Abstract
Using historical evidence of cannibalism existence, this paper identifies different forms and practices, and explains the motives for such behaviors.

From the Paper
"For millions of years, the majority of humans and their ancestors around the world have eaten meat, derived from a countless number of animals. However, the majority of these people have avoided one particular kind of meat: human flesh. For a human to knowingly eat the flesh of his own kind has been taboo to the most extreme definition of the term. Even the thought of it provokes a deep-rooted, enculturated repulsiveness that is so powerful it has actually prevented modern humans from eating remains of dead people for the sole purpose of survival (Barker, Hulme, and Iversen 1998:37). In other words, they would rather die than eat the meat of another person. The general practice of eating human flesh, anthropophagy, commonly referred to as cannibalism, has always been a subject full of controversy and debate. Hundreds of scientific studies have been published on the subject, but few have focused on the anthropological reasons for its supposed occurrence. In order to understand the true nature of cannibalism, it is necessary to examine it from a number of different perspectives. First, the historical evidence indicating that it took place must be carefully analyzed and interpreted. Second, the different forms of cannibalism must be identified and defined, and examples of their historical presence must be cited. Lastly, the motives of each type need to be explained, detailing the various tendencies of cannibalistic peoples and their practices. Only then will the appropriate significance of cannibalism and its existence become clear."

Tags:ancient, anthropophagy, archaeology, cannibal, cannibalism, culture, endocannibalism, exocannibalism

Abstract
This paper discusses the evidence for cannibalism among homo erectus and other Late Pleistocene hominids. The paper reviews Chinese and Spanish sites in detail in order to weigh the evidence for cannibalism. The author concludes that they do in fact prove that it happened.

From the Paper
"Everything we know about ourselves ends in mystery. Of course we are intimately familiar with the circumstances of our daily lives as individual human beings. We know our faces, bodies, activities, friends and family ..."

Tags:cannibalism, homo, erectus

Abstract
This three-page undergraduate-level paper discusses cannibalism in 1846 along the Oregon Trail. The experience of the Donner Party is examined in order to resolve the issue of whether or not cannibalism is ever justified.

Abstract
This paper compares William Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest" and Michal de Montaigne's essay, "Of Cannibals," in which they explore the barbaric man in his natural environment and the detrimental effects the moral man's artificially civilized society has upon it. The paper shows how Shakespeare's play is a direct criticism of the perspectives of Montaigne in his essay.

From the Paper
"The contrast between the priorities of the natural world and civilization brings out the weak characteristics of nature. Caliban's actions are guided by his innate practicality to emphasize on necessity, whereas the moral man is theoretically driven more so by moral concerns. This notion is apparent when Caliban attempts to "rape" Miranda. Prospero accuses Caliban when he says: "...Thou didst seek to violate the honor of my child." Caliban rebuts Prospero's accusation by stating: "O ho, O ho! Would't have been done!/ Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else/ This isle with Calibans. (I.ii. 347-349) Caliban justifies his actions with the imperative need to proliferate his race, which is part of his nature. However, Prospero and Miranda perceive this brutish act as savage and immoral. And in doing so, validate their superiority and exploitation of Caliban."

Tags:morality, society, civilization

Abstract
The essay "Of Cannibals" is a narrative prose by 16th Century French writer, Michel de Montaigne, describing the culture of a South American tribe (Native Americans). In it, Montaigne compares the Native American tribe's society and culture with that of Western society. This paper discusses and enumerates these comparisons between the two societies, as well as describes in detail the different social customs and lifestyles of the cannibalistic group. A comparison and analysis of the differences between the two societies in Montaigne's point of view is made for further understanding of the author's objective, that is, to criticize Western society of its conservative and strict compliance to dogmatic beliefs that continually plague the people from Western societies. Thus, Montaigne analyzes "barbarism" and "civilization" in context of the two societies.

