From Patricia Finney
I have always thought that the really interesting question about cannibalism is not why did people do it, but why we generally don’t do it (10 July, p 31). After all, other mammals will eat each other if they can and the meat of your own species can be an excellent source of protein.
We certainly have no very strong taboos against killing other humans, particularly if they belong to a different tribe that we happen to be at war with. So where did our powerful taboo against eating them afterwards come from?
It is possible that prion diseases provide the answer. If ancient people made the connection between eating human meat and contracting some fast-acting lethal disease like BSE, then the practice would become associated with ill-luck and provoking the wrath of the gods. That is how you get a taboo.
We may also still carry the prions involved. I’ve often wondered if such illnesses as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis were originally prion diseases that found other routes of transmission when we stopped eating each other.
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Cadiz, Spain
