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78-456: "Easter Holidays", along with " Dura Navis " and " Nil Pejus est Caelibe Vita ", is one of Coleridge's earliest known poems. The poem was written in 1787 while Coleridge attended Christ's Hospital , London. During his school days, he was a lonely child and was unable to spend holidays with family like other boys at the school. This loneliness was broken with the arrival of his brothers George and Luke in 1785, but returned when Luke moved to Devon. In

156-476: A "shortage of animal protein" was also the underlying reason for Aztec cannibalism. The cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins , on the other hand, rejected such explanations as overly simplistic, stressing that cannibal customs must be regarded as "complex phenomen[a]" with "myriad attributes" which can only be understood if one considers "symbolism, ritual, and cosmology" in addition to their "practical function". In pre-modern medicine, an explanation given by

234-914: A belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the positive characteristics of the deceased. However, several authors investigating exocannibalism in New Zealand , New Guinea , and the Congo Basin observe that such beliefs were absent in these regions. A further type, different from both exo- and endocannibalism, is autocannibalism (also called autophagy or self-cannibalism ), "the act of eating parts of oneself". It does not ever seem to have been an institutionalized practice, but occasionally occurs as pathological behaviour, or due to other reasons such as curiosity. Also on record are instances of forced autocannibalism committed as acts of aggression, where individuals are forced to eat parts of their own bodies as

312-697: A boy aged around 5 or 6. As the daily energy need of an adult man is about 2,400 kilocalories, a dead male body could thus have fed a group of 25 men for a bit more than two days, provided they ate nothing but the human flesh alone – longer if it was part of a mixed diet. The nutritional value of the human body is thus not insubstantial, though Cole notes that for prehistoric hunters, large megafauna such as mammoths , rhinoceros , and bisons would have been an even better deal as long as they were available and could be caught, because of their much higher body weight. Cases of people eating human livers and hearts , especially of enemies, have been reported from across

390-702: A double bag ... which was put into a large pot" and so boiled alive. While not mentioning live roasting or boiling, European authors also complained about cannibalism and cruelty during the Mongol invasion of Europe , and a drawing in the Chronica Majora (compiled by Matthew Paris ) shows Mongol fighters spit-roasting a human victim. Pedro de Margarit  [ es ] , who accompanied Christopher Columbus during his second voyage , afterwards stated "that he saw there with his own eyes several Indians skewered on spits being roasted over burning coals as

468-459: A form of torture . Exocannibalism is thus often associated with the consumption of enemies as an act of aggression, a practice also known as war cannibalism . Endocannibalism is often associated with the consumption of deceased relatives in funerary rites driven by affection – a practice known as funerary or mortuary cannibalism . Medicinal cannibalism (also called medical cannibalism ) means "the ingestion of human tissue ... as

546-525: A group of cannibals in West Africa in the 14th century, the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta recorded that, according to their preferences, "the tastiest part of women's flesh is the palms and the breast." Centuries later, the anthropologist Percy Amaury Talbot  [ fr ] wrote that, in southern Nigeria , "the parts in greatest favour are the palms of the hands, the fingers and toes, and, of

624-486: A letter to Luke on 12 May 1787, he expressed his feelings of loneliness. Included in the letter was his poem, "Easter Holidays", which seeks to celebrate Easter. This was the first time Coleridge included a poem with one of his letters. Coleridge begins his poem with a standard invocation of the muse: Hail! festal Easter that dost bring Approach of sweetly-smiling spring,         When Nature's clad in green: The poem then describes

702-471: A major part of the grieving process. It has also been explained as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. In contrast, exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community. It is frequently "an act of aggression, often in the context of warfare", where the flesh of killed or captured enemies may be eaten to celebrate one's victory over them. Some scholars explain both types of cannibalism as due to

780-545: A member of the enemy faction, which was enough to get her killed by an angry mob. After the others had left, he "cut open the girl's chest ..., dug out her heart, and took it home to enjoy". In a further case that took place in Wuxuan County , likewise in the Guangxi region, three brothers were beaten to death as supposed enemies; afterwards their livers were cut out, baked, and consumed "as medicine". According to

