WEBVTT - How Cannibalism Works

0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.640
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know

0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.960
<v Speaker 1>from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to

0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.600
<v Speaker 1>the podcast Josh and Chuck here Say hi, Chuck, Hi,

0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.040
<v Speaker 1>Chuck Chuck. Um. Have you been paying attention to that

0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.439
<v Speaker 1>that story that came out of Canada this past ually,

0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.400
<v Speaker 1>that that um grizzly murder on the on the Greyhound bus. Yeah,

0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.880
<v Speaker 1>that was It's you couldn't write something that ghastly. No, No,

0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:30.800
<v Speaker 1>you really can't. So well, I guess we should probably

0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.680
<v Speaker 1>fill in anybody who's not aware of it. There's this guy,

0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.400
<v Speaker 1>UM named Vince Lee who allegedly, out of nowhere, uh

0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:40.680
<v Speaker 1>leans over in this bus and the dark of night

0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:45.239
<v Speaker 1>that's just traveling down the planes of Manitoba thing uh

0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.199
<v Speaker 1>and he just leans over and um starts stabbing this

0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.400
<v Speaker 1>guy sitting next to him, who's never met before, and

0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.960
<v Speaker 1>apparently witnesses say that they hadn't even spoken. Now, completely unprovoked.

0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.880
<v Speaker 1>Um and just stabs him and stabs and stabs him,

0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.040
<v Speaker 1>and everybody just starts fleeing the bus and they end

0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.640
<v Speaker 1>up locking this guy on there and he starts walking

0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:05.640
<v Speaker 1>around back and forth like kind of I got the

0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.440
<v Speaker 1>impression kind of like a caged animal. And then I

0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.200
<v Speaker 1>guess he gets the the idea to go back and

0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.760
<v Speaker 1>UM cut the victim's head off. He's not dead, but

0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.600
<v Speaker 1>he cuts his head off, and he's walking around with

0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:22.960
<v Speaker 1>the bus exactly and apparently he dropped this poor guy's

0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.959
<v Speaker 1>head um in front of the witnesses, like at the

0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.720
<v Speaker 1>steps at the front door of the bus, who were

0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.840
<v Speaker 1>these people were holding the doors closed to trap them on. Um.

0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:38.160
<v Speaker 1>And there's this one other This is bad enough, right right, um,

0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.160
<v Speaker 1>but there's this he did something else that just I

0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.119
<v Speaker 1>think it makes everything kind of even worse. Um. He

0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.319
<v Speaker 1>he walked back and started cutting off pieces of the

0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.600
<v Speaker 1>guy and eating them. And this should have had a

0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.680
<v Speaker 1>little warning before this podcast this, yeah, maybe, so hopefully

0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:59.280
<v Speaker 1>from the title people will be a little prepared. So basically, UM,

0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.760
<v Speaker 1>I started researching this. I had heard about it. Um,

0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:07.600
<v Speaker 1>this this incredibly ghastly murder. Uh. And I at the time,

0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.720
<v Speaker 1>I was writing or researching h an article how cannibalism works.

0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.120
<v Speaker 1>So I'm thinking, you know, as as grim as it is,

0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.600
<v Speaker 1>like this is this is pretty good story to use

0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.359
<v Speaker 1>as a lead as an introduction for the article, right,

0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.480
<v Speaker 1>And the more I started researching it, the more I

0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.600
<v Speaker 1>realized I had this perfect line. It was like, you know,

0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.040
<v Speaker 1>when uh, when Mr Lee, I should say, allegedly he's

0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.840
<v Speaker 1>been charged, but he hasn't been convicted. Um, you know

0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.960
<v Speaker 1>eight that that those bits of flesh. He went from

0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:43.160
<v Speaker 1>a mere murderer to you know, something like a monster,

0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.080
<v Speaker 1>like a cannibal. Right. But the more I looked into

0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:50.079
<v Speaker 1>this story, like, honestly, the cannibalism almost falls in line

0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.600
<v Speaker 1>with everything else he was doing. It was such an

0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.920
<v Speaker 1>unspeakable act that didn't stand out. The cannibalism was also

0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.280
<v Speaker 1>or almost muted by the rest of this stuff. So

0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.840
<v Speaker 1>instead I went with armand Mavus, right, which was another

0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.840
<v Speaker 1>really bizarre and ghastly story. It really was. It was.

