Cannibalism. The word itself often brings to mind gruesome images and unspeakable horrors. It’s one of society’s biggest taboos. But what if the reality of cannibalism throughout history is far more complex and surprising than you’ve ever imagined? While it’s true that some instances are deeply disturbing, others are tied to medicine, ritual, or dire circumstances.
Prepare to have your perceptions challenged. We’re about to uncover 10 startling facts about cannibalism that you probably never knew. From sophisticated societies to desperate times, the story of humans eating humans is not always what it seems. Let’s delve into these little-known truths.
10 The Real Hidden Cannibals: Europeans and Corpse Medicine
Believe it or not, for centuries, many Europeans practiced a form of cannibalism for medical reasons. From the Middle Ages right up to the late Victorian era, parts of the human body were consumed as medicine. It wasn’t a question of if you should eat human remains for health, but rather what kind and how it should be prepared.
This practice started with Egyptian mummies. A trade in these preserved bodies began in the 15th century for medicinal use. When supplies of genuine mummies ran low in the 17th century, some merchants even faked them using the bodies of unfortunate individuals. Later, fresh human flesh became preferred. A 1609 recipe suggested using the carcass of a young, healthy man who had been executed. The flesh was to be cut, seasoned, and dried.
Many prominent figures, including royalty like Emperor Francis I and Charles II, as well as respected scientists like Robert Boyle, reportedly used or made these corpse medicines. For poorer people, fresh blood from beheadings was sometimes consumed, especially by those with epilepsy. This practice was allegedly seen in several European countries until the mid-19th century. Skulls were also sought after for medicine well into the Victorian age.
9 Desperate Times: Famine-Driven Cannibalism in Europe
Sadly, eating human flesh out of sheer starvation was also a grim reality in Europe, at least until the 18th century. Wars, such as those during the Reformation, often led to horrific famines where people resorted to extreme measures to survive.
In 1590, during the siege of Paris, a committee reportedly approved making bread from bones taken from a cemetery. Unfortunately, those who ate this bread apparently died. In Germany around 1636, during the Thirty Years’ War, terrible stories emerged. One account tells of a woman who lured children into her home, killed them, and ate them with her neighbor. In Heidelberg, people were said to dig up graves to eat the dead. Another tale speaks of a woman found dead with a roasted human head beside her. Some accounts from Picardy during this time describe people so starved they ate their own arms and hands.
8 A French Traveler’s Terrifying Homecoming
In the 1550s, a French traveler named Jean de Léry lived for a time with the Tupinamba people of Brazil, who were known to practice cannibalism. You might think this experience would be the most horrifying of his life. However, what he witnessed back in France arguably rivaled, or even surpassed, the practices he saw in the New World.
Starting on August 24, 1572, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris led to the slaughter of thousands of Protestants by Catholics. Later, Léry reportedly saw a Protestant executed in Auxerre. It was claimed his heart was cut out, cooked, and eaten. While some parts of this tale might be exaggerated for effect, the brutality was undeniable. In 1573, Léry found himself in the besieged town of Sancerre, which suffered extreme famine. One starving family was persuaded by the grandmother to eat a young girl who had died. Léry, despite his experiences in Brazil, was so horrified by the sight of the girl’s butchered remains that he vomited.
7 When Warring Christians Consumed Each Other
The religious wars that tore through Europe were incredibly brutal, sometimes leading to acts of cannibalism among Christians. When the Spanish army sacked the Dutch city of Naarden in 1572, horrifying atrocities occurred. Some citizens trying to flee were captured, stripped, and left to freeze. It was reported that some invading soldiers became so frenzied they “opened the veins of some of their victims, and drank their blood as if it were wine.”
The famous French thinker Michel de Montaigne, in his essay “On Cannibals,” argued that torturing a living person was far more barbaric than eating someone already dead. He noted that Europeans had seen people roasted slowly and attacked by dogs and pigs while still alive – actions often committed not against foreign enemies but against neighbors and fellow citizens, sometimes in the name of religion.
In 1655, during a massacre of Protestants in Piedmont, a French soldier recounted Catholic troops eating boiled human brains. They even tricked comrades into eating human remains disguised as animal parts. Soldiers reportedly ate the fried brains of one victim and would have eaten his heart too if they hadn’t been scared off.
6 Consensual Cannibalism: Rituals in the Americas
Many historical Christian accounts of “savage cannibalism” focused on violent man-eating, known as exo-cannibalism. However, a significant amount of cannibalism among tribal peoples was internal and entirely consensual. This often took the form of funerary cannibalism, or endo-cannibalism, where a tribe ate its own dead as an act of mourning and respect.
Anthropologist Beth Conklin’s accounts of the Wari’ people in Brazil provide a clear example. Their funeral cannibalism, which may have continued into the 1960s, was a solemn and complex religious ceremony. The body was prepared, and special firewood decorated for cooking. Mourners sang and burned the deceased’s house. Eating the dead, even if the flesh was not fresh, was an act of respect for the deceased’s spirit. Interestingly, the Wari’ found the Christian practice of burying bodies in the cold earth to be horrifying and polluting.