858-438: A narrow sense), but also " lungs , liver , brain , heart , nervous tissue , bone marrow , genitalia and skin ", as well as kidneys . For a typical adult man, the combined nutritional value of all these edible parts is about 126,000 kilocalories (kcal). The nutritional value of women and younger individuals is lower because of their lower body weight – for example, around 86% of a male adult for an adult woman and 30% for

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936-463: A sigh Their moments all in transports fly         Till evening ends their joys. But little think their joyous hearts Of dire Misfortune's varied smarts         Which youthful years conceal: Thoughtless of bitter-smiling Woe Which all mankind are born to know         And they themselves must feel. The suffering comes from

1014-486: A single cooking pot." Al-Latif notes that, while initially people were shocked by such acts, they "eventually ... grew accustomed, and some conceived such a taste for these detestable meats that they made them their ordinary provender ... The horror people had felt at first vanished entirely". After the end of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), a Chinese writer criticized in his recollections of

1092-462: A supposed medicine or tonic". In contrast to other forms of cannibalism, which Europeans generally frowned upon, the "medicinal ingestion" of various "human body parts was widely practiced throughout Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries", with early records of the practice going back to the first century CE. It was also frequently practised in China . Sacrificial cannibalism refers

1170-558: A treat for the gluttonous." Jean de Léry , who lived for several months among the Tupinambá in Brazil, writes that several of his companions reported "that they had seen not only a number of men and women cut in pieces and grilled on the boucans , but also little unweaned children roasted whole" after a successful attack on an enemy village. According to German ethnologist Leo Frobenius , children captured by Songye slave raiders in

1248-678: A variety of circumstances and for various motives. To adequately express this diversity, Shirley Lindenbaum suggests that "it might be better to talk about 'cannibalisms ' " in the plural. One major distinction is whether cannibal acts are accepted by the culture in which they occur – institutionalized cannibalism – or whether they are merely practised under starvation conditions to ensure one's immediate survival – survival cannibalism – or by isolated individuals considered criminal and often pathological by society at large – cannibalism as psychopathology or "aberrant behavior". Institutionalized cannibalism, sometimes also called "learned cannibalism",

1326-573: A woman, the breast." Regarding the north of the country, his colleague Charles Kingsley Meek added: "Among all the cannibal tribes the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet were considered the tit-bits of the body." Among the Apambia, a cannibalistic clan of the Azande people in Central Africa, palms and soles were considered the best parts of the human body, while their favourite dish

1404-492: A young cannibal who had just participated in a "human barbecue" and told him without hesitation: "It tastes just like chicken. Especially the liver – just the same as chicken." In 2013, during the Syrian civil war , Syrian rebel Abu Sakkar was filmed eating parts of the lung or liver of a government soldier while declaring that "We will eat your hearts and your livers you soldiers of Bashar the dog". Various accounts from around

1482-524: Is "eaten without ceremony (other than culinary), in the same manner as the flesh of any other animal". While the term has been criticized as being too vague to clearly identify a specific type of cannibalism, various records indicate that nutritional or culinary concerns could indeed play a role in such acts even outside of periods of starvation. Referring to the Congo Basin, where many of the eaten were butchered slaves rather than enemies killed in war,

1560-579: Is a debate among anthropologists on how important functionalist reasons are for the understanding of institutionalized cannibalism. Diamond is not alone in suggesting "that the consumption of human flesh was of nutritional benefit for some populations in New Guinea" and the same case has been made for other "tropical peoples ... exploiting a diverse range of animal foods", including human flesh. The materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris argued that

1638-425: Is also the threat of having to resort to cannibalism: Should'st thou escape the fury of that day A fate more cruel still, unhappy, view. Opposing winds may stop thy luckless way, And spread fell famine through the suffering crew, Canst thou endure th' extreme of raging Thirst Which soon may scorch thy throat, ah! thoughtless Youth! Or ravening hunger canst thou bear which erst On its own flesh hath fix'd

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1716-575: Is close to modern explanations. He also pointed out that some acts of Europeans in his own time could be considered as equally barbarous, making his essay " Of Cannibals " ( c.  1580 ) a precursor to later ideas of cultural relativism . Archaeologist James Cole investigated the nutritional value of the human body and found it to be similar to that of animals of similar size. He notes that, according to ethnographic and archaeological records, nearly all edible parts of humans were sometimes eaten – not only skeletal muscle tissue ("flesh" or "meat" in

