endocannibalism

Herodotus (3.38) mentions funerary cannibalism among the Callatiae, a tribe of India.{{Cite book |author-last=Herodotus |title=The Histories |at=Book 3, chapter 38 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=3:chapter=38 |via=Perseus Digital Library}}

It is believed that some South American indigenous cultures, such as the Mayoruna people, practiced endocannibalism in the past.{{cite book |author=Dorn, Georgette M. |author2=Tenenbaum, Barbara A. |name-list-style=amp |title=Encyclopedia of Latin American history and culture |publisher=C. Scribner's Sons |location=New York |year=1996 |pages=535–37 |isbn=978-0-684-19253-6 |url=http://personalwebs.oakland.edu/~dow/personal/papers/cannibal/cannibal.html |access-date=5 August 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807033139/http://personalwebs.oakland.edu/~dow/personal/papers/cannibal/cannibal.html |archive-date=7 August 2007 |url-status=dead }} The Amahuaca Indians of Peru picked particles of bone out of the ashes of a cremation fire, ground them with corn, and drank them as a kind of gruel.{{cite journal |last1=Dole |first1=Gertrude |title=Division of Anthropology: Endocannibalism Among the Amahuaca Indians |journal=Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences |volume=24 |issue=5 Series II |year=1962 |pages=567–73 |doi=10.1111/j.2164-0947.1962.tb01432.x }} For the Wari' people in western Brazil, endocannibalism was an act of compassion where the roasted remains of fellow Wari' were consumed in a mortuary setting;{{cite book |title=Consuming Grief |url=https://archive.org/details/consuminggriefco0000conk |url-access=registration |last=Conklin |first=Beth |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=2001 }} ideally, the affines (relatives by marriage) would consume the entire corpse, and rejecting the practice would be offensive to the direct family members. Ya̧nomamö consumed the ground-up bones and ashes of cremated kinsmen in an act of mourning; this is still classified as endocannibalism, although, strictly speaking, "flesh" is not eaten.{{cite web |url=http://users.rcn.com/salski/No18-19Folder/Endocannibalism.htm |title=Endocannibalism of the Yanomami |publisher=Users.rcn.com |access-date=2010-03-31}} Such practices are generally not believed to have been driven by need for protein or other food.

Kuru is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by prions that are found in humans.{{cite journal |last1=Wadsworth |first1=J. D. F. |last2=Joiner |first2=S. |last3=Linehan |first3=J. M. |last4=Desbruslais |first4=M. |last5=Fox |first5=K. |last6=Cooper |first6=S. |last7=Cronier |first7=S. |last8=Asante |first8=E. A. |last9=Mead |first9=S. |last10=Brandner |first10=S. |last11=Hill |first11=A. F. |last12=Collinge |first12=J. |title=Kuru prions and sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease prions have equivalent transmission properties in transgenic and wild-type mice |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=105 |issue=10 |pages=3885–90 |year=2008 |pmid=18316717 |pmc=2268835 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0800190105 |jstor=25461336 |bibcode=2008PNAS..105.3885W |doi-access=free }} Human prion diseases come in sporadic, genetic and infectious forms. Kuru was the first infectious human prion disease discovered.{{cite journal |title=Infectious prion diseases in humans: Cannibalism, iatrogenicity and zoonoses |journal=Infection, Genetics and Evolution |date=2014-08-01 |pages=303–12 |volume=26 |doi=10.1016/j.meegid.2014.06.010 |pmid=24956437 |first1=Stéphane |last1=Haïk |first2=Jean-Philippe |last2=Brandel}} It spread through the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, among whom relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet.{{cite book |author=Diamond JM |author-link=Jared Diamond |title=Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |year=1997 |page=208 |isbn=978-0-393-03891-0|title-link=Guns, Germs, and Steel }} Kuru was 8 to 9 times more prevalent in women and children than in men at its peak because, while the men of the village consumed muscle tissues, the women and children would eat the rest of the body, including the brain, where the prion particles were particularly concentrated.{{EMedicine|article|220043|Kuru}} Historical research suggests the kuru epidemic may have originated around 1900 from a single individual who lived on the edge of Fore territory, and who is thought to have spontaneously developed some form of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a related prion disease. Oral history records that cannibalism began within the Fore in the late 19th century. Research at University College London identified a gene that protects against prion diseases by studying the Fore people.{{cite web |title=A Tribe in Papua New Guinea Reveals The Upside of Cannibalism |url=http://www.medicaldaily.com/eating-human-brains-led-tribe-developing-brain-disease-resistant-genes-337672 |access-date=2015-09-01|date=2015-06-11 }}

Currently there is no treatment to cure or even control kuru, but there are numerous programs being funded by universities and national institutes, such as the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This institute is currently funding research into the genetic and cellular process behind the development and transmission of kuru and other TSE diseases.{{cite web |title=Kuru Information Page: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) |url=http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/kuru/kuru.htm |website=ninds.nih.gov |access-date=2015-09-01}}

Whether or not endocannibalism was commonplace through much of human prehistory remains controversial.