5 “Savage” Cannibals: Complex Rites of Vengeance
What about exo-cannibalism, the aggressive eating of enemies? This was indeed practiced by some tribes, often against rivals, as an extreme form of violence and hatred. Thanks to travelers like André Thevet, we know these acts were also complex and deeply religious. The Tupinamba, for example, would involve the entire tribe in eating a captured enemy.
After the captive was killed and roasted, every member of the tribe would consume a part, leaving only a skeleton. However, this victim often lived with his captors for as long as a year. He might be given a house and even a wife from the tribe. Any child born from this union would also be eaten with the father. This strange practice was about “incorporation”—absorbing the enemy into the victorious tribe, first socially and then literally.
These rituals were carefully controlled. The victim was expected to show great courage, believing they were being observed by their gods. There was a shared understanding of the ritual’s meaning between the victim and the executioners, making it a far cry from simple, savage brutality.
4 Chinese Filial Piety: A Gut-Wrenching Devotion
Surprisingly, China also has historical examples of consensual cannibalism rooted in deep cultural traditions. For centuries, customs of filial piety known as ko ku and ko kan involved a daughter-in-law using parts of her own body to treat a sick, elderly in-law.
Ko ku was the less severe version. The “donor” would slice a piece of flesh from her upper arm or thigh. This flesh was then mixed into a soup, which was believed to bring about a miraculous recovery for the sick relative. Ko kan was far more extreme. The donor would cut open her own abdomen to carve out a piece of her liver to feed to the in-law. The liver’s ability to regenerate might have allowed some donors to survive this. In both cases, the person receiving the “medicine” was never supposed to know its true ingredients.
3 Chinese Class Enemies: Cannibalism in the Cultural Revolution
China also saw horrifying instances of exo-cannibalism, particularly during the violent Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. Hatred for perceived “class enemies” escalated rapidly to extreme levels. At a school in Wuxuan Province, students turned on their teachers. The head of the Chinese Department, Wu Shufang, was beaten to death. Another teacher was then forced to cut out Wu’s liver, which was cooked and eaten by students in the schoolyard. Reports suggest the practice spread, with students cooking and eating their teachers.
In another incident, a young man, targeted because his father was an ex-landlord, was tortured. While still barely alive, his stomach was cut open, and his liver removed. The attackers reportedly had to cool the body cavity with river water. His liver became a “revolutionary feast.” It’s estimated that as many as 10,000 people took part in such cannibalistic acts during these episodes, with up to 100 victims eaten. These dark secrets were later exposed by Zheng Yi, a former Red Guard member.
2 Who Were the “Nastiest” Cannibals? Some Chilling Contenders
While judging such practices is complex, some historical accounts describe particularly brutal forms of cannibalism. One 17th-century French writer, César Rochefort, claimed the “inhabitants of the Country of Antis” in South America were exceptionally cruel. He wrote that when they captured a person of high status, they would strip them naked, tie them to a post, and slash their body. They would then cut flesh from muscular parts like calves, thighs, and arms. Men, women, and children would then dye themselves with the victim’s blood and devour the flesh raw, without cooking. The victim would witness themselves being eaten alive.
However, even this involved a strange sort of honor. The victim was respected if they remained silent during the ordeal. Perhaps a more chilling example comes from the Solomon Islands in the early 20th century. Writer Jack London and his wife visited in 1908 and heard stories of islanders who apparently ate people simply as food, without ritual or religious meaning. One alleged recipe for “long pig” (a term for human flesh) involved breaking the victim’s bones and joints, then staking them alive in running water for days to tenderize them before cooking.
1 The Myths and Misconceptions Surrounding Cannibalism
One of the biggest historical distortions is the portrayal of “savage cannibals” in distant lands by Europeans who were, ironically, practicing medicinal cannibalism on a significant scale back home. This tendency to demonize other cultures led historian William Arens to controversially argue that tribal cannibalism had never been a widespread custom – a theory now largely dismissed, but which highlighted the biases in many historical accounts.
It’s also fascinating how cannibalism became an imaginative focal point for other transgressions. For example, in 1688, the Chirihuana people of Peru were described not only as devouring their enemies but also as engaging in incest and public nudity. They, in turn, reportedly mocked the fleeing Spanish viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, shouting, “throw down that old woman from her basket, that we may eat her alive.” An even darker tale, mentioned by Francis Bacon, claimed that during a siege of Naples in 1494, some merchants sold barreled human flesh, pretending it was tuna.
As we’ve seen, the history of cannibalism is far from simple. It’s a practice that has appeared in various forms across different cultures and times, driven by reasons ranging from medicine and ritual to war and extreme desperation. Understanding these contexts doesn’t excuse the horror of some acts, but it does show that the human story is often more complex and unsettling than we might like to believe.
The subject of cannibalism forces us to confront uncomfortable truths about human behavior, survival, and belief systems. The line between “civilized” and “savage” has often been drawn by those with the power to write history, sometimes overlooking their own society’s unsettling practices.
What are your thoughts on these surprising facts about cannibalism? Were any of these revelations new to you? Share your reactions in the comments below!