1794-481: Is dominated by the image of a voyage that is possibly a reference to Frank Coleridge, Coleridge's brother and a sailor. Although Frank left home at the age of 11, there are parallels to Coleridge's own life and his loneliness at Christ's Hospital. To Coleridge, travel is related to the idea of solitude and of travel found within many of his early works and later in his Rime of the Ancient Mariner . Coleridge

1872-508: Is one of Coleridge's earliest known poems. "Dura Navis" was written for an exercise while Coleridge attended Christ's Hospital at the age of 15. Of this exercise Coleridge wrote in a note to the poem: I well remember old Jemmy Bowyer, the plagose Orbilius of Christ's Hospital, but an admirable Educer no less than Educator of the Intellect, bad me leave out as many epithets as would turn the whole into 8-syllable Lines,-and then asked myself if

1950-525: Is otherwise clearly rejected. The survivors of the shipwrecks of the Essex and Méduse in the 19th century are said to have engaged in cannibalism, as did the members of Franklin's lost expedition and the Donner Party . Such cases often involve only necro-cannibalism (eating the corpse of someone already dead) as opposed to homicidal cannibalism (killing someone for food). In modern English law,

2028-483: Is probably also the ultimate reason why cannibalism was widespread in traditional New Guinea highland societies", and both in New Zealand and Fiji , cannibals explained their acts as due to a lack of animal meat. In Liberia , a former cannibal argued that it would have been wasteful to let the flesh of killed enemies spoil, and eaters of human flesh in New Guinea and the neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago expressed

2106-428: Is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal . The meaning of " cannibalism " has been extended into zoology to describe animals consuming parts of individuals of the same species as food. Anatomically modern humans , Neanderthals , and Homo antecessor are known to have practised cannibalism to some extent in

2184-524: Is the consumption of human body parts as "an institutionalized practice" generally accepted in the culture where it occurs. By contrast, survival cannibalism means "the consumption of others under conditions of starvation such as shipwreck, military siege, and famine, in which persons normally averse to the idea are driven [to it] by the will to live". Also known as famine cannibalism , such forms of cannibalism resorted to only in situations of extreme necessity have occurred in many cultures where cannibalism

2262-523: The DSM , presumably because at least serious cases (that lead to murder) are very rare. Within institutionalized cannibalism, exocannibalism is often distinguished from endocannibalism . Endocannibalism refers to the consumption of a person from the same community. Often it is a part of a funerary ceremony, similar to burial or cremation in other cultures. The consumption of the recently deceased in such rites can be considered "an act of affection" and

2340-434: The Congo Basin . A form of cannibalism popular in early modern Europe was the consumption of body parts or blood for medical purposes . Reaching its height during the 17th century, this practice continued in some cases into the second half of the 19th century. Cannibalism has occasionally been practised as a last resort by people suffering from famine . Well-known examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–1847),

2418-545: The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), hundreds of incidents of cannibalism occurred, mostly motivated by hatred against supposed "class enemies", but sometimes also by health concerns. In a case recorded by the local authorities, a school teacher in Mengshan County "heard that consuming a 'beauty's heart' could cure disease". He then chose a 13- or 14-year-old student of his and publicly denounced her as

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2496-626: The Democratic Republic of the Congo . It was still practised in Papua New Guinea as of 2012, for cultural reasons. Cannibalism has been said to test the bounds of cultural relativism because it challenges anthropologists "to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior ". A few scholars argue that no firm evidence exists that cannibalism has ever been a socially acceptable practice anywhere in

2574-577: The Holodomor (1932–1933), and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which the survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , Jeffrey Dahmer , and Armin Meiwes . Cannibalism has been both practised and fiercely condemned in several recent wars, especially in Liberia and

2652-578: The Pleistocene . Cannibalism was occasionally practised in Egypt during ancient and Roman times , as well as later during severe famines. The Island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles , whose name is the origin of the word cannibal , acquired a long-standing reputation as eaters of human flesh, reconfirmed when their legends were recorded in the 17th century. Some controversy exists over

