Eating With Cannibals

      

                Recently, I viewed a documentary from National Geographic. In this film a man named Piers Gibbson travels to Papua New Guinea to study and to research about the practice of Cannibalism. Cannibalism is defined as a human eating another human. In many cultures Cannibalism is considered and taboo not to be practiced ever. But, in Papua New Guinea some people might argue with that belief.

               Once Piers Gibbson arrived he was greeted with a completely different culture. Papua New Guinea is a very rural country with mostly poverty surrounding it. As Piers Gibbson explores Papua New Guinea he interviews many villagers and is able to establish that Cannibalism was very common not too long ago. The following question would be why would a person eat another person? Many villagers stated because of witch craft. Also some of the villagers would say for revenge. Piers Gibbson would also ask them how it tasted. Surprisingly many of them told him it had a weird taste but it didn't taste bad. In the documentary you could tell meat was very scarce. Piers Gibbson believed that maybe they ate people because of the lack of food but none of the villagers would ever admit it.  

                As the viewer continues to see the film you can see how a small portion of meat that many would consider not even enough for one person being shared by five people. In the film you can see how the culture of the Papua New Guinea was crumbling with the movement of Catholic Churches. A culture who once was enriched with so many old traditions being modernized into Catholic beliefs.