consequences of cannibalism. Kuru and Cannibalism: The Curse of the Cannibals

Often, in our view, a cannibal is a person who existed far in the past, when the planet was inhabited by wild primitive tribes. Is it so? Can ruthless devourers of their own kind exist in our civilized world?

Cannibal - who is this? The meaning and interpretation of the word

Very often cannibalism is called cannibalism, although this is not entirely true. What is the difference? A cannibal can be any creature that eats people. Basically, these are large predatory animals that are able to attack a person and eat, for example, brown and polar bear, sharks, wolves and others.

A cannibal is a creature that eats members of its own species. That is, the terms "cannibalism" and "cannibalism" are equal only when it comes to a person. Unfortunately, this is possible in modern realities. History knows many cases when people ate each other.

The word was formed from the name "caniba". Before the discovery of the Bahamas by Columbus, the inhabitants of Haiti were called by this name. Eating people for the natives was commonplace. In the Herero tribes, canibal means "brave". In Russian in figurative meaning it is interpreted as "a rough or cruel person".

Cannibalism in animals

In nature, a cannibal animal is not uncommon. More than a thousand species of mammals, fish, insects and arachnids eat their counterparts. Strange behavior is explained as a manifestation. This is how the population is regulated.

Cannibalism intensifies when living conditions become too harsh and animals suffer from a lack of any resources, especially food. In this case, eating “our own” helps the rest survive and preserve the population.

Females are usually more prone to cannibalism than males. For example, females eat partners immediately after mating. This is observed in praying mantises, some species of mosquitoes, flies. To avoid death, males sometimes bring other insects to the female as their replacement.

Cannibals are found among lizards, snakes, turtles, rodents and primates. Some fish eat all small individuals in a row without distinguishing sometimes their own offspring. The young lion, having displaced the aged leader of the pride, eats his offspring. Wolves and lynxes are also able to eat their cubs.

cannibalism in humans

Previously, people were less picky about food, and cannibalism began to practice since the Stone Age. At first it was associated with a lack of food, but over time it began to acquire religious significance. Many cannibals believed that eating the brain, heart, and other parts of an enemy would give strength and courage. Due to the lack of heat treatment, they often developed various diseases.

Medieval navigators periodically discovered tribes of cannibals. One of them was allegedly eaten by James Cook. Cannibalism was found in the Malay Archipelago, in Asia, Africa, and North America. Some researchers claim that it spread to Europe as well.

Greek, Scandinavian and other myths tell about cannibalism. The Greek god Kronos, for example, devoured his children. Among the ancient tribes, cannibalism was part of the rite of sacrifice, which was later replaced by the killing of an animal, not a person.

Modern tribes of cannibals

Not all people got rid of this tradition. Currently, there are quite a few tribes that have not been touched by civilization. Some of them still practice cannibalism. Members of the Aghori community in northern India believe that eating people slows down aging, but so far they only eat volunteers.

The cannibals of Guinea believe in dark magic and sorcery, which can only be cured by cannibalism. The news periodically publishes reports of the disappearance of tourists in the south of Papua New Guinea. Once they even kidnapped and ate voters in the elections.

Tribes use cannibalism as revenge on their enemies. Examples of cannibalism are found among the tribes of Brazil and the Congo. At the end of the 20th century, a tribe wearing leopard skins was discovered in West Africa, who believed that cannibalism gives strength and speed. Later they were inherited by the Human Alligator community.

Conclusion

Cannibalism is the eating of similar creatures. It is widely distributed in the wild and is the main mechanism that controls population size. Wild human tribes eat people not only for food, they often attach spiritual or religious meaning to their actions.

Unfortunately, cannibal people are not only found among savages. There is a whole list of maniacs who killed and ate their victims. Many of them did not differ from other people either in appearance or behavior. The famous Russian cannibal maniac Andrey Chikatilo had a family, worked as a teacher and helped the police more than once as a combatant.

Guidebooks warn of many dangers that may await travelers in a particular country. But no one warns about cannibalism. Surprise! Cannibalism is still practiced in some tribes such as India, Cambodia and West Africa. And here are 7 countries in which tribes are still not averse to feasting on people.

South East Papua New Guinea

The Korowai tribe is one of the last on Earth to regularly feed on human flesh. They live along the river, and there have been cases when they killed random tourists. And the healers considered warm brains a real delicacy.