2730-660: The Solomon Islands in the 1980s, anthropologist Michael Krieger met a former cannibal who told him that women's breasts had been considered the best part of the human body because they were so fatty, with fat being a rare and sought delicacy. They were also considered among the best parts in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago . Based on theoretical considerations, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss suggested that human flesh

2808-629: The Southern New Guinea lowland rain forests , hunting people "was an opportunistic extension of seasonal foraging or pillaging strategies", with human bodies just as welcome as those of animals as sources of protein, according to the anthropologist Bruce M. Knauft. As populations living near coasts and rivers were usually better nourished and hence often physically larger and stronger than those living inland, they "raided inland 'bush' peoples with impunity and often with little fear of retaliation". Cases of human predation are also on record for

2886-482: The 13th century and their subsequent rule over China during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), some Mongol fighters practised cannibalism and both European and Chinese observers record a preference for women's breasts, which were considered "delicacies" and, if there were many corpses, sometimes the only part of a female body that was eaten (of men, only the thighs were said to be eaten in such circumstances). After meeting

2964-452: The Arab physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi repeatedly saw "little children, roasted or boiled", offered for sale in baskets on street corners during a heavy famine that started in 1200 CE. Older children and possibly adults were sometimes prepared in the same way. Once he saw "a child nearing the age of puberty, who had been found roasted"; two young people confessed to having killed and cooked

3042-573: The Chinese author Zheng Yi, who researched these events, "the consumption of human liver was mentioned at least fifty or sixty times" in just a small number of archival documents. He talked with a man who had eaten human liver and told him that "barbecued liver is delicious". During a massacre of the Madurese minority in the Indonesian part of Borneo in 1999, reporter Richard Lloyd Parry met

3120-441: The Congo Basin, where cannibalism had been quite widespread and where even in the 1950s travellers were sometimes served a meat dish, learning only afterwards that the meat had been of human origin. The term gastronomic cannibalism has been suggested for cases where human flesh is eaten to "provide a supplement to the regular diet" – thus essentially for its nutritional value – or, in an alternative definition, for cases where it

3198-503: The Exercise would not be greatly improved. How often have I thought of this proposal since then-and how many thousand bloated and puffing lines have I read that by this process would have tripped over the tongues excellently. Likewise I remember that he told me on the same occasion—'Coleridge! the connections of a Declamation are not the transitions of Poetry—bad, however, as they are, they are better than "Apostrophes" and "O thou's," for at

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3276-594: The accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture. Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"), the Amazon Basin , the Congo , and the Māori people of New Zealand. Cannibalism was also practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands , and human flesh was sold at markets in some parts of Melanesia and of

3354-456: The anthropologist Emil Torday notes that "the most common [reason for cannibalism] was simply gastronomic: the natives loved 'the flesh that speaks' [as human flesh was commonly called] and paid for it". The historian Key Ray Chong observes that, throughout Chinese history, "learned cannibalism was often practiced ... for culinary appreciation". In his popular book Guns, Germs and Steel , Jared Diamond suggests that "protein starvation

3432-452: The cases, with roasting being slightly more common. In contrast to Lévi-Strauss's predictions, boiling was more often used in exocannibalism, while roasting was about equally common for both. Shankman observed that various other "ways of preparing people" were repeatedly employed as well; in one third of all cases, two or more modes were used together (e.g. some bodies or body parts were boiled or baked, while others were roasted). Human flesh

3510-611: The child. Another time, remains were found of a person who had apparently been roasted and served whole, the legs tied like those of "a sheep trussed for cooking". Only the skeleton was found, still undivided and in the trussed position, but "with all the flesh stripped off for food". In some cases children were roasted and offered for sale by their own parents; other victims were street children, who had become very numerous and were often kidnapped and cooked by people looking for food or extra income. The victims were so numerous that sometimes "two or three children, even more, would be found in

3588-919: The consumption of the flesh of victims of human sacrifice , for example among the Aztecs . Human and animal remains excavated in Knossos , Crete , have been interpreted as evidence of a ritual in which children and sheep were sacrificed and eaten together during the Bronze Age . According to Ancient Roman reports, the Celts in Britain practised sacrificial cannibalism, and archaeological evidence backing these claims has by now been found. Infanticidal cannibalism or cannibalistic infanticide refers to cases where newborns or infants are killed because they are "considered unwanted or unfit to live" and then "consumed by

