A: You are what you eat, right? So it stands to reason that if you’re a cannibal, and you eat a diseased dead guy, you’re going to be a diseased dead guy. But the cannibalistic Fore people of New Guinea found that out the hard way. For most of the 20th century, the Fore were plagued by a disease called Kuru, also known as the laughing death. Kuru, a relative of mad cow disease, paralyzes its victims and causes dementia by turning the brain into something resembling Swiss cheese – literally creating holes in the brain.
Fascinated by what he thought was a genetic disorder, scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek traveled to New Guinea in 1957 to study the Fore. While there, however, he discovered that women made up the vast majority of Kuru victims. He also noticed women and children were the ones ceremonially eating the brains and intestines of dead relatives. Putting two and two together, Gajdusek deduced the Fore were ingesting the prions, or misshapen proteins, that caused the disease. Gajdusek received a Nobel Prize for his work, and today, cannibalism and Kuru are all but wiped out in New Guinea.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself? I know I would. I'd smother myself with brown mustard and relish. I'd be delicious.
2 - Nancy
Eeeeeeyewwww....
Actually, I had an anthropology professor in college who told us he'd had human meat while doing fieldwork. Said it tasted like chicken, but with the texture of slightly tough pork. Said he wished he'd had some Major Grey's or a good mustard, because it was dry yet slightly greasy, altho not overcooked.
Eeeeeyewwwww....
3 - Nancy
I had an anthropology professor in college who claimed he'd had human meat while doing fieldwork. Said it tasted like chicken, but with the texture of dry, slightly tough pork. Said he'd wished at the time he'd had some Major Grey's or a good mustard to pick up the flavor. Doesn't sound like Soylent Green would be a rousing gourmet treat after all. Maybe stir fried or braised like pot roast...?
4 - El Bicho
this coming from the guy who criticizes Jet for not attributing sources.
5 - tink
Love this column but not sure this is one I should have read before breakfast!!
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
I bet RogerMDillon tastes a lot like Ignatius Reilly.
7 - Matthew T. Sussman
Hey, which Blogcritic do you think tastes best? My money's on Mark Schannon. Served best with Jameson.
8 - rj
Thank you, Harry Carrey... ;-P
9 - Silas Kain
If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself? I know I would. I'd smother myself with brown mustard and relish. I'd be delicious.
Where's Freud when you need him?
10 - RJ Elliott
Silas - It's a quote from an SNL skit...
11 - RJ Elliott
Link here - it's a classic!
12 - Snarkattack
There was this famous Tasmanian convict in colonial Australia (Tasmania being a small island south of the mainland) who when he broke out of jail became a cannibal for survival purposes. Trouble was, he liked the taste of human meat so much he started eating it minus the starvation. When they caught him and he was to be hanged, his parting words were apparently something along the lines of 'nothing tastes as good as human flesh'.
Tertiary syphilis also causes the Swiss cheese brain effect, I've heard. Ugh, not an image of the brain I'd like to dwell on too much.
13 - MAOZ
Matthew: "Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener; that is what I'd truly like to be. 'Cuz if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, everyone would be in love with me!"
Or, "Oh, I'm glad I'm not an Oscar Meyer wiener, dah dah dah [forgot the next few words]. 'Cuz if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, there would soon be nothing left of me!"
[Am I showing my age by quoting that commercial's ditty?]
14 - Nancy
In Milwaukee some wag put out the Jeffrey Dahmer Cookbook.
15 - taylor
i love how i read this as i was eating a meat patty.
16 - Justin
Reptilian humanoids eat human raw flesh.
They don't cook it for some reasons.
And I've been told by people who have witnessed this, they day only the most healthy of the humans are eaten.
We must be good to eat if 100+ young and healthy people go missing without a trace daily.
I personally am begining to not like meat... humans are natural vegetarians anyhow.
Think I'm crazy or joking? Research it.