From the Paper
"The act of war and cannibalism in this tribe is one important comparison of Montaigne to the Europeans. The author justifies the tribe's barbarism and cannibalism through several explanations. According to him, barbarism, or the act of war popular among tribes people, is one of the two important articles taught in their society, that is, valor towards their enemies or "resolution in war." Cannibalism is said to be done not "for nourishment", because cannibalism for the tribes people is an "extreme form of vengeance." Montaigne justifies this "barbarous horror of so cruel an action" by comparing the tribe's cannibalism with that of "cannibalism" in Western society. For him, the tribe's cannibalism is much more honorable and just, since the prisoner is killed first and only eaten when he was already dead. The Western society, on the other hand, practices a more "barbarous" act of cannibalism because, as Montaigne had described, "[I] conceive there is more barbarity in eating a man alive, than when he is dead... in tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments... among neighbors and fellow-citizens... under color of piety and religion...""

Tags:skepticism, humanist, movement, Antarctic, France, Polygamy

Abstract
This paper describes the eating of human flesh by several killers including the infamous Albert Fish, Joachim Kroll and Jeffrey Dahmer. The paper conjures that the answer to this detestable and violent act lies somewhere in the depraved and sick minds of these individuals that themselves were brutalized by child rape, physical battery and outright torture by relatives or even their own parents.

Table of Contents:
Overview
Albert Fish--Cannibal of Brooklyn
Joachim Kroll--German Cannibal
Jeffrey Dahmer--Cannibal Extraordinaire
Final Thoughts

From the Paper
"In the early 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was helping to stabilize the American economy as a result of the Great Depression, Albert Hamilton Fish, a serial killer and cannibal known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and the Brooklyn Vampire, was under arrest in New York City for the kidnapping and brutal murder of twelve-year-old Grace Budd. In 1928, Mr. Fish, who had assumed the name of Mr. Howard, became a close friend of the Budd family and was allowed to take Grace to a birthday party."

Tags:depraved, lunch, perverse, intestines, angel

From the Paper
"This study will analyze George Fitzhugh's "Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters". The study will consider the ways the author supports his arguments in favor of slavery, the evidence he uses and how he uses it, and to what extent the evidence is unconvincing.

As the book's editor points out, Fitzhugh himself admits that he is not trying to convince the reader of the truth of his thesis by using objective arguments based on well-documented and clearly presented evidence. To the contrary, Fitzhugh argues that the enemy---those who would outlaw slavery---are split into many camps and therefore "we are compelled to vary our mode of attack from regular cannonade to bushfighting, to suit the occasion"

In other words, the issue of slavery is so essential to the ... "

From the Paper
"Evidence for the practice of cannibalism by the Anasazi people of the American Southwest has been growing during the last three decades. As archaeologists have excavated new sites and re-examined findings from previously explored locations, the taphonomic and forensic analysis of human skeletal remains has led to a hypothesis of cannibalism at as many as 28 Anasazi sites. Though the first suggestion of cannibalism was made in 1902, the absence of any sign of such a practice in the ethnographic literature may have mitigated against thorough investigation of the notion. But with the systematic application of the methods of physical anthropology archaeologists have steadily produced a body of cases in which cannibalism seems the most likely explanation of anomalous states and dispositions of human remains. The reasons behind the practice--whether it was.."

From the Paper
"The Aztec Empire existed in a region of Mesoamerica which is now part of Mexico. In the early sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortes, conquered the Aztec people and destroyed their culture as it existed at the time. One of the most shocking aspects of that culture to the Spaniards was the fact that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice on a massive scale. The invaders were further shocked when they realized that the Aztec Indians also routinely engaged in cannibalism with the remains from their human sacrifices. In addition to the eyewitness accounts of the Spanish conquistadors, there is evidence of both human sacrifice and cannibalism to be found in the ancient writings of the Aztec people themselves. These writings show that the Aztecs had a religious motive in undertaking human sacrifices. They believed that if their gods were not periodically ... "

Abstract
Jonathan Swift ("A Modest Proposal"), Michel de Montaigne ("Of Cannibals"), and Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) offer comparable views on the darker side of human nature.

From the Paper
"Jonathan Swift ("A Modest Proposal"), Michel de Montaigne ("Of Cannibals"), and Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) offer comparable views on the darker side of human nature. Their views reflect patterns of the world in which we live as that world slips into an increasingly self-centered, frightened, materialistic and God-less reality.

Swift satirically presents a terrifying solution to the problem of overpopulation, specifically, from the British perspective, the overpopulation of poor Irish who were seen to be having too many children and who would inevitably require British aid to care for those children. Swift suggests a solution: the children should be eaten:

I have been assured by a very knowing American . . . that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old ..."