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Cannibalism within most animal species arises only in extreme circumstances. It is not clear to me why this is less prevalent than intra-species killing, as the latter has a clear negative impact on the survival of the species, whereas eating already dead fellows has no impact. In any case, there is a huge taboo on cannibalism, and humans are no different. But it happens in extreme situations, and famine may be one.
Cormac Ó Gráda studies the incidence of cannibalism during famines and focuses on Ireland. Unlike for other great famines elsewhere or before, conclusive evidence for cannibalism and especially murder-cannibalism seems difficult to find for 19th century Ireland. The famine was certainly severe enough for some hearsay about it to emerge, perhaps figuratively. Does the lack of a record imply that the Irish are more humane and principled? Or that the taboo is so strong that cannibalism is unmentionable? While the paper provides an interesting analysis of the historical record, answers to these questions would also be interesting.
Cormac Ó Gráda studies the incidence of cannibalism during famines and focuses on Ireland. Unlike for other great famines elsewhere or before, conclusive evidence for cannibalism and especially murder-cannibalism seems difficult to find for 19th century Ireland. The famine was certainly severe enough for some hearsay about it to emerge, perhaps figuratively. Does the lack of a record imply that the Irish are more humane and principled? Or that the taboo is so strong that cannibalism is unmentionable? While the paper provides an interesting analysis of the historical record, answers to these questions would also be interesting.
1 comment:
I've got a few notes I'd like to share on this, with a very small background in evolution:
"It is not clear to me why this is less prevalent than intra-species killing, as the latter has a clear negative impact on the survival of the species, whereas eating already dead fellows has no impact. "
There are a few things to unpack here. One is that we look at the survival of individual genetic traits, not species (species are just a convenient population tool).
Secondly, we have a causation issue here: why is the other animal dead? The pithy reaction to this is that animals have tried cannibalism with diseased members of their own species and it didn't work, that's why we don't do it anymore. The more nuanced explanation is that if it's due to sickness, you are also likely to get that same sickness and die yourself.
Knowing why your meal died (preferably by your hand) has an enormous benefit for mitigating that risk.
On a completely different note for this topic, cannibalism itself may be taboo because it can lead to very unhealthy mutations (mad cow disease is one such example).
Moving on to Ireland--Western cultures and Roman Catholic influences in particular, focus on guilt rather than shame. Such guilt can manifest itself in the image that "God would rather you die than eat your brothers and sisters. Suffer a short time now or later for eternity."
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