0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.960
<v Speaker 1>It's not nearly I don't find it nearly as disconcerting

0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:17.640
<v Speaker 1>as as um the greyhound bus story. Yeah, that was

0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.120
<v Speaker 1>a little more frightening. This is definitely definitely creepy, though.

0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.440
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this was a consenting adult, right, So you

0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.800
<v Speaker 1>want to tell them about Mr MAVs, Well, yeah, this

0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:27.680
<v Speaker 1>is a guy I believe he put an ad on

0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.880
<v Speaker 1>in the newspapers or on a website, personal's website. Yeah,

0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.080
<v Speaker 1>looking for someone who would allow themselves to be eaten

0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.720
<v Speaker 1>by this guy. And what's that's remarkable enough? But he

0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.480
<v Speaker 1>had he had a taker, well, he had he got

0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.040
<v Speaker 1>close a few times apparently. But yeah, this one guy

0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:52.040
<v Speaker 1>named Burnt Jurgen Brandis right, forty three wasn't exactly what

0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.360
<v Speaker 1>Mavas was looking for. Mavus was advertising in eighteen to

0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.040
<v Speaker 1>thirty year old well built guy and apparently, you know,

0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.480
<v Speaker 1>a little less picky time on exactly. Yeah, Um, so

0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:08.240
<v Speaker 1>Brandis comes over and um, they basically get him drunk,

0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:13.240
<v Speaker 1>he's taken some painkillers and um Mr Mivas cuts off

0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.440
<v Speaker 1>his his penis and proceeds to cook it for the

0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.600
<v Speaker 1>both of them, for the both of them, and um,

0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:20.799
<v Speaker 1>I didn't put in the article, but what I gathered

0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:25.880
<v Speaker 1>was that they both ate some and didn't really like it. Right, So, um,

0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.479
<v Speaker 1>this by this time, Brandis, who's like totally concerning, fully

0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.520
<v Speaker 1>aware of what's going on, what's going to happen, that

0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:34.640
<v Speaker 1>he's going to die tonight. This is what he came

0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:39.400
<v Speaker 1>over for. Um, he goes to take a bath because

0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.880
<v Speaker 1>he's just bleeding everywhere. His penis is cut off right, um,

0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.200
<v Speaker 1>and he goes to take a bath and uh he

0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.400
<v Speaker 1>loses consciousness in the bath. So myvas is like, all right,

0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.719
<v Speaker 1>it's it's you're done, and uh cuts the guy's throat

0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.359
<v Speaker 1>and actually had set up like a basically a butcher

0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:03.159
<v Speaker 1>room where he butchered guy and um, I guess made

0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.719
<v Speaker 1>steaks out of him flying over a period of time,

0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.880
<v Speaker 1>he ate ate his body, right, four pounds of this

0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.360
<v Speaker 1>guy's body over there over a few months. The thing

0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.040
<v Speaker 1>is he was he had totally gotten away with it, right,

0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.320
<v Speaker 1>like there was the police had no idea this had happened. Um,

0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.480
<v Speaker 1>there was no like missing person's report as far as

0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.840
<v Speaker 1>I know or anything like that. And the way he

0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.320
<v Speaker 1>was Um, the way he was caught was uh, some

0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:30.680
<v Speaker 1>some fellow chat room dwellers uh knew what Mivas was

0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:35.200
<v Speaker 1>doing and apparently got when that it had been successful

0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.840
<v Speaker 1>or whatever an alerted police and they found out and

0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.240
<v Speaker 1>he's like, oh, yeah, totally, it was great. Right. So UM,

0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.719
<v Speaker 1>I think what's most remarkable about this story is not

0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.279
<v Speaker 1>only that this guy did this, but there was no

0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.720
<v Speaker 1>law against cannibalism at the time in Germany, so he

0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.760
<v Speaker 1>was tried from or is being tried for murder. First

0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.720
<v Speaker 1>they had him on UM. I think they had him

0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.719
<v Speaker 1>on manslaughter, right, and because you know other guy consented,

0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.920
<v Speaker 1>he consented uh And and there was such outrage in

0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.160
<v Speaker 1>Germany um against it that that they're they're retrying him

0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.760
<v Speaker 1>somehow for murder um. But yeah, there there is no

0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.599
<v Speaker 1>law in the books. I think there is now um.

0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.840
<v Speaker 1>And the same goes for the UK. I really really

0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:22.560
<v Speaker 1>try to could not find any federal statute outlawing cannibalism

0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.359
<v Speaker 1>in the US, but I did find vague references that

0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.280
<v Speaker 1>it is illegal, but I couldn't find any actual law.