Why do they eat people? When someone in the tribe dies without any apparent reason(illness or old age), they consider it to be tricks of black magic and, in order to save others from harm, they must eat a person.

Interesting fact: In 1961, Michael Rockefeller (son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller) disappeared while collecting artifacts about the tribe. His body was never found.

India

The northern Indian Hindu sect, the Aghori, eats volunteers who donate their innards. However, in 2005, Indian television crews investigated and learned that they also eat decaying corpses from the Ganges (a local tradition) and also steal organs from crematoria.

Why do they eat people?

Aghori believe that this prevents the aging of the body.

Interesting fact: They do really good Jewelry from human bones and skulls.

Fiji

Formerly known as "Cannibal Island". Until now, local residents cannot restore order, and there are still those who eat human flesh, but not all, but only enemy tribes.

Why do they eat people? This is a revenge ritual.

Interesting fact: Fijian cannibals are not animals at all - they eat with cutlery and collect rare items left over from their victims. In the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, you can find examples of such collections.

Brazil

The Wari tribe ate the pious and religious dead until 1960, and after that some state missionaries massacred almost the entire tribe. However, poverty levels in the slums of Olinda have been prohibitively high since 1994, and there are still outbreaks of cannibalism.

Why do they eat people? Poverty and hunger.

Interesting fact: In 2012, there was information from researchers who interviewed local residents, and they claimed to hear voices that tell them to kill this or that person.

West Africa

The society of active cannibals Leopard has been eating people since the last century. Until the 80s, human remains were found in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire. The tribe is usually dressed in leopard skins and armed with their fangs.

Why do they eat people? The tribe believes that eating humans makes them stronger and faster.

Interesting fact: They have followers - the Human Alligator community, which is doing this.

Cambodia

Journalist Neil Davis reported that cannibalism in these regions gained momentum during the wars in Southeast Asia (in the 1960s and 1970s). Nowadays, manifestations of cannibalism are occasionally observed.

Why do they eat people? The Cambodian troops had a ritual - to eat the enemy's liver.

Interesting fact: Many people in cities and villages were under the control of the Khmer Rouge organization, which strictly controlled all food in the area and artificially created famine in the country.

Congo

There are cases of cannibalism in the Congo, and the last ones were recorded not so long ago - in 2012. They reached their maximum during the Congolese civil war (from 1998 to 2002).

Why do they eat people? During the war, the rebel factions believed that enemies should be eaten, especially the heart, which was cooked using special herbs.

Interesting fact: The Congolese still believe that the human heart gives special strength, and if there are people, it will scare away enemies.

Have a nice adventure! :)

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7 countries where you can be eaten.

Guidebooks warn of many dangers that may await travelers in a particular country. But no one warns about cannibalism. Surprise! Cannibalism is still practiced in some tribes such as India, Cambodia and West Africa. And here are 7 countries in which tribes are still not averse to feasting on people.

South East Papua New Guinea

The Korowai tribe is one of the last on Earth to regularly feed on human flesh. They live along the river, and there have been cases when they killed random tourists. And the healers considered warm brains a real delicacy.

Why do they eat people? When someone in the tribe dies for no apparent reason (illness or old age), they consider it a trick of black magic and, in order to save others from harm, they must eat the person.

Interesting fact: In 1961, Michael Rockefeller (son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller) disappeared while collecting artifacts about the tribe. His body was never found.

India

The northern Indian Hindu sect, the Aghori, eats volunteers who donate their innards. However, in 2005, Indian television crews investigated and learned that they also eat decaying corpses from the Ganges (a local tradition) and also steal organs from crematoria.

Why do they eat people?

Aghori believe that this prevents the aging of the body.

Interesting fact: They make really good jewelry out of human bones and skulls.

Fiji

Formerly known as "Cannibal Island". Until now, local residents cannot restore order, and there are still those who eat human flesh, but not all, but only enemy tribes.

Why do they eat people? This is a revenge ritual.

Interesting fact: Fijian cannibals are not animals at all - they eat with cutlery and collect rare items left over from their victims. In the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, you can find examples of such collections.

Brazil

The Wari tribe ate the pious and religious dead until 1960, and after that some state missionaries massacred almost the entire tribe. However, poverty levels in the slums of Olinda have been prohibitively high since 1994, and there are still outbreaks of cannibalism.

Why do they eat people? Poverty and hunger.

