Tag Archive for: cannibalism

Flight 571: The Opera Tells the Story of Survival in the Andes

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An opera debuts in Vancouver this weekend about the infamous 1972 plane crash in the Andes in which members of a Uruguayan rugby team resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Flight 571 survivors being rescued in the Andes
Survivors of the Flight 571 crash wave to rescuers after 72 days on the mountain.

It probably won’t be quite as funny as Cannibal! The Musical, but Vancouver composer Lloyd Burritt has turned the tragic story of Flight 571 into an opera.

Flight 571 crashed in the Andes on October 13th, 1972. It was carrying 45 members of a Uruguayan rugby team, only 27 of whom survived the crashed. Many more succumbed to their injuries, the cold, harsh temperatures, an avalanche and starvation in the following days and weeks.

Related: Cannibal survivor recounts horrors in new book

By radio, the survivors learned the search for them had been abandoned. What little food they had depleted quickly. Faced with the inevitable, they began eating their friends and loved ones to survive who had died earlier and remained preserved in the snow.

After two months stranded on the mountain, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa embarked on a 10-day trek to find help. By the time they returned, there were only 14 left to be rescued.

It sounds like Burritt has chosen to reduce the role of cannibalism in his opera to nothing more than a footnote.

More info here: Miracle Flight 571

Flight 571 crash site in the Andes
Flight 571 crash site

Weird Book Club Recommended Reading

Franklin Expedition Erebus Shipwreck Found

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170 years after the crew of the doomed Franklin Expedition succumbed to madness and cannibalism, the wreck of the HMS Erebus has been found.
Shipwreck of the HMS Erebus from the doomed Franklin Expedition has been found

After 170 years, Canadian explorers have found one of the two missing ships from the Franklin Expedition. The ships departed in 1845 with 129 men in search of the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic.

Related: Artifacts from the Doomed Franklin Expedition Unveiled

According to a note found in a mound of stones, the ships became stranded in ice. In 1848, the remaining crew abandoned the ships. Over the years skeletal remains and mummies preserved in permafrost have been found, with forensic evidence supporting Inuit tales that the men had resorted to cannibalism for survival. They had also most likely been driven to madness by lead poisoning from the containers used to store food on the ships.

Up until now, however, the missing ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, had not been seen since they vanished in 1846. The Erebus wreck was found near King William Island, where two long-dead men were found in a lifeboat in 1859.

The latest search for the missing ships was announced in July.

via Washington Post

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Jane: Jamestown Cannibalism Victim

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A skull found in Jamestown supports speculation of cannibalism

Jane is the skull of a 14-year-old girl was unearthed at the site of the early Virginia colony of Jamestown in 2012. Marks on the bone showed clear evidence that after death, the girl had been butchered and eaten. After the flesh had been peeled back, the skull was broken open with blows from an axe. Criss-crossing lines were found on the bones, traditional cuts for animal butchery of the time. This indicates Jane’s flesh, tongue and brains were removed – normal 17th century cuisine.

This discovery confirmed years of speculation that the settlers of Jamestown had turned to cannibalism during the period known as the Starving Time. During the winter of 1609-1610, a delayed supply ship and a small harvest due to drought lead to the death of all but 61 of the colony’s 500 inhabitants. Jamestown was decimated by starvation and disease.

Archeologist William Kelso, head of the Jamestown Recovery Project, believes Jane is a lone case.

Aghori: Cannibal Sect of Hindu Monks

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The Aghori monks are a Hindu sect known predominantly for their taboo practices such as the ritual cannibalism of the dead.

An Aghori man drinks ritual alcohol from a human skull

The Aghori are Shaivites, ascetic sadhus devoted to Shiva. They believe the Hindu god of transformation through death and destruction is the supreme being, embracing death and devoting their lives to living in filth. They often live in or near cremation sites, covering themselves in ashes of the dead, and use bones to make bowls and jewelry.

More: Cannibalism on Cult of Weird

An Aghori man with a human skull

An Aghori man with a human skull

Human remains for the Aghori rituals are gathered from the sacred but highly polluted Ganges river, where the ashes and bones of cremated dead are thrown from the Varanasi ghats. During cholera epidemics of the past, thousands of uncremated bodies were dumped into the river.

Still today, the bodies of holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy/chicken pox, people bitten by snakes, people who have committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but weighted down in the Ganges. The bodies eventually come loose and float down the river.

The corpses are worn, used as alters, or consumed to serve as a reminder of mortality and the challenge to transcend the duality of life and death. For an Aghori sadhu, they are symbolic of himself.

The flesh is eaten raw or cooked over an open flame.

Drinking alcohol from a human skull, known as kapala, is another common tradition in Aghori ritual, as is drinking urine and eating fecal matter.

Cannibalism & Human Evolution

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The Beginning Was the End by Oscar Kiss Maerth - human evolution through cannibalismCan intelligence be eaten?

In 1971 a book hit the shelves suggesting human evolution was driven by cannibalism. The book is The Beginning Was the End by Oscar Kiss Maerth.

The book proposes that early cannibalistic apes discovered the aphrodisiac effects of brains, and became addicted to them. However, the nutrient-rich brain matter inadvertently kickstarted evolution, leading to increased brain size and intelligence while causing the loss of body hair and our innate psychic abilities.

The book claims these advances ultimately caused de-evolution, leading us to be disconnected from nature and each other, suffering from distorted sexuality from hormone imbalances and driven insane by the pressures of our large brains inside our skulls.

Maerth foresees a return to cannibalism in the future, and cautions the reader to stay as far away from it as possible.