0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:31.279
<v Speaker 1>But the thing is, it's almost like you don't really

0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.800
<v Speaker 1>have to outlaw cannibalism because it's a taboo completely. It's

0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.599
<v Speaker 1>it's like it's beyond the law. It exists beyond the law.

0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.240
<v Speaker 1>It's something way worse than anything that we need to

0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.880
<v Speaker 1>sanction legally. You would think you would think, right, So, um,

0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:52.039
<v Speaker 1>what what Mivas and um Lee allegedly and Albert Fish

0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:58.760
<v Speaker 1>who is a murdering uh pederas cannibal of the nineteen twenties, um,

0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.479
<v Speaker 1>and of course one of the most famous of all,

0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.080
<v Speaker 1>Jeffrey Dahmer, what what they're what they were doing is

0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:10.240
<v Speaker 1>called pathological cannibalism, which basically that's that's psychology that has

0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.400
<v Speaker 1>very little to do with anthropology. The rest of cannibalism

0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.080
<v Speaker 1>falls very much into the realm of anthropology, and it's

0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.400
<v Speaker 1>been studied and study. It's actually one of the more

0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.560
<v Speaker 1>interesting fields of study, or sub fields of study, I think,

0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.080
<v Speaker 1>in in any aspect of anthropology. What what do you think? Well,

0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.600
<v Speaker 1>I mean, as far as cannibalism is religious custom and

0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:32.720
<v Speaker 1>offering up to the gods, that kind of thing with

0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.640
<v Speaker 1>the as, that's part of it. Yeah, there's there's a

0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.800
<v Speaker 1>bunch of different Yeah, there's different subsets and different kinds

0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.560
<v Speaker 1>you know, probably disturbing. Well, I don't, I know, you

0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.720
<v Speaker 1>do you school me? Okay, So you've got survival cannibalism,

0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:51.400
<v Speaker 1>learned cannibalism, which is which is subdivided into endocannibalism, but

0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.600
<v Speaker 1>which is eating like members of your family or your

0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.320
<v Speaker 1>tribe or whatever, and exo cannibalism, which is the opposite

0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.560
<v Speaker 1>it's eating um, members of outside your tribe or family.

0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.920
<v Speaker 1>And that's mainly for a religious uh not necessarily. We'll

0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.120
<v Speaker 1>get to that in a second. Um, there's there's also

0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.080
<v Speaker 1>pathological right, and then There's another one that I find

0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:18.720
<v Speaker 1>arguably the most disturbing auto cannibalism. That's eating oneself. Correct, Yes, Now,

0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.559
<v Speaker 1>I I didn't find any examples of some an actual

0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:27.520
<v Speaker 1>documented case of a person voluntarily eating themselves, aside for

0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.920
<v Speaker 1>from Jurgen Brandis, who apparently ate some of his penis

0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.720
<v Speaker 1>but didn't really like it. So usually cannibalism it's forced. Yeah,

0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.760
<v Speaker 1>but what about like, I know, I bite my nails,

0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.360
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of people think that that is it

0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.680
<v Speaker 1>is technically, Um, do you eat your fingernails clippings? Do

0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.760
<v Speaker 1>you just bought your nails? Because now, when I was younger, Yeah,

0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.080
<v Speaker 1>when I was younger, I would swallow my fingernail clippings

0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.480
<v Speaker 1>and uh, you would have like stomach problems and stuff,

0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.280
<v Speaker 1>I would imagine. So so I'm not supposed to swallow. Well,

0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:56.439
<v Speaker 1>I did those a little kid. I didn't know that.

0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.520
<v Speaker 1>I didn't realize that was a nervous kid. Kind of

0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.160
<v Speaker 1>it's a little more fortunate, I take it, so I don't.

0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.000
<v Speaker 1>I don't do that anymore. I don't swallow. That's good.

0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.880
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, you people do consider technically that biting your

0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.240
<v Speaker 1>fingernails is a form of auto cannibalism. UM. More often

0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.720
<v Speaker 1>it's uh, it's forced auto. Auto cannibalism is forced. UM.

