An
alternate term for
cannibalism:
Old enough to be
archaic today, not so old that it was
archaic in
Webster 1913's time.
"Anthropophagy" comes to English, via French anthropophagie and Latin anthropophagia, from the Greek word ανθροποφαγια. One who indulges in anthropophagy is called an anthropophage (via Latin anthropophagus from Greek ανθροποφαγοσ). This word comes from the two roots ανθροποσ, "man" (which also occurs in anthropology, philanthropy, and lycanthrope), and φαγοσ, "eater" (which also occurs in sarcophagus, itself literally a "flesh eater").
"Anthropophagy" was the common term for cannibalism in Europe before the New World was discovered. The word "cannibal" comes from the name of the Carib, a tribe of Natives living in the West Indies and South America, who were purported anthropophages.
Anthropophagy is an important part of all human mythological cycles. In most stories, a person can gain immortality by ingesting human flesh. In the West, it occurs in the pagan legend of the vampire, in the Muslim legend of the ghoul, and notably (though in diluted form) in the ritual of Holy Communion (where the practitioner symbolically eats the flesh and blood of Jesus). Another important part of our cultural iconography is the Windigo (from Ojibwe wintiko), the Native American analogue to the Western vampire.
Images of anthropophagy have survived Western man's so-called "civilisation" in the above forms and many more. Renowned author Jack London is reputed to have tasted the long pork on certain occasions, as have certain other celebrities like Anton Szandor LaVey, High Priest and founder of the Church of Satan. Images of anthropophagy can also be found in film, like Alive!, and the myth of the anthropophage and his power recieves sympathetic treatment in excellent films like Ravenous and Thomas Harris's Silence of the Lambs and the upcoming Hannibal.
How civilised can we really pretend or claim to be, seeing as how we surround ourselves with such images? If being civilised means getting rid of such images, how civilised do we really even want to be? How civilised could we be? Man is an animal which, by virtue of his imagination, can be far more vicious than those who walk on all fours....
Spuunbenda also points out that in Greek mythology, Cronus ate his offspring to prevent them from overthrowing his heavenly dominion. Also, it is rumoured that deep in the jungles of Borneo, Papua and New Guinea, headhunter tribes still enjoy the occasional long pork feast....