But is it always a horrendous evil? What about in those ethically challenging situations where eating another human is the difference between survival and death? For instance, in 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes and the starving passengers had to eat the dead to survive. Alternatively, there is the famous story of the Donner Party, whose poorly planned and ill-timed journey from Midwest America to California left 60 people stranded in the snow in 1846. Unfortunately, as the cold set in and their food diminished, many of the hapless settlers resorted to cannibalism.

It may surprise some readers to learn that, in the US and the UK, there are no specific laws against cannibalism. However, other laws provide indirect ways to address it, making it illegal to obtain and consume human flesh or any other human body matter.

While cannibalism is clearly a challenging topic, our relationship with it as a species has been more complicated than many people expect. It may be hard to swallow (pun utterly intended), but not all cultures have forbidden or been revolted by it in the same ways. In fact, there are some cultures that practice what is called endocannibalism – a mortuary ritual where parts of the dead are eaten – today. Archaeologists are now frequently finding increasingly large amounts of evidence that shows just how deeply entwined this type of cannibalism was in our species’ past. So how did this supposed “ultimate taboo” come into existence?

The origins of the taboo

Of course, there is nothing universal about this taboo; it is very much a Western thing. It seems our revulsion to the practice is tied to other explanations, such as the role culture has played in shaping our attitudes. As with many things in Western culture, the story probably starts with the ancient Greeks who not only vilified cannibalism in their myths and stories, but also accused various non-Greek cultures of practicing it. This was basically a useful tactic to accuse other people of being barbarians and it became a recurring theme throughout history: accusations of cannibalism were useful for alienating and Othering people.

After the Greeks, the Romans continued the vilification of cannibalism, accusing those they did not trust as practicing it. One such group was a newly emerging religion of the time, called Christianity (you may have heard of them), which was viewed with suspicion. According to contemporary fears, Christians practiced cannibalism as part of their religious rites. Today, Catholics recognize the Eucharist as being a symbolic sacrament, but that was not always the case. Transubstantiation, the idea that the wine and bread taken at Mass transform into the actual flesh and blood of Christ, was a cornerstone of the faith throughout the medieval period. Those who questioned its reality could be accused of heresy.

By the medieval period, when Christianity was established across Europe, allegations of cannibalism were passed onto other people, especially outgroups. For instance, the European Jewish community was frequently accused of ritually sacrificing Christian children in an act that included cannibalism. At the same time, people accused of witchcraft or being pagan were also frequently accused of eating human flesh as part of their profane acts.  

Outside of Europe

Non-European communities and peoples were also often accused of cannibalism. The most commonly cited examples relate to the Aztecs. According to Spanish sources, the Aztecs ate human flesh as part of their religious practices but there is no historical consensus on whether this is true. The Aztecs certainly practiced human sacrifice, their own sources – inscriptions and documents made of bark, known as “codices” – confirm it, but whether they really ate humans is more debatable.

As mentioned above, labeling individuals or whole peoples as cannibals was a useful way to dehumanize them. When Columbus reached the New World, he initially described the Indigenous populations as being friendly. However, when the Spanish failed to find gold, they became interested in slaves and conquest instead. Suddenly, those “friendly” Indigenous populations – the Aztecs and Maya – were being accused of cannibalism, and those who resisted imperial rule the most were accused of being the worst offenders.  

By this point, as is clear from the examples above, the taboo had become well-established in Western culture. The act of eating human flesh continued to appear as something evil savages did, an idea that was perpetuated in the works of writers and thinkers as diverse as Shakespeare and Daniel Defoe, to the Brothers Grimm and Sigmund Freud.

But this historical objection to cannibalism is somewhat entertaining if one takes a closer look at European culture during most of the period discussed above. Despite the revulsion towards cannibalism and those who practiced it, Europeans had a weird habit of consuming human parts while conveniently overlooking what that meant.

Corpse medicine: the secret medicine made from people

Until a few hundred years ago, Europeans were actually cannibals. Whether peasant or priest, king or even Pope, consuming human “bits” was far from exceptional. But as with the potential acts of human-munching practices among the Aztecs, there were rules. Not everyone could be eaten, nor was just any flesh acceptable. Instead, people sought special ingredients for tonics, tinctures, and other remedies.

Believe it or not, powdered mummy remains were at a premium. The idea emerged in the 12^th century when Europeans mistranslated the medical texts of influential Muslim scholars. In particular, the word “mumiya”, used to describe bituminous materials used in Arabic medicine, was translated to “mumia” in Latin, where it was suddenly interpreted as a substance produced by the long preserved and desiccated remains found in Egyptian tombs. The confusion was partially based on the word “mummy”, referring to these dead bodies, but also because mummies were known to have been embalmed with bitumen.

This confusion led to wild enthusiasm for mummy pieces, and the looting of many tombs, used for various remedies to treat everything from heart attacks to headaches. The craze was so significant that counterfeit body parts were common on the market; there was even an illicit trade in body parts procured more recently by grave robbers.

In addition to the purported healing powers of dried mummy parts, medieval and early Europeans also used powdered human skulls as a treatment for headaches, while human fat could be rubbed onto the skin to treat conditions like gout. Even human blood was a valued medical ingredient for centuries, from the Romans who recommended Gladiator blood to treat epilepsy to 17^th century German peasants who hoped for cups of blood from freshly executed criminals to treat their ills. Even within a learned society, drinking blood was regarded as a sound practice.

You might be wondering how such gory ingredients could be considered effective, but medicine has not always operated with the same ideas we have today. For centuries, medicine was influenced by other concepts that are alien to us today. One concept, known as the Doctrine of Signatures, was particularly important in this context and was influential during the Renaissance. It basically means “like heals like” and was responsible for a range of medical beliefs that we would laugh at today. For instance, walnuts were believed to be cures for headaches because the nut looked like a tiny brain. With this logic, eating part of a human could help treat illnesses or diseases in the related body part – human skull dust could treat headaches, and human blood could cure blood diseases.

At the same time, ideas about death were not as fixed as ours are today. A body was not necessarily always regarded as completely dead but could be partially dead or mostly dead for a time after death, depending on the period or the place. This meant a dead person’s body could still contain some aspect of life, which itself could be transferred to someone if they consumed it.  

Ultimately, the practice of corpse medicine became less popular as the scientific method became more influential and empirical evidence gained value. The more rigorous practices of the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries also changed our understanding of how disease works and how the body responds to it. At the same time, advances in pharmacology revealed the active ingredients in plants and other substances, which allowed the bits of dead people to finally be laid to rest.  

Still, the fact that corpse medicine was so prevalent in European culture for so many centuries reveals the tricky relationship we have had with cannibalism. It seems cannibalism is always something other people do, especially those we don’t like. If we partake in feasting on human parts, it must obviously be called something different, lest we accept the line between supposed savagery and civility is all too thin.