Cannibalism during Dark ages

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Cannibalism during Dark ages

Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:56 pm

Khairete

This evening, I saw a programme on National Geographic about cannibalism. It was an interesting programme to see to what extent cannibalism was practiced in our world. I ddn't even knew that flesh of people was used for medicinal purposes, nor the warm blood of a recent deceased person was used as a cure for epilepsy.
Anyway, I read that human sacrifices was practiced during the dark ages of Greek history, the period between 1150 B.C. and 800 B.C., but the question that arose during that programme was: did the Greeks practiced a form of cannibalisme?
If the programme was correct, we practiced (in Europe) a form of cannibalisme, only that it was described as cannibalisme. Like the definition of modern art depends on a group of people, appearently this was also the case for the definition of cannibalisme. To them cannibalisme is a form deit sorth of speak when one devours the flesh of another human for pleasure.

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:20 am

Khaire,

I thought proof or at least strong evidence had already been found for Minoan cannibalism (not spelled with an 'e', by the way) during the time of the Thera volcano explosion. The theory I heard then was that in their despair, the people tried literally anything to appease the gods, including the sacrifice or cannibalism of their children - or perhaps they ate dead relatives for survival, I'm not sure.

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Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Thu Jun 10, 2004 10:54 am

Oh yes, a small error. Anyway, that is what I was wondering. During difficult times people resorted to human sacrifices, but what happened afterwards, its unclear. I doubt that would be done at the same kind of level as the Fore did in Indonesia.
Eating of someone of the same species can create dangers like the Fore experienced during the second half of the 20th century. Normally they didn't eat sick people who had died, but at one time they did, and the ones who ate from the sick got a sickness which was said to be lethal.
But they did as a way to honor their loved ones. For them it made more sense to eat them, than to burry them. It was part of a funeral ritual.
People all over the world practiced cannibalism at one point in their history, I wouldn't be surprised to see this pop up in Greek history or in Roman history for that matter.
During sacrifices, people eat part of the sacrifice, especially the Greeks. If they practiced cannibalism during those dark ages in their history, we might assume tthat part of the dead was eaten aswell.

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cannibalism

Postby Anonymous on Thu Jun 10, 2004 5:24 pm

A French guy said - don´t remember who - that people from a cannibalistic society would not consider to be cannibals or do something strange but would deem non-cannibals as odd and inhumane.

So, all´s relative...

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Postby Victoria Aurelia Ovensa on Fri Sep 01, 2006 1:13 am

Salwete,

Pretty much all peoples of the world practiced cannibalism at some point or other in their history, some until fairly recently. In one branch of my family, my ancestors were cannibals into the early-to-mid-1800s.
You have to remember that in almost all cannibalistic societies, people were not killed just to eat them. Their flesh was consumed after death for various reasons: out of respect, out of love, or simply because it would be wasteful not to. Often in war, it was customary to eat the heart (or other flesh) of one's first kill, as a way of incorporating the strength of the adversary into one's own body and spirit.
Very, very rarely in history has anyone been killed solely for the purpose of eating them -- and those that are known to have done so were not members of a cannibalistic culture, but individuals or families suffering from severe mental disease.
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