0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.559
<v Speaker 1>I think in like two thousand three or two thousand four, UM,

0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.719
<v Speaker 1>in in the Congo, some Congolese rebels were accused of

0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:28.719
<v Speaker 1>um killing pigmies and uh and forcing other pigmies or no,

0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.959
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, forcing pigmies to eat parts of themselves before

0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.840
<v Speaker 1>killing them. And also you know, practicing cannibalism by eating

0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.920
<v Speaker 1>the pygmies themselves. Just some pretty terrible stuff going on

0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:40.840
<v Speaker 1>down in Congo. Yeah. And I know in the in

0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.920
<v Speaker 1>the early nineteen thirties and the United States even they

0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:50.479
<v Speaker 1>had a lot of racist fueled uh acts of auto cannibalism.

0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.720
<v Speaker 1>You know, I don't think enough people know about this.

0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.440
<v Speaker 1>I hadn't heard about this guy until UM I wrote

0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.079
<v Speaker 1>this article. Claude Neil. Had you heard of him before?

0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.280
<v Speaker 1>And now I hadn't because you know, they don't teach

0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.480
<v Speaker 1>the stuff in historical no, and they really should, so

0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.400
<v Speaker 1>I think it's kind of up to us to to

0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:10.360
<v Speaker 1>to teach it. Right. So in in Florida, UM, about

0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:16.240
<v Speaker 1>two thousand white Southerners gathered and basically sacrifice this black

0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.720
<v Speaker 1>guy named Claude neil and they advertise that they advertised

0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.320
<v Speaker 1>in the paper. They sent out invitation, right, and so

0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.880
<v Speaker 1>all these people show up and it's like this um

0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:33.199
<v Speaker 1>uh just kind of orgiastic um sacrifice or ritual where

0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.360
<v Speaker 1>they basically, um, they tortured him. They they cut off

0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.240
<v Speaker 1>his penis and made him eat it. It was forced

0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.800
<v Speaker 1>auto came right. And one thing that didn't make in

0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.320
<v Speaker 1>the article is that they forced him to say that

0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.160
<v Speaker 1>he liked how it tasted. And then finally, after a

0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:54.640
<v Speaker 1>couple of hours I take it, um, they finally lynched him.

0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.040
<v Speaker 1>They killed they hung him. And the sad thing is

0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.360
<v Speaker 1>this doesn't go down as like a sacrifice or an

0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.959
<v Speaker 1>auto can ballistic. It's called the lynching, which it's a

0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.319
<v Speaker 1>lynching is bad enough, but this seems so much further

0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.400
<v Speaker 1>beyond well it is, and it's a way, it's kind

0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.440
<v Speaker 1>of a way of even whitewashing. I mean, lynching is

0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.520
<v Speaker 1>bad enough, you're right, but when you don't hear about

0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.240
<v Speaker 1>those details, you think this guy was taking out and hung,

0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.080
<v Speaker 1>which is already horrible, but it just goes so far

0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.720
<v Speaker 1>beyond that. It's just it definitely isn't And like you said,

0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.319
<v Speaker 1>they don't teach that in the history books, and I

0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.400
<v Speaker 1>think they should so, but um, those are the types

0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.520
<v Speaker 1>of cannibalism, right, Um, what about you knew much about

0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.880
<v Speaker 1>survival cannibalism, like Alive and all that. Yeah, Well, the

0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.160
<v Speaker 1>Donner Party was one of the earlier ones. That was

0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.600
<v Speaker 1>the group of settlers that were heading out west right,

0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.800
<v Speaker 1>and they splinter group went off in this year in

0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.680
<v Speaker 1>Nevada Mountains and kind of encountered some bad badness weather

0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.800
<v Speaker 1>and the like, and they resorted to cannibalism. And then

0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.160
<v Speaker 1>the film and book Alive about the soccer team that

0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.800
<v Speaker 1>crashed in the andies, I think, yeah, you're team yeah,

0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.640
<v Speaker 1>And they ended up resorting to cannibalism from some of

0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.400
<v Speaker 1>their comrades who had who had already died. They survived

0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.680
<v Speaker 1>like seventy one days like that now, And you know,

0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.680
<v Speaker 1>that's one of the more forgivable, probably the most forgivable. Definitely,

0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.160
<v Speaker 1>cannibalis definitely because it's survival. I'd say, you're you're you're surviving.

0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.320
<v Speaker 1>And then these guys wanted to do what they had

0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.480
<v Speaker 1>to do, but they you know, they needed to agreed.

