#Humancannibalism
is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal. The expression cannibalism has been extended into zoology to mean one individual of a species consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food, including sexual cannibalism. The Island Carib people of the Lesser Antilles, from whom the word "cannibalism" is derived, acquired a long-standing reputation as cannibals after their legends were recorded in the 17th century.[1] Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture. #Cannibalism was practiced in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands, and flesh markets existed in some parts of Melanesia.[2]
Fiji was once known as the "Cannibal Isles".[3] Cannibalism has been well documented around the world, from Fiji to the Amazon Basin to the Congo to the Māori people of New Zealand.[4] Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism,[5][6] and Neanderthals may have been eaten by anatomically modern humans.[7] Cannibalism was also practiced in the past in Egypt during ancient Egypt, Roman Egypt and during famines such as the great famine in the year 1201.[8][9] Cannibalism has recently been both practiced and fiercely condemned in several wars, especially in Liberia[10] and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[11] It was still practiced in Papua New Guinea as of 2012, for cultural reasons[12][13] and in ritual and in war in various Melanesian tribes.
Cannibalism has been said to test the bounds of cultural relativism because it challenges anthropologists "to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior".[1] Some scholars even argue that no firm evidence exists that cannibalism has ever been a socially acceptable practice anywhere in the world, at any time in history, although this has been consistently debated against.[14] Cannibalism has occasionally been practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine, even in modern times. Famous examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–47) and, more recently, the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which some survivors ate the bodies of dead passengers. Additionally, there are cases of people suffering from mental illness engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Albert Fish. There is resistance to formally labeling cannibalism a mental disorder.[15] weki
