Anthropophagy

ANTHROPOPHAGY (from Greek anthropos- man and phago- I eat), man-eating, is usually identified with necrophagy (corpse-eating) and cannibalism. In scientific literature, these terms are not yet precisely differentiated. Until recently, A. was a subject of scientific research by anthropologists and ethnographers. The latest scientific works on A. date from the mid and late 19th century, after which interest in A. disappeared unnoticed, if not for some ethnographic descriptions of A. among Negro tribes in inner Africa and in some places in Melanesia. However, in connection with the famine in the USSR in 1921-22, which gave rise to A. in some localities, medical, social-hygienic and psychopathological works on anthropophagy appeared for the first time. A. is as old as humanity itself. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, A. was widespread among many groups of islands in Polynesia, among North American Indians and Eskimos. A. as a custom must be distinguished from A. that arises "epidemically" in connection with famine. Detailed descriptions remain of the horrors of famine with data on man-eating during the great famine in France in the 11th century and in Russia in the 17th century (Novgorod). Usually this period of A. during famines is preceded by the consumption of substitutes, carrion, and corpses of dead people, with particular interest attaching to the first cases of A., which occur even when famine has not reached its extreme limits. The scientific literature on man-eating has always dealt with the question of whether man-eating is inherent to man at a certain stage of development or whether it is a pathological phenomenon. Some data indicate that A. was usually preceded by struggle and destruction of enemies in the physical sense. Even in the history of already cultured peoples, facts are described when an enraged crowd, having killed a hated person, tore him to pieces, devoured his heart, lungs, etc. Research materials on A. indicate that, whatever the cause of A., certain organs (heart, liver, brain) were always given special preference. These organs also play a role in ritual anthropophagy when eating old people, firstborns. Besides individual cases of anthropophagy during shipwrecks (in 1867), during famine (in Algeria in 1866), among escaped convicts in Siberia, among sexual psychopaths (see in Kraft-Ebing), etc.,-the last famine in the USSR in 1921-22 gave extensive material on A. According to official data from various departments, 229 persons were registered during these famine years in the USSR who had eaten people specially killed by them. Some of these persons were studied by psychiatrists, and it can be definitely said that in these cases A. arose on a psychopathological basis. In a number of cases, A. was connected both with hatred for those who were killed and eaten, and with other pathological moments. The simplest cases of A.-the eating of one family member to sustain the lives of others. Most of the anthropophagists investigated in the USSR turned out to be psychopaths and mentally ill. A. is accompanied by phenomena of necrophagy and so-called malicious cases of man-eating (murder with the aim of selling human flesh). Necrophagy (corpse-eating) during the last famine was considerably more widespread than A., and it had the character of a surrogate form of nutrition. When examining necrophagists, their general mental deficiency was striking. Therefore, detailed psychological and psychopathological analyses of A. and necrophagy must be linked with the study of the influence of famine on the psyche (psychopathology of extreme starvation). Cases of malicious man-eating fall on the clearly criminal psychopathic element. Research on A. of 1921-22 in the USSR showed that, being a socio-psychopathological phenomenon, A. should be subject to forensic-medical intervention. Although neither criminal law nor forensic medicine before the famine of 1921-22 had provided material for solving practical questions related to A., the Soviet court took the correct path of social-hygienic and socio-psychiatric resolution of the problem, transferring anthropophagists to the care of psychiatric organizations. Besides cases of pathological A. on a social basis (during famine), a number of cases of sexually psychopathological anthropophagy have been described. As a recent example of this kind, one can point to Harman, a murderer of many women in Germany in 1922-23.