 000-year-old settlement
uncovered at Atapuerca in Spain have found clear signs that our early ancestors
lunched on each other with relish. 鈥淭he evidence is strong,鈥� says Yolanda
Fernandez-Jalvo of Madrid鈥檚 Natural History Museum. 鈥淗uman bones at Atapuerca
have cut marks and had clearly been stripped of their flesh. They were also
mixed up with bones of animals that had been eaten.鈥�

And the practice has not necessarily been consigned to the distant past.
There have been a plethora of reports about recent cases of anthropophagy
(human-eating). During the famines in Stalin鈥檚 Russia, there were tales of
communities surviving on human flesh. And cannibalism continues in the former
Soviet Union, it seems. Last year, a 73-year-old woman was arrested after police
discovered the half-eaten body of her 82-year-old husband in their flat. Three
months later, two Ukrainian prisoners were found guilty of eating their
cellmate, while two Russian soldiers were alleged to have consumed a comrade.
Each story was covered in gory detail by the US and British press. In Russia,
they scarcely made news.

Going back to the 16th century, there are the stories about the Aztec empire.
The conquistadors alleged that the Aztecs were in the habit of butchering and
eating their prisoners, although in the past historians have tended to view such
claims as attempts to justify Spanish aggression. White disagrees, pointing out
that carefully splintered human bones have been found at several Aztec temple
sites. 鈥淭he evidence shows that the Aztecs really were cannibals,鈥� he says.

Perhaps most revealing of all is a story related by the distinguished
anthropologist Jared Diamond from the University of California, Los Angeles, in
his most recent book, Guns, Germs and Steel. He tells of boatloads of
Maori warriors landing on Rekohu (Chatham Islands), 500 miles east of New
Zealand, in 1835 and announcing that the local Moriori people were now their
slaves. Without waiting for a response, they set upon the islanders. 鈥淭hey
killed hundreds of Morioris, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all
the others, killing most of them over the next few years,鈥� writes Diamond. He
quotes one Maori who justified this savagery by saying: 鈥淣o one escaped. But
what of that? It was in accordance with our custom.鈥�

And there you have it: 鈥渋n accordance with our custom鈥�. Our natural tendency
is to eat our opponents as a means of ritually finishing off the slaughter of
battle, or of ensuring a good meal when times are hard, or both. The evidence
seems overwhelming.

Not everyone agrees, however. British archaeologist Paul Bahn admits that a
belief in cannibalism seems to be inherent in humans, with tales stretching back
to the Greek myths of Saturn devouring his children and the Cyclops eating
Odysseus鈥檚 sailors. But most 鈥渁uthenticated鈥� stories turn out to be 鈥渂ased on
heresy, and lack any reliable first-hand witnesses鈥�, he says. 鈥淐annibalism
always turns out to be practised by the next tribe or the next country,鈥� says
Bahn. The Romans thought the ancient Britons were cannibals. The British claimed
the ancient Irish ate each other. Henry Kissinger even remembers Leonid Brezhnev
telling him that the Chinese were cannibals. 鈥淵ou hardly ever find an actual
authenticated case,鈥� says Bahn. 鈥淚ndeed, the very etymology of the
word鈥攃oined by Columbus from the name of the Carib people of the
Caribbean鈥攕hows it has roots based in ignorance and prejudice.鈥�

鈥淚 don鈥檛 say that cannibals don鈥檛 exist,鈥� admits Bahn. 鈥淒eranged people can
do some dreadful things to their fellow humans. But cases are really very rare
and only occur in special circumstances, usually when people are starving.鈥�
William Arens, professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, agrees. He launched the original counterblast to the idea that
human cannibalism was ubiquitous throughout history and prehistory. And in his
book The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy, published in
1979, he surveyed dozens of stories about cannibalism and concluded that only a
few stood up to scrutiny. The archaeological evidence was usually
circumstantial, while reliable eyewitnesses of human flesh feasts always seemed
to be lacking. 鈥淚t was bad science,鈥� says Arens.