3666-498: The deadly tooth? The poem describes many images that appear throughout Coleridge's early works. The emergence of the moon in a baroque manner, and this image reappears in his poem "To the Autumnal Moon" and in his "The Nightingale". In terms of themes, "Dura Navis", like Coleridge's other early poems, incorporates a Plotinus -like view that people should live more simply and control their passions and desires. "Dura Navis"

3744-421: The education "did not then include Spenser; and not from Boyer would a pupil learn the magic of Milton's and Shakespere's rhythms." A few years later, Walter De la Mare said he believed that the "best line" in the poem "would have been ruined had Coleridge taken" the advice of his schoolmaster. Human cannibalism Note: Varies by jurisdiction Note: Varies by jurisdiction Human cannibalism

3822-403: The festivities of Easter and the joy that comes with it:         All sing the festive lay. With mirthful dance they beat the ground, Their shouts of joy the hills resound         And catch the jocund noise: This transitions into a comparison between present happiness and future pain: Without a tear, without

3900-455: The ground". This influence was common to his other earlier works. Use of the invocation "Hail!" was common during the 18th century and is connected to the epic tradition. Its predominant purpose was to address divinity of some form. His sources, including Plotinus and the Cato's Letters , originate in his studying metaphysics while attending Christ's Hospital. Dura Navis " Dura Navis "

3978-413: The horrors of a Naval Fight, When thundering Cannons spread a sea of Gore And varied deaths now fire and now affright: The impatient shout, that longs for closer war, Reaches from either side the distant shores; Whilst frighten'd at His streams ensanguin'd far Loud on his troubled bed huge Ocean roars. As the poem continues, the narrator puts forth the idea that if the traveller survives, there

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4056-466: The knowledge of God and truth. As such, Coleridge responds to the ideas of Trenchard and Gordon with a view that those who are virtuous are unaffected by suffering. Instead, only those who are vicious in nature really suffer and that people are able to conquer their fallen state. The work is traditional and hearkens back to classical poetry. Coleridge studied Horace at Christ's Hospital, and his 13th line shows this influence: "With mirthful dance they beat

4134-464: The latter is always considered a crime, even in the most trying circumstances. The case of R v Dudley and Stephens , in which two men were found guilty of murder for killing and eating a cabin boy while adrift at sea in a lifeboat, set the precedent that necessity is no defence to a charge of murder. This decision outlawed and effectively ended the practice of shipwrecked sailors drawing lots in order to determine who would be killed and eaten to prevent

4212-622: The like". Human flesh was also often "cooked into soup " or stewed in cauldrons. Eating human flesh raw was the "least popular" method, but a few cases are on record too. Chong notes that human flesh was typically cooked in the same way as "ordinary foodstuffs for daily consumption" – no principal distinction from the treatment of animal meat is detectable, and nearly any mode of preparation used for animals could also be used for people. Though human corpses, like those of animals, were usually cut into pieces for further processing, reports of people being roasted or baked whole are on record throughout

4290-554: The marketplace" during the Taiping Rebellion in 1850–1864, human hearts became a popular dish, according to some who afterwards freely admitted having consumed them. According to a missionary's report from the brutal suppression of the Dungan Revolt of 1895–1896 in northwestern China, "thousands of men, women and children were ruthlessly massacred by the imperial soldiers" and "many a meal of human hearts and livers

4368-443: The mother, father, both parents or close relatives". Infanticide followed by cannibalism was practised in various regions, but is particularly well documented among Aboriginal Australians . Among animals, such behaviour is called filial cannibalism , and it is common in many species, especially among fish. Human predation is the hunting of people from unrelated and possibly hostile groups in order to eat them. In parts of

4446-524: The neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago and for Australia . In the Congo Basin, there lived groups such as the Bankutu who hunted humans for food even when game was plentiful. The term innocent cannibalism has been used for cases of people eating human flesh without knowing what they are eating. It is a subject of myths, such as the myth of Thyestes who unknowingly ate the flesh of his own sons. There are also actual cases on record, for example from

