I’ve tried to approach each example from a scientific viewpoint, delving into what I considered the most intriguing aspects of anthropology, evolution, and biology to provide the broadest yet most engaging natural history of this behavior. What happens to our bodies and minds under starvation conditions? Why are women better equipped to survive starvation than men? And what physiological extremes would compel someone to consume the body of a friend or even a family member?
With regard to criminal cannibalism (Jeffrey Dahmer and his ilk), I was less interested in the overhashed and gory details of the crimes than the reasons for our enthrallment with the overhashed and gory details. This is not a book that explores the minds of our so-called cannibal killers, though it does seem that instances of cannibalism-related crime may be on the uptick. I’ve also taken a hard line on sensationalism by highlighting and differentiating between physical evidence, ethno-history, unfounded information, and horse feathers.
In the pages ahead, you will encounter everything from cannibalism in utero to placenta-munching mothers who carry on a remarkably rich tradition of medicinal cannibalism. Yes, the ick factor is high, but I hope you’ll find this journey as fascinating and unusual as I have—a journey whose goal is to allow us to better understand the complexity of our natural world and the long and often blood-spattered history of our species.
With this in mind, why not grab a glass of red wine, and let’s get started.3
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1 In the 1940s and 1950s Fanny Farmer was the largest producer of candy in the U.S.
2 When Psycho opened on June 16, 1960, it was an instant hit, with long lines outside theaters and broken box office records all over the world. More than 50 years later the film is remembered best for its famous shower scene, one which reportedly caused many of our Greatest Generation to develop some degree of ablutophobia, the fear of bathing (from the Latin abluere, “to wash off”). Few theatergoers realized that the “blood” in Psycho was actually the popular chocolate syrup, Bosco (a fact the company somehow neglected to mention in their ads and TV commercials).
3 For suitable background music, for starters I suggest “Timothy”, the catchy one-hit-wonder by The Buoys. The song, written by Rupert Holmes (“The Pi?a Colada Song”), tells the tale of three trapped miners, two of whom survive by eating the title character. In 1971 “Timothy” reached number 17 on the Billboard Top 100, even though many major radio stations refused to play it. In an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the ban, executives at Scepter Records began circulating a rumor that Timothy was actually a mule.
1: Animal the Cannibal
Cannibals prefer those who have no spines.
—Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, Holiday, 1963
I was knee-deep in a temporary pond that seemed to be composed of equal parts rainwater and cow shit when the cannibals began nibbling on my leg hair.
“If you stand still for long enough, they’ll definitely nip you,” came a voice from the shore.
The “they” were cannibalistic spadefoot toad larvae (commonly known as tadpoles) and the warning had come from Dr. David Pfennig, a biology professor at the University of North Carolina who had been studying these toads in Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains for more than 20 years.
At Pfennig’s invitation, I had arrived at the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station in mid-July—just after the early-summer monsoons had turned cattle wallows into nursery ponds and newly hatched tadpoles into cannibals. But the real reason I had come to the ancestral land of Cochise and the Chiricahua Apaches wasn’t because the tadpoles were eating each other. It was because some of them weren’t eating each other. In fact, when this particular brood had hatched about a week earlier, they were all omnivores, feeding on plankton and the suspended organic matter referred to in higher-class journals as “detritus.” Then, two or three days later, something peculiar took place. Some of the tiny amphibians experienced dramatic growth spurts, their bodies ballooning in size overnight. Now, as I waded, scoop-net in hand, through Sky Ranch Pond (a slimy-bottomed mud hole with delusions of grandeur), the pumped-up proto-toads were four or five times larger than their poop-nibbling brethren.
“These look like two different species,” I said, examining a handful of tadpoles that I’d just scooped up. I also noted that the larger individuals were light tan in color while the little guys had bodies flecked with dark green.
“Initially, people thought they were different species,” Pfennig replied.
Using a magnifying glass to get a better look at my squirmy captives, I saw that the differences went beyond body size and color. The larger tadpoles were also sporting powerful tails and serious-looking beaks.
“Yikes, nice choppers,” I commented, always the scientist.