Interesting fact: In 2012, there was information from researchers who interviewed local residents, and they claimed to hear voices that tell them to kill this or that person.

West Africa

The society of active cannibals Leopard has been eating people since the last century. Until the 80s, human remains were found in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire. The tribe is usually dressed in leopard skins and armed with their fangs.

Why do they eat people? The tribe believes that eating humans makes them stronger and faster.

Interesting fact: They have followers - the Human Alligator community, which is doing this.

Cambodia

Journalist Neil Davis reported that cannibalism in these regions gained momentum during the wars in Southeast Asia (in the 1960s and 1970s). Nowadays, manifestations of cannibalism are occasionally observed.

Why do they eat people? The Cambodian troops had a ritual - to eat the enemy's liver.

Interesting fact: Many people in cities and villages were under the control of the Khmer Rouge organization, which strictly controlled all food in the area and artificially created famine in the country.

Congo

There are cases of cannibalism in the Congo, and the last ones were recorded not so long ago - in 2012. They reached their maximum during the Congolese civil war (from 1998 to 2002).

Why do they eat people? During the war, the rebel factions believed that enemies should be eaten, especially the heart, which was cooked using special herbs.

Interesting fact: The Congolese still believe that the human heart gives special strength, and if there are people, it will scare away enemies.

Have a nice adventure! 🙂

AT last years from time to time the public is shocked by reports of acts cannibalism (cannibalism, anthropophagy). Most often, this is criminal cannibalism, that is, associated with the commission of crimes, as a rule, murders, followed by eating parts of the victim’s body, drinking her blood, etc.

There is, of course, non-criminal cannibalism, for example, when a leg amputated by a surgeon is eaten. Criminal cannibalism is more often associated with sexual crimes, i.e. committed on sexual grounds and in connection with sexual experiences.

In the modern period, criminal cannibalism first attracted serious attention in connection with the crimes of the notorious Chikatilo, which over the course of 15 years killed 53 people (women, girls and boys) on sexual grounds and was exposed in 1990.

He was a pitiful person, a life and sexual loser, a passive homosexual and impotent, but became a formidable and relentless killer when he gained power over the victim.

He lived in some kind of his own world, in his altered reality, where no one had access and which was divided into ordinary life at home, at work, and for those hours when he lured and killed the victim. After killing, he dismembered her, shredded, cut out pieces of the body, usually associated with sex life, and often ate them: in boys, he ate the contents of the scrotum.

Cannibalism of Chikatilo can be explained in different ways, but I believe that here the following should be mainly borne in mind: 1) eating the intimate parts of a woman’s body on a symbolic level had the meaning of possessing her, since in real life he, an impotent, could not do this; 2) the eating of the genitals of boys could take place in order to acquire their male sexual power, which he sorely lacked.

I believe that if he could kill a grown man, he would presumably do the same. Thus, Chikatilo's cannibalism had a purely sexual meaning and was generated by his miserable and unsuccessful attempts to acquire a biological male status, to assert himself in intersexual relations, at least on a psychological level, thereby ensuring self-acceptance.

The latter was extremely important for him, since constant failures in the sphere of these relations caused him a very painful psychological trauma. He generally considered himself a failure in life, a man driven by fate. Therefore, in conversations with me, he spoke a lot on this topic, listing in detail all the insults and insults inflicted on him, especially from women and related to sexual failures.

I deliberately do not dwell on the crimes of Chikatilo, since they were covered in more than detail in the press and other media. Here it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that this killer is a sex offender and acts of cannibalism, as I tried to show, are also committed on sexual grounds. Eating male sexual organs, which give sexual power, shows how effective and efficient the archetypal mechanisms and the collective unconscious discovered by K.G. Jung.

The belief that eating the corresponding parts of the human body leads to the fact that the cannibal acquires the desired abilities that the victim possessed, has been preserved from ancient man in the collective unconscious and manifests itself in the actions of modern people. This phenomenon is well known to ethnologists.

Along with Chikatilo, the cannibal killer gained worldwide fame Dzhumagaliev, whose actions and personality stand out even against the background of other necrophilic serial killers. These two monsters are united by the fact that their crimes took place on sexual grounds, were closely connected with sexual experiences generated by a catastrophe in intersexual relations.