4524-503: The now-discredited theory of humorism for cannibalism was that it was caused by a black acrimonious humor, which, being lodged in the linings of the ventricles of the heart, produced a voracity for human flesh. On the other hand, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne understood war cannibalism as a way of expressing vengeance and hatred towards one's enemies and celebrating one's victory over them, thus giving an interpretation that

4602-512: The others from starving, a time-honoured practice formerly known as a " custom of the sea ". In other cases, cannibalism is an expression of a psychopathology or mental disorder , condemned by the society in which it occurs and "considered to be an indicator of [a] severe personality disorder or psychosis". Well-known cases include Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , and Armin Meiwes . Fantasies of cannibalism, whether acted out or not, are not specifically mentioned in manuals of mental disorders such as

4680-404: The period that some Mongol soldiers ate human flesh because of its taste rather than (as had also occurred in other times) merely in cases of necessity. He added that they enjoyed torturing their victims (often children or women, whose flesh was preferred over that of men) by roasting them alive, in "large jars whose outside touched the fire [or] on an iron grate". Other victims were placed "inside

4758-514: The poem portrays the emergence of the moon: Whilst total darkness overspreads the skies; Save when the lightnings darting wingéd Fate Quick bursting from the pitchy clouds between In forkéd Terror, and destructive state Shall shew with double gloom the horrid scene? Eventually, the traveller becomes involved with a battle at sea: Yet not the Tempest, or the Whirlwind's roar Equal

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4836-400: The repast" at feasts for chiefs and warriors. The ethnologist Felix Speiser  [ de ] writes: "Apart from the breasts of women and the genitals of men, palms of hands and soles of feet were the most coveted morsels." He knew a chief on Ambae , one of the islands of Vanuatu, who, "according to fairly reliably sources", dined on a young girl's breasts every few days. When visiting

4914-727: The same sentiment. In many cases, human flesh was also described as particularly delicious, especially when it came from women, children, or both. Such statements are on record for various regions and peoples, including the Aztecs, today's Liberia and Nigeria , the Fang people in west-central Africa, the Congo Basin, China up to the 14th century, Sumatra , Borneo , Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Vanuatu , and Fiji. Some Europeans and Americans who ate human flesh accidentally, out of curiosity, or to comply with local customs likewise tended to describe it as very good. There

4992-408: The time of innocence as in the past although others that he attends school with are still joyful and innocent. However, discussion of beauty within "Easter Holiday", along with the hopeful conclusion of the poem, reveals a further influence by Neoplatonistic works, especially Plotinus's Enneads . Of Plotinus in particular, Coleridge derived his understanding of wisdom as the soul being awakened to

5070-480: The world mention women's breasts as a favourite body part. Also frequently mentioned are the palms of the hands and sometimes the soles of the feet , regardless of the victim's gender. Jerome , in his treatise Against Jovinianus , claimed that the British Attacotti were cannibals who regarded the buttocks of men and the breasts of women as delicacies. During the Mongol invasion of Europe in

5148-551: The world, but such views have been largely rejected as irreconcilable with the actual evidence. The word "cannibal" is derived from Spanish caníbal or caríbal , originally used as a name variant for the Kalinago (Island Caribs), a people from the West Indies said to have eaten human flesh. The older term anthropophagy , meaning "eating humans", is also used for human cannibalism. Cannibalism has been practised under

5226-498: The world. After the Battle of Uhud (625), Hind bint Utba ate (or at least attempted to) the liver of Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib , an uncle of Muhammad . At that time, the liver was considered "the seat of life". French Catholics ate livers and hearts of Huguenots at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, in some cases also offering them for sale. In China, medical cannibalism

5304-591: The world. At the archaeological site of Herxheim , Germany, more than a thousand people were killed and eaten about 7000 years ago, and the evidence indicates that many of them were spit-roasted whole over open fires. During severe famines in China and Egypt during the 12th and early 13th centuries, there was a black-market trade in corpses of little children that were roasted or boiled whole. In China, human-flesh sellers advertised such corpses as good for being boiled or steamed whole, "including their bones", and praised their particular tenderness. In Cairo , Egypt,