0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.600
<v Speaker 1>And and this was in nineteen seventy two or something

0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.160
<v Speaker 1>like that I think, thank you. Yeah, it was the

0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.679
<v Speaker 1>early seventies. Um, so this is really really recent. The

0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.960
<v Speaker 1>thing is is this has been going, This has happened

0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.200
<v Speaker 1>many many times. The dinner party. Um, there was a

0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.720
<v Speaker 1>there was actually something in the nineteenth century called the

0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.320
<v Speaker 1>custom of the sea, right, which is where, um, you

0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.160
<v Speaker 1>know where you uh, you're not happy with your lot

0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.680
<v Speaker 1>in life. That phrase that actually comes from the customer

0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.120
<v Speaker 1>to see where you're drawing lots drawing straws. Right, So

0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.280
<v Speaker 1>you you have the straws cut up two different lengths,

0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.200
<v Speaker 1>and everybody draws them. And as as per the custom

0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.720
<v Speaker 1>of the sea, the person who drew the shortest straw,

0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.040
<v Speaker 1>and this is like if you were stranded, if if

0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.200
<v Speaker 1>you were shipwrecked and you were forced to resort to

0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:06.120
<v Speaker 1>survival cannibalism, whoever drew the shortest straw, um was that

0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.199
<v Speaker 1>person was tapped to die. And whoever drew the next

0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.319
<v Speaker 1>shortest straw was a person manity to kill them, and

0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.960
<v Speaker 1>then everybody ate the person that was killed. It was

0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.920
<v Speaker 1>like basically a codified survival canibalism because it happened. It

0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.280
<v Speaker 1>was just a fact of life when you were a sailor. Yeah,

0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.560
<v Speaker 1>I guess it's because there were no rescuing parties or

0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:26.079
<v Speaker 1>anything like that. I mean, like you may just if

0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.120
<v Speaker 1>you were rescued somebody stumbled upon you, you know, So

0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:30.880
<v Speaker 1>it did happen a lot, and like you said, it

0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.560
<v Speaker 1>is the most forgivable form, at least in the eyes

0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:35.840
<v Speaker 1>of Westerners. It's survival, canibell, and you did what you

0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:37.640
<v Speaker 1>had to do to stay a lot. But at the

0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.040
<v Speaker 1>same time, um, it's kind of chilling in that how

0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.760
<v Speaker 1>how easy it seems like it it would be under

0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.240
<v Speaker 1>those circumstances to eat another person, you know, which kind

0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.760
<v Speaker 1>of points out that at any given point in time,

0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.559
<v Speaker 1>where like one plane crash or shipwreck away from you know,

0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.120
<v Speaker 1>eating one another. Yeah, it's it's a little kind of

0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.880
<v Speaker 1>spooky to realize, is that it's it's there. It's innate

0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.440
<v Speaker 1>in all of us, right, nobody would think that they

0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.280
<v Speaker 1>would want to do something like that. But when push

0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.640
<v Speaker 1>comes to shove and you face you're facing death, and

0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.040
<v Speaker 1>there's a difference also, I mean, I guess you're a

0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.400
<v Speaker 1>lot in life that that story. You're actually killing somebody

0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.160
<v Speaker 1>to eat them. But in the case of the alive ones,

0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.400
<v Speaker 1>they they you know, they ate they ate the dead Yeah,

0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.840
<v Speaker 1>they're falling comrades. So so that's that's a difference. Yeah, yeah,

0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.480
<v Speaker 1>that's survival cannibalism. And then you've got learned cannibalism, right,

0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.120
<v Speaker 1>and this is the stuff that's like really heavily studied.

0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.520
<v Speaker 1>Um there's uh, basically they call it learned cannibalism or

0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:43.360
<v Speaker 1>customary cannibalism because it's it's a socially indoctrinated right. Um.

0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.800
<v Speaker 1>For with endo cannibalism, generally it's part of like a

0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:51.080
<v Speaker 1>funeral rite. The four A people in Peppua, New Guinea

0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.640
<v Speaker 1>and the Worry in the Amazon were very well studied

0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.520
<v Speaker 1>for their practices of cannibalism. Like the Worry for example,

0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.840
<v Speaker 1>what they were doing this. Uh, this anthropologist named Beth

0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.240
<v Speaker 1>Conklin found out that they were by eating there they're

0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.480
<v Speaker 1>um recently deceased, they were transforming them. The warrior were

0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.840
<v Speaker 1>really big on or are really big on changing their

0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.400
<v Speaker 1>surroundings so that they're not reminded. Now, actually it's for

0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:23.640
<v Speaker 1>the it's for them for the survivors. Uh. They they