Dzhumagaliev, aged 30, killed seven women in 1979 in Kazakhstan. In the first five cases, as a hunter, he waited in ambush at night for his victims and immediately stabbed, he killed the rest at home.

The first victim was A., he dismembered her corpse, took the body parts home and ate them for a month, made dumplings, fried, boiled. A few weeks later he killed K. and drank the blood from the corpse. Soon after that, he attacked L. and Ya., but he did not drink their blood and did not eat their meat, as he was prevented.

The next victim was V., the killer drank her blood and buried parts of her body in the ground, but did not eat them, because he intended to melt the fat from her body in order to smear his grandfather's grave with it. Then the murders of two more women followed, he dismembered their corpses and drank blood, cut their heads, ate their brains. In one of them, he made a hole in the lower abdomen with a knife and had sexual intercourse through it.

This is a brief list of absolutely monstrous acts of Dzhumagaliev. A psychiatric examination of this supermonster showed that he had a burdened heredity: his paternal aunt was strange, withdrawn, and his older sister had something mentally wrong. He grew and developed normally, did not lag behind. Selectively sociable, more reserved; industrious, loved order and justice, and especially travel and animals.

Early he began to go hunting with his peers and with his grandfather, whom he greatly revered, then - more often alone. Little by little, love for animals became excessive, overvalued, I thought a lot about their defenselessness and resented the attitude towards them. On the hunt, he began to shoot past the game, nursed the wounded animals. He believed that animals understand him, and he understands them.

Interest in girls arose at the age of eight, from the age of 16 he periodically met with them, but did not make attempts at sexual rapprochement. Stories about the sacrifices of animals and people made a great impression. In 1970 he graduated from the railway school and worked in his specialty for some time.

While serving in the army, at first everything was fine, then his mood noticeably decreased, he began to drink; after demobilization, he tried twice to enter the institute, but none of this worked out, which led him to think that he was a loser. He went to the mountains and lived in caves for a long time. From 1974 to 1977 he traveled around the country and worked in various organizations, then returned to the state farm to his parents.

With women he was restrained and shy. Since 1975, he began to have visual representations of various naked parts of the female body and internal organs, while experiencing sexual arousal. Sexual intercourse was mainly with random women, he contracted syphilis, then trichomoniasis.

Upon returning to his parents, he began to live permanently with a certain Ya, but this cohabitation was more than strange; beat her, at his request she entered into an intimate relationship with acquaintances, and at the same time he believed that Ya. was behaving incorrectly, and constantly instructed her.

Gradually, sexual intercourse began to avert him, he did not receive full satisfaction, but the craving for the female body remained, the influx of “translucent”, often severed parts and organs of the female body, as well as the entrails, intensified. He discovered the dominance of matriarchy and “accurately” assessed its danger, therefore deciding that women should be feared (I carefully studied his own notes, which set out these thoughts as well). There was a desire to drink their blood in order to receive the gift of prophecy, and came to the conclusion that by eating female meat, he would reduce his attraction to them.

After each murder, he noted with satisfaction that depravity had decreased, women began to respect men more, they had fear. Once, during intercourse with a random woman, he choked her, punched her in the stomach, pinched her breasts and legs, and claimed that she drank his blood. At the same time, he looked pleased and smiled.

He told psychiatrists-experts that he prepared for every murder, for the hunt for women, as for a solemn event. He had an aversion to meat and ordinary sexual intercourse, there was only a passion for a dismembered female body and a desire to have sexual intercourse in a stab wound on his stomach. In the surviving handwritten notes of Dzhumagaliev, it is said that the eaten human meat led to an increase in the "independent train of thought."

He became an extraordinary person. His contribution will go to the benefit of society and will be appreciated in the future, and in order to better record this, after all the murders, he should have gone to the mountains and written an instructive scientific work. He is waiting with interest for his execution in order to "catch the impulse of the transition from life to death and understand the meaning of life."

Dzhumagaliev was diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, this does not free us from the need to answer the daunting question: what is the inner, personal meaning of what Dzhumagaliev committed, what pushed him to such monstrous acts. Undoubtedly, he was distinguished by cruelty, absolute insensitivity to people, necrosadism.

There is also no doubt that this is a deeply alienated person, who has almost completely lost touch with the outside world, hating women, regarded by him as the source and focus of evil. However, these correct statements, as well as the presence of schizophrenia, do not bring us very close to revealing the reason why he killed women and, most importantly, why he ate the bodies of those killed.

