Guess who's for dinner?

I used to think that only isolated primitive tribal people practised cannibalism. Long before there was such a thing as headhunters, the employment agency, the indigenous people of Sarawak, were the original headhunters. They were fabled to kill their enemies, shrunk their skulls and wore them as ornaments. Even in modern times, consuming the human brain was a delicacy amongst the tribes in Papua New Guinea. We learnt about Kuru, the first human prion-linked disease, way before the world heard of Cruetzfelt-Jakob disease (CJD) or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, Mad Cow Disease). Kuru was transmitted when attendees of tribal funerals would consume the brain of the recently departed in their honour.

I was made to believe that only primitive ‘uncivilised’ natives only had such practices. The colonial masters were quick to label anyone who had built the courage to oppose their rule as cannibal as they did to Thugees in India and Mao Mao people in Kenya.

The Thuggees were the local dwellers who were doing nothing more than defending their jungles against the colonisers who were keen to appropriate the forests to mine the minerals allegedly found there. To justify their usurping these lands, the colonists labelled them professional robbers and murderers. Just because the locals prayed to a ferocious-looking Kaali, Thurga, with weapons, protruding tongue while stepping on asuras, they were labelled as cannibals. The British ended up stealing the land and appropriating the words ‘jungle’, which the locals called a forest. ‘Thugs’ made it into English to refer to a violent, lawless person.

In mid-century Kenya, the British colonists, in their expertise to bring nations to their knees via their divide-and-rule tactics, started spreading lies about a group of aggrieved British Kenyan soldiers who became freedom fighters. They were Mau Mau warriors. Their reputation became so bad that mothers used to scare their crying kids that the Mau Mau people would snatch them and eat them if they did not quieten down and sleep.

The implication of all these is that cannibalism is the limit of human cruelty. Once one eats up a fellow human, he has crossed the point of no return.

Surprise, surprise.

The practice of consumption of human flesh is not alien to Europe. It peaked in the 17th century when it was a rage to consume human meat. There was even a lucrative black market to source Egyptian mummies. It was believed that the medicinal composition of the mummies and the mystic aura surrounding the carcasses gave them special powers. It was fashionable as late as the late 18th century among the elite society to hold private 'mummy-feasting' parties. Then there was a symbolism of the Eucharist representing Jesus' human body, consumed during Holy Communion as if justifying man ingesting another.

Then there is the legacy of Dracula and the pseudo-medical elixir of vitality, including human blood. Even to date, like a cat, humans eat the placentas of their offspring directly or in concoctions.

Guess what (or who) is for dinner? And I wonder who is coming for dinner tonight or who is for dinner tonight?

Are these thugs?

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