0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.360
<v Speaker 1>were they're supposed to change everything that reminds them of

0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.480
<v Speaker 1>the dead person so they're not sad or depressed. It's

0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.520
<v Speaker 1>the way, their way of getting over grief and and

0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.200
<v Speaker 1>eating the dead body is um, it's a method of

0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.080
<v Speaker 1>transforming it. So that's a that's a pretty peaceful method

0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:45.080
<v Speaker 1>of cannibalism. That's endocannibalism, and the foray do the same

0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:50.120
<v Speaker 1>thing for slightly different reasons. They're actually looking to gain uh,

0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.480
<v Speaker 1>certain attributes like say wisdom or strength or that kind

0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.040
<v Speaker 1>of thing. And it's very specific to the body part, right,

0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.960
<v Speaker 1>so like uh, and and only on certain people can

0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.880
<v Speaker 1>eat certain parts of a deceased relative. It's it's really

0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.080
<v Speaker 1>interesting how you know, over the course of centuries or millennia,

0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.800
<v Speaker 1>humans can really slap labels on all sorts of different stuff. Yeah,

0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:15.480
<v Speaker 1>but you know, this kind of deserves to be broken

0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.800
<v Speaker 1>down because they're they're also different, you know, all the

0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.480
<v Speaker 1>different forms. So I don't think it's just willy nilly

0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.480
<v Speaker 1>the way they slap different names on the know, but

0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.920
<v Speaker 1>that raises the question why, like why why do people

0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.720
<v Speaker 1>you know, why do why do cultures around the world

0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:38.920
<v Speaker 1>have codified socially sanctioned UM cannibalism? And I think UM

0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.560
<v Speaker 1>really in the article I divided that between two approaches

0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:48.880
<v Speaker 1>and anthropology, it's materialism and idealism. Right, So material did

0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.280
<v Speaker 1>you get this far in the article? And actually I

0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.600
<v Speaker 1>fell asleep about at that point. I think I'm just

0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.960
<v Speaker 1>of our readers are or listeners are asleep as well.

0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:02.920
<v Speaker 1>It's my voice that has a very lolling uh. So basically, um,

0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.320
<v Speaker 1>the materialists say that cannibalism generated from necessity, like there's

0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.160
<v Speaker 1>a drought, that kind of thing, and um, some some

0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.400
<v Speaker 1>people who adhere to that are saying, you know, hey,

0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.120
<v Speaker 1>it happens this cannibalism would would just be logical when

0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.879
<v Speaker 1>you know, you don't have a grocery store. We didn't

0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.320
<v Speaker 1>know how to tame crops and we were just hunter gatherers,

0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.480
<v Speaker 1>and all of a sudden there's a drought, so you

0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:31.919
<v Speaker 1>do survival cannibalism. Uh. And then the idealists say, no, no, no, Um,

0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.760
<v Speaker 1>it's we interpret the world through symbols and uh so

0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.480
<v Speaker 1>the human brain represents wisdom and that's and then cannibalism

0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.399
<v Speaker 1>came after we started interpreting things as symbols. Uh. And

0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.320
<v Speaker 1>nobody has figured out who's right. But I tend to

0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:53.120
<v Speaker 1>lean more towards the materialists. Yeah, I think cannibalism it's like, yeah,

0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.040
<v Speaker 1>it's like we were saying, it's it's I think it's

0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.040
<v Speaker 1>innate and all of us and when the chips are down,

0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.959
<v Speaker 1>I would eat you, you know. And his gibson already

0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.640
<v Speaker 1>told me that she would eat me. She called me meaty. Well,

0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:05.960
<v Speaker 1>I think i'd provide a hearty meal as well, you would.

0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.520
<v Speaker 1>I think I think we're about on par Yeah, yeah,

0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.320
<v Speaker 1>I think, uh at the very least, arm in mipas

0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.000
<v Speaker 1>could live on us for a very long time. Well,

0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.320
<v Speaker 1>I'm hungry. I'm a little hungry too, Chuck. Do you

0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.320
<v Speaker 1>want to go get something to eat? That's a great idea.

0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.040
<v Speaker 1>I mean, nice rare burger might go with a salad.

0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.080
<v Speaker 1>For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.000
<v Speaker 1>it how stuff works dot com? Let us know what

0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.200
<v Speaker 1>you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff

0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:37.280
<v Speaker 1>works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two

0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.800
<v Speaker 1>thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you