The important circumstance that Dzhumagaliev killed women, not men or children, needs to be explained. It seems to me that the answer may be as follows: with women, he was reserved and shy, that is, most likely, he was afraid of a rebuff from them, and therefore they seemed to him a hostile force: he cohabited only with random, easily accessible women, in other words, the choice of sexual the partner was completely non-personalized for him, which ultimately is also associated with the fear of being rejected by others; from such connections he contracted dangerous venereal diseases; Dzhumagaliev did not develop a proper relationship with Y., with whom he cohabited for more or less a long time.

Pushing her into intimate relationships with his acquaintances, he thereby pushed her away from him and at the same time convinced himself of the danger of women, these evil creatures. It is especially significant that this cannibal wanted to perform sexual acts in the wounds on his stomach and actually performed them - this also indicates the rejection of the woman, concentrated in this case on the genitals, he does not seem to notice it, does not want to have anything to do with it.

Dzhumagaliev's hostile attitude towards women is a particular manifestation of his absolute maladjustment to modern world. With good reason, he can be called a "primitive" man. Thus, hatred of a woman and, above all, the action of the collective unconscious in the form of the return of cannibalism powerfully stimulated the unprecedented actions of this man.

Dzhumagaliev, as insane, was sent for treatment in mental asylum in Kazakhstan, where he stayed for over 10 years and then was discharged from it. According to reports, he fled after that. I don't know how effective the cannibal's treatment was, but I'm not sure he's no longer a threat.

By their own psychological features Dzhumagaliev differs little from other criminals similar to him. Like them, this is a necrophilic, extremely aggressive personality, withdrawn, autistic, maladjusted. He constantly lives in another world, not only psychologically, but also physically, and the latter is due to psychological reasons. So, he left the alien world of people for the mountains and lived for a long time in a cave, felt a special closeness to animals and believed that he understood them. His maladaptation is also manifested in his extreme hatred of women, due to his sexual failures and isolation, as well as the fact that he had syphilis.

It is very important that Dzhumagaliev is interested in the moment of his own execution in order to "catch the momentum of the transition from life to death." Like a person who belongs different worlds, it quite naturally draws Special attention to the line that separates life from death, and thinks that this would help him understand the meaning of life, which, in general, is not without reason.

Regarding Dzhumagaliev's special closeness to animals, I consider it necessary to cite the interesting considerations of M. Eliade: “... Gaining friendship and at the same time power over animals within the framework of archaic thought (Dzhumagaliev's behavior should be explained primarily from archetypal positions, as discussed below) does not mean no regression to a lower biological level. Since, on the one hand, animals are endowed with symbolism and mythology, which have in religious life great importance, then to communicate with animals, speak their language and become their friend and master means to acquire a spiritual life that is much richer than the life of a mere mortal. And on the other hand, the prestige of animals in the eyes of a “primitive” person is very high: they know the secrets of life and nature, they even know the secrets of longevity and immortality.

It is worth noting that the first sign of the re-creation of paradise life is the establishment of dominance over animals, and it was no coincidence that it was ordered to give animals names, and this was equivalent to the ability to command them.

In mystical tales, animals sometimes obeyed the saints, who fed them as if they were pets. Friendship with wild animals, their voluntary acceptance of human domination have long been considered clear signs of the return of a paradise state and even paradise times. It is possible that in this primitive man - Dzhumagaliev - a desire to return to the original time was manifested.

Numerous crimes of the Novokuznetsk sexual killer and cannibal Spesivtsev turned out to be little known for some reason. Meanwhile, this is undoubtedly one of the most bloodthirsty killers of our time. Probably, the media paid little attention to him, usually very eager for such cases. I will cite data about him from the press, but, unfortunately, they suffer from significant incompleteness.

In the summer of 1996, in Novokuznetsk, in the Lba River, they began to find pieces of children's bodies and skulls. It was firmly established that they were dismembered at home. At the same time, children began to disappear in the city, as a rule, from dysfunctional families.

The search was carried out on a large scale, during which attention was paid to the family Spesivtsev, has long been known to the police. By that time it consisted of three people: mother Lyudmila, daughter Nadezhda and son Alexander (then he was 22 years old); father, allegedly an alcoholic, was kicked out of the house, and he lived separately.

