Cannibals of Europe

Cannibalism was widely thought to be practiced by naked savages running around the New World killing people.It wasn’t that long ago, 1961 to be exact, that Michael Clark Rockefeller born 1938 was presumed dead.He was the youngest son of New York Governor (later Vice President) Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller and Mary Todhunter Rockefeller. He disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern New Guinea. Headhunting and cannibalism were still present in some areas of Asmat in 1961, so there was theory that Rockefeller was killed and eaten by local people.If cannibalism did take place in New Guinea, it was associated with torture, murder and mutilation. That's the kind of thing that gives cannibalism a bad name.

Actually cannibalism exists in modern Europe.In the March 2010 article, The 21st Century Blood Cannibals of Europe – News Report, eight teenagers are being accused of cannibalism and brutal murder of their four friends.The members of the Satanists murdered their friends, ate their hearts, dismembered their bodies and buried them in several places according to court records.

A seven year old boy was partly skinned along with his nine year old brother were locked and chained in the cellar for months by their mother, a member of a group called the Grail Movement in the Czech Republic.In 2008 the abuse was discovered by chance when a neighbor’s television baby monitor picked up graphic pictures of what was happening next door. The boys’ bizarre mother had a monitor installed so that she could watch the abuse from her kitchen but the images were picked up by a neighbor who used an identical system to monitor a newborn baby according to court papers.

According to the article, Cannibalism: A modern taboo, Armin Meiwes the German ate an acquaintance. Meiwes advertised in early 2001, on websites for "young, well-built men aged 18 to 30 to slaughter". Meiwes' victim was willing or not, to be eaten.

It seems ironic that the enlightened European cultures would condemn the ignorant natives of the New World.The very word cannibal is derived from Columbus’ travels, whose name for the allegedly man-eating Caribs. Even today, it is popularly accepted that cannibalism on islands in the South Pacific, West Indies, South America and even the Native Americans is anthropologically confirmed as opposed to fairly fervently debated.The chronicles of the first Crusade are full of Europeans consuming the enemy as the ultimate propaganda weapon.

Apparently, there was a dig in Germany by archaeologists and uncovered 7,000-year-old bones. There was evidence of mass cannibalism in which even children and unborn babies were eaten.Investigation of the bones dug up at Herxheim in southwest Germany suggest the region was a epicenter for cannibalism at a time when the first European farming society may have been crumpling.

The menu included bodies that could have been spit-roasted. The bodies were skinned and had their flesh removed using techniques almost identical to those for butchering animals. The bones look to have been smashed on purpose to allow the eaters to suck out the marrow. Other bones bear the “chew marks” of teeth having been made by hungry humans.Archaeologists determined cannibalism was taking place after performing a comprehensive study of bones identified as belonging to six adults, at least one of them a man, two children aged about 6 and 15, and two unborn babies. There are thousands of other bodies dug up at Herxheim of people eaten by cannibals.

In 1492 when Pope Innocent VIII was on his deathbed, his doctors used vampire-like technique on the three boys and had the pope drink their blood. The boys were bled until they died, and the pope died as well. 1492 the same year Columbus “discovered” America and coined the word “cannibal.”

The medical journal, The Lancet, published an article regarding corpse medicine. The article recounts notable doctors of 1600s England digging up bodies to use the bones for medicine. Noted in the article was the fact the human body was widely acknowledged as the therapeutic agent. A major source for this material was the bodies of executed criminals. The practice was documented in Korn et al., 2001 Korn D, Radice M, Hawes C. Cannibal: a history of the people-eaters. London: Channel 4/Macmillan, 2001.

Grave robbers sold pieces of mummified human flesh imported from Egypt according to Dannenfeldt, 1985 Dannenfeldt KH. Egyptian mumia: the sixteenth century experience and debate. Sixteenth Century Journal 1985; 16: 163-180. PubMed . The paramount widespread treatments included flesh, bone, or blood, along with a variety of moss sometimes found on human skulls right up until the late 18th century. Use of medicines made from blood and other human body parts was widespread in Europe. Other articles state that the Europeans of the period consumed fresh blood as a cure for epilepsy and other body parts to treat a variety of diseases, including arthritis, warts, diseases of the reproductive system, sciatica, and skin acne.

The act of cannibalism is recorded several times in history and literature. Researchers have found physical evidence of cannibalism in ancient times in the Old World. In Gough's Cave, England, remains of human bones and skulls from approximately 15,000 years ago, suggest that cannibalism took place amid the people living in the cave. Two publications, Bello, Silvia M. et al. (February 2011). "Earliest Directly-Dated Human Skull-Cups". PLoS ONE and Amos, Jonathan (2011-02-16). "Ancient Britons 'drank from skulls'". BBC News, propose that the people may have used human skulls for drinking.