Endocannibalism

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Endocannibalism is a practice of eating the flesh of a human being from the same community (tribe, social group or society), usually after they have died.[1] Endocannibalism has also been used to describe the consumption of relics in a mortuary context.[2]

As a cultural practice

Herodotus (3.38) mentions funerary cannibalism among the Callatiae, a tribe of India.

It is believed that some South American Indigenous cultures such as the Mayoruna people practiced endocannibalism in the past.[3] Ya̧nomamö consumed the ground-up bones and ashes of cremated kinsmen in an act of mourning. This is still classified as endocannibalism, although, strictly speaking, "flesh" is not eaten.[4] The Aghoris of northern India consume the flesh of the dead floated in the Ganges in pursuit of immortality and supernatural powers.[5] For the Wari' people in western Brazil, endocannibalism is an act of compassion where the roasted remains of fellow Wari' are consumed in a mortuary setting.[6] Ideally, the affines would consume the entire corpse and rejecting the practice would be offensive to the direct family members.[6] The Amahuaca Indians of Peru picked particles of bone out of the ashes of a cremation fire, ground them with corn, and drank as a kind of gruel.[7]

Such practices were generally not believed to have been driven by need for protein or other food.[3]

Medical implications

Kuru is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by prion that is found in humans.[8] Human prion diseases come in sporadic, genetic and infectious forms. Kuru was the first infectious human prion disease discovered. [9] It spread through the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet.[10] Kuru was 8 to 9 times more prevalent in women and children than in men at its peak because, while the men of the village took the choice cuts, the women and children would eat the rest of the body, including the brain, where the prion particles were particularly concentrated.[11] The Kuru epidemic, which is recorded to have begun in the 1920s, is believed to have been started by the consumption of a single individual with Kuru, which then spread through the population. Oral history records that cannibalism began within the Fore in the late 19th century. Recent research at University College London identified a gene that protects against prion diseases, by studying the Fore people.[12]

Currently there is no treatment to cure or even control Kuru, but there are numerous programs being funded by universities and national institutes, such as the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This institute is currently funding research into the genetic and cellular process behind the development and transmission of Kuru and other TSE diseases.[13]

Prehistory of endocannibalism controversy

Whether or not endocannibalism was commonplace through much of human prehistory remains controversial.

A team led by Michael Alpers, a lifelong investigator of the Kuru disease,[14] found genes that protect against similar prion diseases were widespread, suggesting that such endocannibalism could have once been common around the world.[15][16]

However, a later study by Simon Mead et al of the University College London [17] has since shown that this gene, called G127V, is only commonplace in the areas with the highest incidence of Kuru - it is not commonplace in the global population. The relatively rare (but widespread) occurrence of G127V in the global population could therefore be explained as random mutation. This is evidence that cannibalism may not have been widespread among humanity, as the kuru disease is the only known prion disease that spreads by human cannibalism. Were cannibalism widespread, G127V would have to be commonplace by evolutionary necessity – but it isn’t. The only way by which cannibalism could have been widespread would be if kuru was not the only prion to spread by human cannibalism.[18]

List of cultures in which it occurs

See also

References

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