It was a family alienated from others, but very close-knit, and cohesion especially manifested itself at an antisocial level, that is, any offense of a family member was immediately taken under her protection, and the guilty person was justified by any means before those around her - the family acted as a united front.

So, all three could spit in one gulp at a person they did not like and call him obscene words, but it is equally important to emphasize that the mother resolutely defended her son in everything even more than her daughter, and the daughter always stood up for her brother with a mountain. The mother stole, little by little and often, the son constantly stole and committed many petty hooligan acts. However, they somehow got away with it, I think, to a large extent thanks to the cohesion of the family, the resourcefulness of each of them and deceit, the ability to stand up for themselves individually and together.

In 1991, Alexander, who was distinguished by a frail physique and isolation, met a certain Zhenya, and many believed that the matter was going to the wedding. But when Zhenya decided to break up with him, he locked her in the apartment, tortured and beat her for almost a month. When the police finally arrived, they saw the dead girl, who was curled up on the couch, as if trying to keep warm. She was wearing only a dressing gown, put on her naked body, she was completely dry, she looked like a twelve-year-old child, there were many sores on her body. She was scalped, but her head was neatly tied with a scarf.

Spesivtsev was able to avoid criminal liability, as he was declared insane and sent for compulsory treatment to the Oryol psychiatric hospital. However, after three years, they decided that he had recovered, and the criminal returned home.

As the newspapers reported after his arrest, he began to take revenge on everyone for the “psychiatric hospital” and for all insults; neighbors allegedly heard terrible screams from his apartment: they were cutting something, it is only strange that proper measures were not taken.

Spesivtsev was exposed, as is often the case with us, by accident. Plumbers were doing preventive maintenance of heating. Spesivtsev did not open it, he said that he was kept locked up as a mentally ill person. When, together with the local inspector, they broke down the door, a heavy putrid smell hit the apartment. In the bath lay the body - a stump, in a huge saucepan - the remains of the body, the head. In one of the rooms they found a girl, wounded in the stomach, with a broken arm, completely naked; she died in the hospital a few days later.

During the preliminary investigation, it was established that Spesivtsev killed 19 people, including boys, but 82 sets of clothes with traces of blood were found in his house, it was not possible to establish their owners, as far as can be judged, which suggests that not 19 people, and much more.

Spesivtsev himself killed, often mocking the victim beforehand, sometimes photographing his victims in the nude with a Polaroid. He butchered, dismembered the corpses with his mother, she also cooked pieces of the body, he ate it and forced those victims who were still alive to eat.

A dog, a diver, has long eaten only human flesh. Sometimes Spesivtsev, without leaving his apartment, spent three or four days with the dead (sometimes there were 3-4 people at once). Then the mother came, they butchered the corpses, and she always carried them away. All this went on long time: he killed, dismembered human bodies, sometimes ate body parts, fed them to a dog, tormented the victims, prolonging their torment, and constantly inhaled the cadaverous smell.

He had long been betrothed to death, ever since those days, when he gradually, day after day, killed the unfortunate Zhenya; he lived near death, not at all embarrassed by its proximity, since it was close, understandable, and therefore for many days, without leaving the house, he was in a vile, dense cadaveric vapor, probably lived by this vapor. And yet death made it possible to take revenge on the hated world, which is why it, death, was so necessary. He, like many necrophilic killers, because of this, killed easily, without regret, never repented, on the contrary, he received great satisfaction from depriving others of their lives.

The general motivation for Spesivtsev's crimes is understandable - he took revenge on all mankind, killed, realizing his enormous brutal potential. There are many frail, thin, sickly people in the world, but only an insignificant fraction of them will dare to raise a hand against another.

It was precisely the high aggressiveness, which at first found its expression in violence against neighbors and other relatives, that gave him the opportunity to commit the first murder - Zhenya, and then kill again and again, without hesitation and without fear of anyone or anything. I believe that death itself added considerable strength to him, which existed here, nearby, helping him, but also demanding new victims. He brought them, in the impotent hope of finding satisfaction for the hatred that burned him. Why was Spesivtsev still engaged in cannibalism?

I think that the motives of cannibalism here are similar to those that pushed Chikatilo to similar actions - Spesivtsev ate pieces of the female body and thereby avenged his sexual failures and, in particular, that Zhenya pushed him away. Apparently, the eloquent fact that the killer's dog ate human flesh also needs to be explained.

