blacksundae

Spiegel Online:

According to the recipe, the meat was to be cut into small pieces or slices, sprinkled with “myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe” and then soaked in spirits of wine for a few days.

Johann Schröder, a German pharmacologist, wrote these words in the 17th century. But the meat to which he was referring was not cured ham or beef tenderloin. The instructions specifically called for the “cadaver of a reddish man … of around 24 years old,” who had been “dead of a violent death but not an illness” and then laid out “exposed to the moon rays for one day and one night” with, he noted, “a clear sky.”

Read on.

East European Quarterly:

Anne Applebaum, the author of the recent major synthesis of the evolution of the Soviet Gulag, mentions a number of such phenomena. (12) As an example, in May 1933, 6,114 peasants were being deported to the uninhabited Nazino Island of the Ob River, beyond the Artic Cir le, where they were deposited without any food. On the very first day of their arrival 295 of them died. Three months later, when a party functionary visited the island to examine the situation, he was forced to report that of the original six thousand only about one-third were still alive, but only because they lived off the flesh of their deceased comrades. (13) According to one of the Gulag-inmates, who encountered several of the former Nazino-inhabitants in a prison at Tomsk, the former “settlers” of Nazino appeared to him like “walking corpses.” (14) They were imprisoned at Tomsk for their cannibalistic activities, even though it was cannibalism that had kept them alive while on Nazino.

Read on.

National Geographic:

Fried human, barbecued human, broiled human, raw human…were these items on the menu of the day for our prehistoric ancestors? Quite possibly, according to genetic researchers.

Scientists from England, Australia, and Papua New Guinea say that cannibalism is the most likely explanation for their discovery that genes protecting against brain diseases that can be contracted by eating contaminated flesh have long been spread throughout the world.

A growing body of evidence, such as piles of human bones with clear signs of human butchery, suggests cannibalism was widespread among ancient cultures. The discovery of this genetic resistance, which shows signs of having spread as a result of natural selection, supports the physical evidence for cannibalism, say the scientists.

“We don’t in fact know that all populations did select. The selection may have occurred during the evolution of modern humans before they spread around the world,” said Simon Mead, a co-author of the study from the Medical Research Center with University College, London.

*belch*

Link! [via Reddit]

…they advocate cannibalism. Ok, ok. So it’s only a Fox affiliate, but I can’t help but kick them when they’re down. Well, not down precisely, but they do need to scramble.

Issei Sagawa:

Issei Sagawa served time in a French jail for the murder of the Dutch Renée Hartevelt, a classmate at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris. In June 11, 1981, Sagawa was studying avant garde literature. He invited her to dinner under the pretense of literary conversation. Upon her arrival, he shot her in the neck, then began to carry out his plan of eating her. She was selected because of her health and beauty, those characteristics Sagawa believed he lacked. In interviews, Sagawa describes himself as a “weak, ugly and small man” and claims that he wanted to “absorb her energy.”

He said he fainted after the shock of shooting her, but awoke with the realization that he must carry out his desire to eat her. He did so, beginning with her hips. In interviews, he noted his surprise at the “corn-colored” nature of human fat. For two days, Sagawa ate various parts of her body. He described the meat as “soft” and “odorless”, like tuna. After two days, he dumped the mutilated body in a park, but was seen in the act. Five days later, he was arrested by the French police. However, the French psychologists found him legally insane and unfit to stand trial. Instead, he was deported back to Japan, where he was put in a mental institution. However, the deportation order did not specify how long Sagawa must remain in the institution. Fifteen months later, Sagawa checked himself out, and has been a free man ever since.

Sagawa now lives in Tokyo and is a minor celebrity in Japan. He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator. He also writes restaurant reviews [emphasis mine] and in 1992 he appeared in Hisayasu Sato’s film Sisenjiyou no Aria (The Bedroom) as a sadosexual voyeur. He admits to still having fantasies about cannibalism, but says he never wants to realize them again.

Whoa. Crazy.