You knew it’d be coming as a blog post eventually - didn’t you?
Oh yes, it’s time for the TEOTWAWKI taboo!
The news broke yesterday that former Liberian President Charles Taylor, being tried for war crimes, ordered his militiamen to kill and eat African peacekeepers and even some United Nations personnel. Errrrrr . . . . . ummmm . . . . yum? The witness testifying said the cannibalistic acts was a mixture of taking vengeance and a “practical need for food.”
Read:
Prodded under cross-examination by defense lawyer Courtenay Griffith, Marzah gave a sometimes-graphic description of cannibalism that altered between the ritual taking of vengeance and the practical need for food. “Did Charles Taylor order you to eat people?” Griffith asked.
Yes, to set an example for the people to be afraid,” Marzah replied. He appeared unfazed by Griffith’s blunt queries, and responded in matter-of-fact tones to such questions as “How do you prepare a human being for the pot?”
Marzah then described the splitting, cleaning, decapitating and cooking of the corpse with salt and pepper. “We throw your head away,” he said.
News source is here.
Anyone else see a parallel here with the cannibalistic cult in Lucifer’s Hammer, the TEOTAWKI fiction book? Do you think Taylor read it and got the idea? Maybe he read The Road, that’s loaded with cannibal action. Hell, maybe it was Parable of the Sower. Sheesh, I’m sensing a common thread in these SHTF novels. Does Rawles’ (SurvivalBlog) book Patriots include cannibal action? I still gotta read it - soon!
Cannibalism, is it a TEOTWAWKI food source? Of course it is, the question is more - could you dine? Would you dine? I don’t think the question can be fully answered until you find yourself in a situation where it’s either death or George’s left leg down your gullet into your gut. Yeah, yeah, “Not me, not ever. I’d rather DIE!” Okay, that may be the case, but what if you’re in a situation like the Donner Party? You leave others behind to go for help. If you die - they die. Would it be selfish at that point to refuse a little bicep if your refusal meant others croak? What if you have kids? Would you watch them starve to death before feeding them Fred?
What if you were in a situation like that of the 1972 incident when a rugby team’s plane crashed in the Andes? A few went down the mountain for help, and in order for the rest to survive, they had to dine on dead passengers. They made that action into a move - Alive. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Think on that today. I gotta go get ready for work, gotta eat breakfast.
- Ranger Man
BTW: Don’t be caught eating people after TEOTWAWKI. Check out the U.S. Army Survival Manual to learn ways of securing grub in the wild. Also, don’t be caught getting eaten. Learn combat skills through U.S. Army Field Manuals. They’re paperback, meaning easy-to-read, grid-down and EMP-proof.
19 responses so far ↓
1 noisynick // Mar 14, 2008 at 7:16 am
The food of truly last resort…………… Because you can never go back it might be necessaryand the thing to do at some future time but exhausting other options totally would be first.
Although a nice young thigh seasoned to perfection on the grill does have some appeal
………..
Bon Appetite
2 Canibal Hunter // Mar 14, 2008 at 7:56 am
In Rawles book Patriots, two individuals approach the group and are stopped to be searched. The group finds human body parts (canibal food) and executes the canibals on the spot. Canibals get similar treatment in SM Stirling’s Dies the Fire series - become a canibal and you loose your right to be part of the human race and are pretty much executed on site.
3 Rushman // Mar 14, 2008 at 9:08 am
I would just have to say that I hope it would never come to that. No one can say they wouldn’t unless they were in that situtation. Me personally I would hope I could live off grub and bark soup LOL.
4 knight_308 // Mar 14, 2008 at 1:04 pm
To make things worse, in Patriots, the “food” was little children.
5 ryan // Mar 14, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I prep so I do not have to resort to long pork. I can’t tell what I would or would not do to survive but am inclined to think I would do a lot. I would also do a lot of thinking outside the box before considering that COA.
6 Alferd Packer // Mar 14, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Yep, Patriots had there cannibals in the first encounter at the retreat.
And don’t forget me.
Shpadoinkle*
7 Angry Cow // Mar 14, 2008 at 3:05 pm
…a little trip over to Google with the phrase ” cannibalism “animal feed” ” yielded some interesting hits
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/page267.cfm
“1997 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bans protein made from cows, sheep, deer, and other so-called ruminants in feed for other ruminants.
It is still legal to feed the rendered protein to non-ruminants, such as pigs and chickens; those animals in turn can be rendered and fed to cows or sheep. Cattle are still being fed composted wastes from chicken coops, including feathers, spilled feed, even feces. Calves are fed beef blood and beef fat.”
First thought: It seems the natural revulsion to cannibalism (and the cultural taboos and legal prohibitions) is grounded in real dangers…like BSE, aka “Mad Cow Disease”.
Second thought: The fact that the 19th & 20th century has seen an explosion of “human-forced animal cannibalism” in the food supply makes me see yet another data point of proof in the argument that OUR FOOD SUPPLY is dangerously stretched.