5382-575: The worst they are something like common sense. The others are the grimaces of Lunacy'. The poem begins by describing a voyage, an image connected to his own separation from home: To tempt the dangerous deep, too venturous youth, Why does thy breast with fondest wishes glow? No tender parent there thy cares shall sooth, No much-lov'd Friend shall share thy every woe. Why does thy mind with hopes delusive burn? Vain are thy Schemes by heated Fancy plann'd: Thy promis'd joy thou'lt see to Sorrow turn Exil'd from Bliss, and from thy native land. Then

5460-545: The year. The themes of the poem were influenced by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon who wrote the Cato's Letters , a series of letters on religion, sin, and suffering under the pseudonym Cato. They promoted the belief that suffering originated in vice, and that man is ever subject to passions that cannot be controlled. This is connected to Coleridge experiencing both suffering and guilt over what he described later as his loss of innocence. In "Easter Holidays", Coleridge describes

5538-447: The youths' fall from innocence, but their innocence is also what kept them from knowing that they will suffer. However, the poem ends with a message of hope: While steady Virtue guides his mind Heav'n–born Content he still shall find         That never sheds a tear: Without respect to any tide His hours away in bliss shall glide         Like Easter all

5616-788: Was baked in steam on preheated rocks or in earth ovens (a technique widely used in the Pacific), smoked (which allowed to preserve it for later consumption), or eaten raw. While these modes were used in both exo- and endocannibalism, another method that was only used in the latter and only in the Americas was to burn the bones or bodies of deceased relatives and then to consume the bone ash. After analysing numerous accounts from China, Key Ray Chong similarly concludes that "a variety of methods for cooking human flesh" were used in this country. Most popular were " broiling , roasting, boiling and steaming", followed by " pickling in salt, wine, sauce and

5694-432: Was composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1787. It is one of his earliest known poems and was written for a school assignment while Coleridge attended Christ's Hospital . The poem describes the pain of solitude that accompanies travel and the risks that accompany a voyage at sea, including combat against others and resorting to cannibalism . "Dura Navis", along with " Easter Holidays " and " Niul Pejus est Caelibe Vita ",

5772-459: Was most typically boiled , with roasting also used to prepare the bodies of enemies and other outsiders in exocannibalism , but rarely in funerary endocannibalism (when eating deceased relatives). But an analysis of 60 sufficiently detailed and credible descriptions of institutionalized cannibalism by anthropologist Paul Shankman failed to confirm this hypothesis. Shankman found that roasting and boiling together accounted for only about half of

5850-545: Was partaken of by soldiers", supposedly out of a belief that this would give them "the courage their enemies had displayed". In World War II, Japanese soldiers ate the livers of killed Americans in the Chichijima incident . Many Japanese soldiers who died during the occupation of Jolo Island in the Philippines had their livers eaten by local Moro fighters, according to Japanese soldier Fujioka Akiyoshi. During

5928-659: Was practised over centuries. People voluntarily cut their own body parts, including parts of their livers, and boiled them to cure ailing relatives. Children were sometimes killed because eating their boiled hearts was considered a good way of extending one's life. Emperor Wuzong of Tang supposedly ordered provincial officials to send him "the hearts and livers of fifteen-year-old boys and girls" when he had become seriously ill, hoping in vain this medicine would cure him. Later private individuals sometimes followed his example, paying soldiers who kidnapped preteen children for their kitchen. When "human flesh and organs were sold openly at

6006-471: Was prepared with "fat from a woman's breast", according to the missionary and ethnographer F. Gero. Similar preferences are on record throughout Melanesia . According to the anthropologists Bernard Deacon and Camilla Wedgwood , women were "specially fattened for eating" in Vanuatu , "the breasts being the great delicacy". A missionary confirmed that "a body of a female usually formed the principal part of

6084-458: Was to later emphasises the need of companionship to overcome the loneliness of life. An article in late 19th-century The University Magazine and Free Review attributed the failure of Coleridge's early poetry to his education. Boyer did teach the students literature and emphasised simplicity within poetry as Coleridge's account of Boyer's correcting of "Dura Navis". However, "It was still the day of mechanical scansion and didactic appreciation" and

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