It’s a cookbook!
Well, you go uruguay . . . and we’ll eat your corpse.
Really it’s a previous step rather than one more step.
The fact that the dead were given a proper burial indicates a rejection of cannibalism. It’s only after the fact, when desperation truly sets in that they finally say “Aww, hell, dig her up!”. It’s when they immediately move Betty from the deathbed to the oven that they’ve truly surrendered to cannibalism. The extreme step is when they start saying, “Well, at the moment we have no dead people to eat so . . . let’s remedy that!”
It’s worse to eat someone already dead than to murder someone so that you can eat them?
After reading quite a bit about the Uruguayan rugby players, I’m also not so certain that most people would choose death. However, if you are going to pit necrocannibals, they might be a better target, since most of them are still, famously, Alive.
It’s the fucking Chesapeake. It was packed with food. But it was a perfect storm: the settlers were mostly urbanites or gentlemen who lacked the knowledge, temperament or skills to exploit their environment, the Indians kept them pretty hemmed in to their walled settlement, and wave after wave of disease left them physically devastated all the time anyway. The death rate was beyond imagining, and as ship after ship of new settlers were sent over to a mostly-empty settlement, institutional memory had no chance to develop.
In fairness to them, it was the worst drought in 800 years and the Indians food supplies were low as well (which is why they had no interest in trading with the settlers).
Hard to believe this is news. I’d read about cannibalism at the Eurpean settlements before. Heck, in some places they were reduced to not only eating Induian food stores, but digging up and eating buried Indian corpses. Cannibalizing theor own fresh dead must seem positively civilized by compasrison.
Thankfully there was the early emphasis on tobacco planting. Instead of food crops you could focus on having a good smoke after eating your neighbor.
Care for a Chesterfield?
Yeah, and then let’s have a cigarette.
Reading Smith’s works you get the impression he introduced himself as “Smith… John Smith. I’ll have an ale, shaken, not infested.” He’d actually be a cool inspiration for some tongue in cheek Shakespearean era spy novels.
I’ve read 1491 but haven’t read 1493; I’ll have to check that out. (Literally; I think it’s here in the library where I work.)
So Virginia Cannibals or Illinois Nazis- if you could only hate one, which would you choose?
Well, you know one of them will provide a meal.
That’s three times in one thread I LOL’ed, literally.
Poop threads, and cannibalism - both bring out the best in lieu. This means - something.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t know. Putting aside blame for a minute to focus on ‘the madness of hunger’, which person has been driven to a more depraved state of madness? The guy who says, “We’re both dead, love, but you’re especially far gone so how’s about I give you a little nudge into this here crockpot?” or the guy strolling through the graveyard hallucinating that the stones read, “Here lies supper”, then grabbing a trowel and getting to work? I dunno, maybe I can’t see the issue clearly through my disgust but I can’t think of anything more disgusting and mad than eating an exhumed corpse.
Ok, that lasted about 30 seconds. Yep, even worse than necrocannibalism is kleptonecrocannibalism. Thank you CalMeacham for excavating a yet lower level of the pit!
Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.
It’s certainly worse for the person who’s murdered. Waiting til someone is dead is much politer.
Man: I see. Um. Well, I… I’m not very sure. She’s definitely dead.
Undertaker: Where is she?
Man: In this sack.
Undertaker: Let’s 'ave a look. Umm, she looks quite young.
Man: Yes, she was.
Undertaker: (over his shoulder) FRED!
Fred: (offstage) Yeah?
Undertaker: I THINK WE’VE GOT AN EATER!
Fred: I’ll get the oven on!
Man: Um, er…excuse me, um, are you… are you suggesting we should eat my mother?
(pause)
Undertaker: Yeah. Not raw, not raw. We cook her. She’d be delicious with a few french fries, a bit of stuffing. Delicious! (smacks his lips)
Man: What!?
(pause)
Man: Actually, I do feel a bit peckish - No! NO, I can’t!
Undertaker: Look, we’ll eat your mum. Then, if you feel a bit guilty about it afterwards, we can dig a grave and you can throw up into it.
Man: All right.
– From Monty Python (as if you didn’t already know)
In the comics, Hawkman is the reincarnation of Captain John Smith in all his I’m-Quite-Good-With-Sword-And-Pistol-But-Let-Us-Now-Duel-With-Axes glory.
At least the rugby team had refrigerated meat, I can’t imagine how ripe a buried-in-dirt corpse would be after just a little while.
That’s only a problem in the Royal Navy.
Hey! That hardly happens anymore.
A few times a week, at most.
I’d suggest American Colonies by Professor Alan Taylor. It’s a very interesting, surprisingly manageable read. He talks about the history of American colonization and discusses each region in turn.
I took his class last year and brought up Mann’s 1491. He just looked at me and said, “Mann’s not a historian. Don’t use him.”
This revelation cracks me up because a lot of the rhetoric at the time was that the Indians were flesh-eating savages and needed to be protected from themselves by the English.
Would it be morally okay to eat the dude who was executed after being convicted of cannibalizing his wife? On its face, it seems like a no-brainer, but you can see how that situation would be ripe for abuse! (How many puns can I fit into one morbid sentence?). I mean, after the fifth “guilty” verdict, you’d begin to wonder if he’s meting out justice or scrounging for dinner.