8 DW // Mar 14, 2008 at 8:59 pm
From “Man and Society in Calamity” by P.A. Sorkin. Page 67……..The same tragic story of parents’ killing and eating their children and vice versa, of wives’ slaying and devouring their husbands and vice versa, of the snatching of corpes from cemeteries or the gallows, of the professional ambushing, killing , eating of passers-by—this is monotonously repeated in connection with numerous major famines.
1030-1031, Burgundy, human flesh openly sold on the markets.
Sometimes it got so bad they posted guards at the cemeteries.
GO TO SAM’s CLUB AND BUY TEN 50 POUND BAGS OF RICE FOR EVERY PERSON YOU CARE ABOUT. NOW!
9 nick // Apr 23, 2008 at 7:07 pm
my friend wants to eat me
10 Earthmaster Blog Review // Jul 5, 2008 at 8:47 am
[…] Earthmaster also kind of reminds of that religious cult in the classic SHTF book, Lucifer’s Hammer, that went around after the asteroid hit telling everyone God CHOSE them to survive . . . . and then they started eating people. […]
11 Daeryan // Aug 28, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hate to say it but I would eat a person as readily as a chicken or a cow. From what I hear we are red meat and ground up might make good burgers. lets face it when it comes to dire times I and my family matter most to me. If it came to hunting people I would do it alone and pawn it off to my family as dear or cow meat. With other options available this would not be the case, but should it come down to it the rest of you may want to lay low for a while.
12 Backyard Blackberry Adventures at the Ranger Man’s Keep // Aug 28, 2008 at 5:58 pm
[…] lastly, a recent, funny comment on my People: the Other White Meat blog […]
13 Phil // Sep 23, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I live 10 miles from the heart of a major city. I live in the suburbs of that city. I’d bet I could open my back door right now, and there’d be a rabbit out on my back lawn. In the morning, there’ll be ten squirrells arguing with ten birds in the big maple in my back yard. I can hop on my ‘79 Honda CT90 and be in a rural area in literally 20 minutes, where I can catch all the fish I want. I ain’t eating no people….
14 Dawn // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I’m with Phil… But I don’t eat meat now! If the trees that those juicy squirrels live in and the burrows those rabbits are in provide the greens, roots, seeds, etc., they need, why not us? Surely there are animals in the frozen tundra, if meat is the only way to survive because of some seriously lacking survival skills. Have some pride and integrity people! Don’t eat people! Except the stupid ones.
15 Stu // Jan 10, 2009 at 4:42 am
Yeah well…….if it comes down the that…….I figure the people that wont will die……the people that will…..will eat them. Then when it gets to the point where everyone alive has eaten and will eat other people, then it’s on. Peak people, and the ever declining supply. There will be people, who villages that are born, grow up, where it’s normal………they might open a take away……KFH……..or…McLongPig. I can imagine the kind of society it would be, everyone eating people, they would have to farm them like cattle or when they run out of outsiders………..then the shit would really hit the fan
16 Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg // May 5, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Lest we forget, we will, in fact, answer to God for our behavior in this life. Before you bite into that ass-sandwich (literally), you might want to weigh the pros & cons of violating the manner in which God has clearly ordered the world.
17 MeMe // Jun 4, 2009 at 9:58 am
Grey beards will eat long pig, the cell phone generation will not. They don’t even know how to open a can without an electric can opener, change a tire or start a fire.
Survival of the fittest is also the most prepared. Just make sure the “meat” you eat is Grade A.
Old people can be sort of of mushy or over dry, fat people can be rendered for candles and oil, toddlers are like veal and everything else in between makes for great meatloaf or stir fry.
A good motto for the future: Better to recycle than waste by burial and landfill.
18 CanTheCannibals // Jun 24, 2009 at 1:10 pm
As mentioned, if you’re forced to resort to cannibalism, both your preparation and survival skills are so far below par you may as well offer yourself up as dinner to the next group of twisted freaks who show any interest in devouring you.
MeMe, maybe you can speak for people you know, but I’m firmly in the “cell phone generation” and I can assure you I’m more well prepared and more knowledgeable than most of you graybeards I know. And the meat US service men and women are eating in Iraq and Afghanistan is Grade F - hardly grade A, but we keep fighting regardless, they just bless us with the best food they can afford to give us, while you munch your grade A veal and stay cozy enjoying the freedom we protect for you.
19 Historic Insight // Aug 29, 2009 at 7:37 pm
To address Phil and Dawn’s statements…a word-to-the-youth, from an old fart…my grandfather was born in 1906, and told stories of the Great Depression…how, that after the first year, there was no more squirrels seen, nor rabbits…he said that it wasn’t until after his return from WWII in 1945 that he saw his first deer…first since 1930!!! If you plan on wild game or pond fish…well, chances are, you will be dining on long-pork before ANY of the rest of us!…just a word to the youth.
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