- Cannibalism is the practice of people eating the flesh of other people.
- Even among savages the custom of eating human flesh is rare today.
- The term Cannibalism comes from Canibales, the Spanish name for the Carib people.
- Probably nowhere except on certain Pacific islands are there any people who are still cannibals.
- In the past, eating human flesh used to be rather common. In fact, some civilized peoples were cannibals.
- When the Spaniards conquered Mexico some 500 years ago, they were horrified to find that the highly civilized Aztecs ate the flesh of some of the warriors they captured in battle.
- A well-know example of anthropophagy is the falling in the Andes of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, after which some survivors ate the corpses of dead passengers.
- Fiji was once called the "cannibal islands"
- Different cannibal groups probably became cannibals for different reasons. Some believed that eating brave warriors would make them brave themselves. To others cannibalism was a part of their religion. Some probably became cannibals simply because it was hard for them to get enough to eat. Iri parís of the world where living was difficult it became the custom in some oribes to kill and eat oíd people. It was a sign of lack of respect not to do so. Possibly many primitive peoples would still eat human flesh if they had not been forced by outsiders to stop doing so.
- Cannibalism is also called anthropophagy.
- Cannibalism is rather common among some kinds of animals. Many fishes, for example, eat some of the tiny fish that hatch from their own eggs.
- Even some baby animals are cannibals. Baby garden spiders hatch from eggs enclosed in a silken sac. They immediately begin eating one another up. Only a few spiders come out of the sac. They have all the others inside them.
- Cannibalism has recently been practiced in several wars, especially in the countries of Liberia and Congo.
- A man who practices cannibalism is named a cannibal.
Facts about cannibals
