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A sin-eater is a person who consumes a ritual meal in order to spiritually take on the sins of a deceased person. The food was believed to absorb the sins of a recently dead person, thus absolving the soul of the person.
[6] [7] The Island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles, whose name is the origin of the word cannibal, acquired a long-standing reputation as eaters of human flesh, reconfirmed when their legends were recorded in the 17th century. [8] Some controversy exists over the accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture.
Despite this, some writers of the first accounts of alleged Carib cannibalism were unconcerned about cannibalism or even wrote positively about the people. The credibility of the Caribs' long-standing reputation as eaters of human flesh is further supported by their legends, which were recorded in the 17th century. [10]
Whether they were war captives or human sacrifices is unclear, but the evidence indicates that their corpses were spit-roasted whole and then consumed. [25] At Fontbrégoua Cave in southeastern France, the remains of six people who lived about 7,000 years ago were found (two children, one adolescent, and three adults), in addition to animal ...
Korowai people of New Guinea practised cannibalism until very recent times. As in some other New Guinean societies, the Urapmin people engaged in cannibalism in war. Notably, the Urapmin also had a system of food taboos wherein dogs could not be eaten and they had to be kept from breathing on food, unlike humans who could be eaten and with whom food could be shared.
Odysseus removing his men from the company of the lotus-eaters. In Greek mythology, lotophages or the lotus-eaters (Ancient Greek: λωτοφάγοι, romanized: lōtophágoi) were a race of people living on an island dominated by the lotus tree off of coastal Libya (Island of Djerba), [1] [2] a plant whose botanical identity is uncertain.
The remainder of us were taken to another spot 50 miles [80 km] away where 10 prisoners died of sickness. At this place, the Japanese again started selecting prisoners to eat. Those selected were taken to a hut where their flesh was cut from their bodies while they were alive and they were thrown into a ditch where they later died. [171]
The pig tended to be regarded as a dangerously liminal animal. With the feet of a cud-eater, the diet of a scavenger, the habits of a dirt-dweller and the cunning of a human, it exhibited an unsettling combination of characteristics, rendering it culturally inedible for some (but not all) southern Levantine peoples, for whom pigs were often associated with the underworld or malevolent ...