Why eat humans?

His views slowly became orthodoxy, forcing researchers like White and Turner
to approach their work with greater care and exactness. Arens admits that
standards are now more rigorous, and also concedes that he has yet to study the
Anasazi evidence in detail, but he remains unconvinced about the claims as a
whole. 鈥淚 still do not think cannibalism has been a major feature of human
life,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd I don鈥檛 see why people strive so hard to try to prove that
it is鈥攅xcept to try to show how wonderfully advanced we now are, compared
to our crude past.鈥�

Most anthropologists and palaeontologists, including Chris Stringer of
London鈥檚 Natural History Museum, hold more moderate views. Stringer鈥檚 recent
work includes excavations at Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, where he uncovered 12
000-year-old skeletons that had been scalped and beheaded. Their tongues had
been cut out and their bones smashed open to extract the marrow. 鈥淭here is no
doubt that cannibalism was not an infrequent practice. The question is, what
sort of cannibalism was it?鈥� says Stinger. 鈥淲as it ritual cannibalism? Or was it
done to obtain nutrition and, if so, was it simply to avoid starvation? Or was
it a widespread business in which victims were captured and cooked? It is very
difficult to say.鈥�

Frozen food

Certainly, cases of cannibalism in desperate times have been recorded.
Stranded sailors, isolated communities and explorers in extremis have all turned
to deceased companions for a meal. The 1972 plane crash in the Andes, in which
survivors ate the flesh of dead victims, is the most renowned case of recent
times, though the story of Alfred Packer, the first American to be convicted of
cannibalism remains a classic. While prospecting for gold in Colorado鈥檚 San Juan
Mountains in 1873, Packer became trapped in a shack during a blizzard and
survived by eating his fellow prospectors. He was arrested, tried and sentenced
to 40 years鈥� imprisonment, but served only 15. 鈥淵ou are a low-down depraved son
of a bitch,鈥� the judge told him. 鈥淭here were only seven Democrats in Hinsdale
County, and you ate five of them.鈥�

Equally, reports of ritual cannibalism, in which parts of a dead relative are
consumed as a mark of respect are common. The most famous example is the New
Guinean highlanders鈥� former practice of eating the brains of recently deceased
tribesmen. It was this habit which is said to have led to the spread of laughing
sickness鈥攌uru鈥攖hrough tribes such as the For茅. The disease
was endemic until the Australian government established control over the region
in 1959.

Diamond believes that this may not be an example of ritual cannibalism in the
strict sense. Children in the New Guinea highlands have the swollen bellies
characteristic of a high-bulk but protein-deficient diet. New Guineans old
and young routinely eat mice, spiders, frogs and other small animals that
peoples elsewhere with access to large domestic mammals or large wild game
species do not bother to eat. 鈥淧rotein starvation is probably also the ultimate
reason why cannibalism was widespread in traditional New Guinea highland
societies,鈥� he states in Guns, Germs and Steel.

Arens is even more circumspect about reports of cannibalism in New Guinea.
The scientist who linked kuru to the eating of human flesh is Carleton Gadjusek.
He received the Nobel prize for his discovery and illustrated his acceptance
lecture with photographs of New Guineans eating human flesh. 鈥淚n fact, Gadjusek
has since admitted to me that the For茅 tribesmen were eating pork,鈥� says
Arens. 鈥淚ndeed, I don鈥檛 think he ever witnessed cannibalism in New Guinea.鈥�

No one questions the research done in the US, for it is here that
anthropologists, among them Turner and White, have honed techniques for
analysing human remains. White chose to study a small Anasazi village called
Mancos on the Colorado plateau. Archaeologists had already discovered 2106 bone
fragments there鈥攖he remains of 17 adults and 12 children鈥攁nd dated
them to around 800 years ago. Using an electron microscope, White was able to
distinguish between marks left by butchering and the indentations made by a
gnawing animal. He even spotted a distinctive form of abrasion which he calls
pot polish鈥攕hiny marks made when bones are stirred in a pot. He has
concluded that these people had their heads cut off and were roasted. Later
their bones were broken open and their marrow eaten.

