>I know that tribes which practice cannibalism have
>transmitted the disease from one person to another.

The Fore of highland New Guinea processed the bodies of the dead (even those
who died of "kuru" -- which is Creutzfeld-Jacob disease), including handling
the brain tissue.  During funeral ceremonies to honor the dead, the women
and the children would consume tiny portions of the brains of their dead
relatives.

"Cannibalism" as a practice of hunting people down and eating them for their
meat has never been well documented in human societies.  See William Aren's
classic book from the early 1980s, "The Man-Eating Myth."

You do find people in some cultures eating various body parts or the ashes
of the deceased to honor them, to incorporate their power and spirit into
the bodies of the living.  You also find exceptional circumstances such as
the Donner Party or the rugby players in the Andes after the plane crash,
who eat people who are already dead, in order to survive themselves.

You also find lots of people who claim that they "used to be cannibals" --
it makes them appear frightening and war-like, especially to gullible,
Western outsiders (such as anthropologists and tourists).

You also find lots of people accusing their neighbors  of "being cannibals"
as an insult.  In Mali, people said the folks over the border in Guinea were
cannibals -- read "primitive savages."  In Guinea,  people said the folks
over the border in Mali were cannibals -- read "primitive savages."  In
highland New Guinea, almost every culture accuses the surrounding people of
being cannibals.  But real evidence, no.

Kathy Dettwyler

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