If you had a choice between resorting to cannibalism or allowing your family to starve to death, which would you choose?
Cannibalism in the Post-Apocalyptic world – The collapse of civilization will wake up horrors of the past. Cannibalism is one of them. It follows the spectre of famine and lawlessness. It is a survival edge in times of extreme necessity.
The human species is not a stranger to cannibalism. Prehistoric man may have practiced cannibalism routinely that it is thought. Increasing amounts of archeological evidence has uncovered prehistoric human remains that were butchered, gnawed on and even cooked. Marking on human bones stripped from flesh by knives, most probably for human consumption. Human proteins have even been found in preserved human faeces from prehistoric ages.
Scientists have even claimed there is genetic evidence for for widespread cannibalism in the man’s distant past. Many people today are said to carry a gene that evolved to make them more resistant to a disease spread by consuming human brains. One can picture early homonids cracking open skulls to get at a high-calorie nutritious snack at the expense of a fallen enemy, or perhaps even an unfortunate member of the tribe.
Historians have come across many tales of cannibalism. During times of famine or war, populations have resorted to eating the dead for survival. Historical texts from Medieval times are full of tales of people who have resorted to cannibalism to survive. During the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, the local police even had to form special task forces to combat cannibalism.
Even in relatively recent modern times, people resorting to cannibalism is well-documented. In the South Pacific and some parts of Africa, early explorers encountered cannibal tribes. Anthropologists have observed remote primitive tribes that practiced cannibalism until very recently, and may have continued to do so without the intervention of more modernized societies. It is not hard to image that before the formation of more complex and prosperous societies, hunger often drove humans to consume other humans.
Mass starvations in modern times, such as those caused by war, gross government mismanagement or drought, in Liberia, North Korea, China, the Soviet Union and other places has always shown that man will do everything to survive. It seems likely that the future mass famines will do the same.
The easy access to food, particularly meat, is something we modern people take for granted. The Post-Apocalyptic world, however, especially one ravaged by environmental collapse, will be one where food is extremely scare, access to food, much less meat, will be a thing of the distant past.
Modern people may shudder at the thought of consuming human flesh for survival. While extreme starvation will not make the act any less repulsive, human nature has shown itself to value survival above all. Even apparently normal people resort to cannibalism when their lives are at stake. There have been well-documented instances of regular people shipwrecked or stranded on mountains of who have resorted to eating dead comrades. The most popular case of which perhaps is an Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes mountains after a plane crash in the 1970’s, but then again there are just too many cases of people resorting to cannibalism to mention.
In a Post-Apocalyptic world, where famine will undoubtedly claim the lives of much of the world, you can be sure that cannibalism will be become a fact of life. Perhaps the dead will be eaten by those trying to escape death by starvation. Perhaps there will be those who will be driven by hunger to hunt other human to eat. Some perhaps might keep others in captivity to butcher them later on.
It could be the case that people are purposely captured or killed to be eaten. The recently deceased will also be targets for those seeking to keep themselves alive. While I am sure that no one reading this article would resort to it, there are lurid tales of parents in the most extreme limits of starvation eating their own children, such is told of during the famines of the Medieval times and other great famines.
If the past behavior of people is an indication of how they will behave in the future, there doesn’t even have to be a total collapse of society for cannibalism to become more commonplace. There are well-document cases, such as in North Korea or Leningrad of enterprising individuals during times of extreme hunger butchering and selling human flesh.
Let’s look at the future. Let’s imagine…
The United Stated after long years of steady environmental decline from now has become a dust bowl. The government has all but collapsed. Starvation and anarchy haunt every town. Arid desert stand where there were once a wheat fields.
Your family has not had anything to eat for days. The last cache of dried beans has long been emptied. Some members of your group have already died from starvation and it seems that in the next few days more will follow. Your children lay curled up the entire day, wasting away from a lack of food.
One evening, your group is attacked by a group of very desperate men. While you may have run out of food, luckily you still have some bullets left over. It was a terrifying ordeal but you have trained for this moment all your life. You defend yourselves and are able to kill one of them, the rest fled into the night.
Now the body of a dead man lies on the ground, still warm in a pool of blood.
Would you eat his flesh, or allow more of your family members to die of hunger?