Turner has also adopted a rigorous set of criteria for determining whether
skeletal remains were cannibalised: signs of cutting with tools, indications
that bones had been broken around the time of death to obtain marrow, burning,
and missing vertebrae (crushed to get at the juicy marrowbone jelly). Using
these criteria, Turner has revealed identical patterns of cuts and abrasions at
40 different archaeological sites. It seems that humans were feasting on humans
throughout the region.

Bahn is unconvinced. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 doubt the care they have taken, or the rigour
of their analyses,鈥� he says. He even accepts that many of the marks on bones
were created by humans. 鈥淏ut they simply have not thought about the possibility
that these cuts and scrapes could be the result of mortuary practice,鈥� he says.
鈥淵ou have to consider this first. After all, isn鈥檛 it amazing that this outbreak
of savage cannibalism erupted so suddenly from nowhere in this one part of the
飞辞谤濒诲?鈥�

But perhaps the most intriguing criticism of our supposed anthropophagic
urges comes in a coda added to a recent articles by Arens in The Times
Higher Education Supplement. Surveying the various preferred methods for
cooking humans, Arens discovered that pots of water were favoured in Africa,
clay ovens in the South Pacific, charcoal pits in America, while the New
Guineans had a penchant for steam cooking. 鈥淏oiled, broiled, baked and
steamed鈥攂ut no recipes,鈥� observes Arens. 鈥淭he inability to provide this
minor but crucial bit of evidence on the presumed custom of man-eating is
probably the best reason to conclude that cannibalism exists more in the limited
culinary imagination of the observer than in the native appetite.鈥�

For his part, White remains convinced that throughout history and prehistory
humans have had the urge to eat each other. 鈥淭o say they didn鈥檛 is the
archaeological equivalent of saying Clinton lit up and didn鈥檛 inhale.鈥�

* * *

Love bites

SPIDERS do it. Rats do it. Even large ferocious cats do it. All of them, when
nibble comes to bite, eat members of their own species. If humans do have
cannibalistic tendencies, we are far from unique.

In many cases, creatures鈥攂oth herbivore and carnivores鈥攅at each
other when living conditions become overcrowded. Codling moth caterpillars for
example, which grow inside apples, will not tolerate the presence of another
caterpillar. That is why you never find more than one in a particular apple.

Then there is the phenomenon of sexual cannibalism, in which females dine on
their mates either after or during copulation. Praying mantises, black widow
spiders and desert scorpions all indulge in the practice. Why they do it remains
a mystery. Either the males sacrifice themselves to increase the chances of
their genes reaching the next generation, or they are the unwitting lunch of
rapacious and indiscriminate females.

The behaviour of male animals who eat all the young after displacing a rival
as head of a mating group or harem certainly has nothing to do with
self-sacrifice. Their genetic legacy is at stake. A male lion, for example, will
cannibalise any cubs fathered by other males when he takes over a pride so that
he can immediately mate with the females.

Even our closest relatives, chimpanzees, are not averse to eating their own.
Jane Goodall, who has been observing chimps at Gombe National Park in Tanzania
for the past three decades, has seen three instances of males eating older
chimps from other troops. Far more dramatic, however, was the behaviour of
Passion and her daughter Pom. Over four years, the pair killed and ate three
infant chimps by seizing them from their mothers and biting through their
skulls. In each case 鈥渢he carcass was consumed in the way that normal prey is
consumed, slowly and with relish, each mouthful of meat chewed up with a few
green leaves,鈥� states Goodall in Through a Window (Houghton Mifflin, 1990). What
provokes such violence? 鈥淧robably we shall never know,鈥� she admits.