A team led by Michael Alpers, a lifelong investigator of kuru,{{cite web |url=http://www.med.monash.edu.au/news/2009/michael-alpers-biography.html |title=A life of determination |publisher=Med.monash.edu.au |date=2009-02-27 |access-date=2010-03-31}} found genes that protect against similar prion diseases were widespread, suggesting that such endocannibalism could have once been common around the world.{{cite journal |first1=Simon |last1=Mead |first2=Michael P. H. |last2=Stumpf |first3=Jerome |last3=Whitfield |first4=Jonathan A. |last4=Beck |first5=Mark |last5=Poulter |first6=Tracy |last6=Campbell |first7=James B. |last7=Uphill |first8=David |last8=Goldstein |first9=Michael |last9=Alpers |first10=Elizabeth M. C. |last10=Fisher |first11=John |last11=Collinge |display-authors=6 |title=Balancing selection at the prion protein gene consistent with prehistoric kurulike epidemics |journal=Science |volume=300 |issue=5619 |pages=640–43 |year=2003 |pmid=12690204 |doi=10.1126/science.1083320 |bibcode=2003Sci...300..640M |s2cid=19269845 |doi-access=free }}{{cite web | author=Danny Kingsley |url=http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/04/11/828800.htm?site=science_dev&topic=latest&listaction=unsubscribe |title=Genes suggest cannibalism common in human past |publisher=ABC Science Online |date=2003-04-11 |access-date=2010-03-31}}

A genetic study with a range of authors published by the University College London in 2009 declared evidence of a "powerful episode" of natural selection in recent humans. This evidence is found in the 127V polymorphism, a mutation which protects against the kuru disease. In simpler terms, it would appear the kuru disease has affected all humans to the extent we have a specialised immune response to it.{{cite journal |last1=Mead |first1=Simon |last2=Whitfield |first2=Jerome |last3=Poulter |first3=Mark |last4=Shah |first4=Paresh |last5=Uphill |first5=James |last6=Campbell |first6=Tracy |last7=Al-Dujaily |first7=Huda |last8=Hummerich |first8=Holger |last9=Beck |first9=Jon |last10=Mein |first10=Charles A. |last11=Verzilli |first11=Claudio |last12=Whittaker |first12=John |last13=Alpers |first13=Michael P. |last14=Collinge |first14=John |title=A Novel Protective Prion Protein Variant that Colocalizes with Kuru Exposure |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |volume=361 |issue=21 |pages=2056–65 |year=2009 |pmid=19923577 |doi=10.1056/NEJMoa0809716 |url=http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/4514/1/nejmoa0809716.pdf }} However, a study drawing from hundreds of resources in 2013 claims further that 127V derives from an ancient and widespread cannibalistic practice, not related to kuru specifically, but "kuru-like epidemics" which appeared around the time of the extinction of the Neanderthals who co-existed with humans. This allows the suggestion that cannibalistic practises may have caused diseases which killed the neanderthals, but not the humans because of the 127V resistance gene.{{cite journal |last1=Liberski |first1=Pawel |title=Kuru: A Journey Back in Time from Papua New Guinea to the Neanderthals' Extinction |journal=Pathogens |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=472–505 |year=2013 |pmid=25437203 |pmc=4235695 |doi=10.3390/pathogens2030472 |doi-access=free }}

Cro-Magnons associated with the Magdalenian culture in the European late Upper Palaeolithic (~23-14,000 years ago) are suggested to have practiced funerary endocannibalism.{{Cite journal |last=Marsh |first=William A |last2=Bello |first2=Silvia |date=1 November 2023 |title=Cannibalism and burial in the late Upper Palaeolithic: Combining archaeological and genetic evidence |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0277379123003578 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |language=en |volume=319 |pages=108309 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108309|doi-access=free }}

• South America
• Amahuaca people{{Cite web|url=https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/ehrafe/citation.do?method=citation&forward=browseAuthorsFullContext&id=se06-006|title=Endocannibalism among the Amahuaca Indians|last=Dole|first=Gertrude Evelyn|website=Yale|language=en|access-date=2021-09-19}}
• Mayoruna
• Wari' people{{Cite magazine|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/118252/cannibalism-and-overpopulation-how-amazon-tribe-ate-their-dead|title=Will Overpopulation and Resource Scarcity Drive Cannibalism?|last=Robb|first=Alice|magazine=The New Republic|date=19 June 2014 |language=en|access-date=2021-09-19}}
• Ya̧nomamö
• Asia
• Callatiae{{Cite web|url=https://www.martianherald.com/most-fascinating-funeral-rites/page/1|title=Endocannibalism|last=Castano|first=Edwin|website=Martian Herald|language=en|access-date=2021-09-19}}
• Aghori{{Cite web|url=https://aeon.co/ideas/eating-people-is-wrong-but-its-also-widespread-and-sacred|title=Eating people is wrong – but it's also widespread and sacred|last=Thomas|first=Ben|website=Aeon|language=en|access-date=2021-09-19}}
• Oceania
• Fore people

• Boone Helm
• Cannibalism in Africa
• Cannibalism in Asia
• Cannibalism in Europe
• Cannibalism in Oceania
• Cannibalism in the Americas
• Child cannibalism
• Donner Party
• Exocannibalism
• List of incidents of cannibalism

{{reflist}}

{{Cannibalism}}

Category:Cannibalism

Category:Anthropology

Category:Eating behaviors