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February 6, 2009

Strange But True!

Q. There's an easier word for “anthropophagy” but the practice is every bit as disgusting whatever it's called.

A. Make that “cannibalism,” as practiced by the famous Donner Party when storms stranded them in the High Sierras in the winter of 1846-47, and by the likes of the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer and Fritz Haarmann, the Hanover Vampire. We humans are omnivores, eating entire plants and just about any part of an animal short of the hair and hooves, says Yvonne Carts-Powell in “The Science of Heroes: The Real- Life Possibilities Behind the Hit TV Show.” Though rare, cannibalism can be a cultural event, as among the Fore people of New Guinea, who make it a respectful funerary ritual. Even though they cooked the bodies before eating them, they still contracted a mysterious fatal illness called “kuru,” akin to mad-cow disease.


 
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