We can assume here cannibalism "by proxy", or psychological cannibalism: the dog acted as a psychological continuation of the Novokuznetsk monster, and the fact that it ate human flesh also gave a sweet feeling of revenge to people.

Lyudmila Spesivtseva's mother deserves special analysis. First of all, she is an accomplice in murders and cannibalism, while I want to emphasize that complicity is not only a criminal law, but also a moral category. She is an accomplice in the criminal law sense because she lured the victims into the house by deceit so that her son would kill them, he always hoped for her help, namely that she would take away the corpses and hide the traces of the crime. She is an accomplice in cannibalism, because she dismembered the bodies of the dead, cooked them, gave them to the dog, and her son ate them - this is morally.

In general, Lyudmila Spesivtseva is a typical necrophilic person, a person of death, since she actively contributed to the murders committed by her son, she felt the death of many people at his hands as the only way out of that life situation, in which Alexander found himself, many murders were committed in her presence, she dismembered corpses and cooked pieces of human meat, fed them to a dog.

However, her criminal help to her son was not a simple maternal support - in this way she redeemed her deeply disturbing guilt: from her womb came this frail, frail, pitiful, weak, always ill little man who did not enjoy any success with women and had no friends. He didn't need anyone at all. Except her.

It is among the serial killers, and according to my information, cannibals are now found predominantly among them in our country, in this regard, Dzhumagaliev is especially characteristic, to a lesser extent Chikatilo. One might think that in some context, drinking the blood of the victim is also cannibalism.

Currently, the following types of causes of cannibalism as a phenomenon as a whole are known.

1. Cannibalism for reasons of acute hunger, which in modern conditions takes place quite rarely and usually in extreme circumstances, more often in groups cut off from the rest of the world (for example, in the taiga, after a shipwreck, etc.). Much more cases cannibalism during mass famine, as happened in the USSR in the early 30s and in Ethiopia in the late 70s and early 80s.

2. Cannibalism, which can be called symbolic or ritual, and whose origins lie in ancient times. It has been established that the primitive man ate other people not only because of hunger and gastronomic urges, but also in order to acquire strength, intelligence, courage and other important qualities, which, as it seemed to him, the victim possessed. Then people believed (modern savages believe now) that the receptacle of these enviable qualities are separate parts of the human body.

Cannibalism was also part of the primitive religion, for example, the Fijians, in whom the gods are considered great hunters of human meat.

The mythological and symbolic aspects of cannibalism seem to be quite complex. M. Eliade notes that at the primitive stage of culture we meet with ritual cannibalism, which is ultimately the spiritually conditioned behavior of the "good" savage. The greatest concern of the cannibal, in essence, seems metaphysical - never forget what happened in "time immemorial". Studies have shown that, killing and eating pigs during celebrations and the first fruits of the harvest of root crops, a person, according to M. Eliade, eats divine flesh in the same way as during the cannibal festivities.

Sacrifice of a pig, "hunting for skulls" and cannibalism symbolically mean the same thing as harvesting. An edible plant is not provided by nature. It is the product of murder because that is how it was created at the beginning of time. "Hunting for skulls", human sacrifice, cannibalism - all this was adopted by man to ensure the life of plants. Cannibalism is a type of behavior inherent in a given culture and based on a religious vision of the world.

Before condemning cannibalism, we must always remember that it was planted by the deities. They laid the foundation for it, so that man could take responsibility for the cosmos, in order to put him in the position of a caretaker for the continuation of plant life. Therefore, cannibalism had to do with responsibility of a religious nature*.

These thoughts seem to me more than controversial and in any case unproven. It is absolutely wrong, of course, that an edible plant is not provided by nature, but if there are mythological data about this, the author should have pointed to them. But even if such plants are not provided by nature and they are the product of murder, it is still not clear why one should eat one's own kind because of this - this does not follow from the texts of M. Eliade.

It is all the more unclear how cannibalism sustains plant life, following this author. Meanwhile, the findings of ethnologists indicate that human sacrifices for the sake of a crop or other benefits were sometimes accompanied by cannibalism.

But, as can be assumed, there is a different meaning and a different mechanism than those analyzed by M. Eliade. Perhaps this is a joint meal with the gods (god), which made them psychologically closer and more accessible, which means that their help in growing plants, multiplying livestock, etc. would be more real. It is possible that by eating people during ritual sacrifices, ancient man at the same time simply satisfied his hunger. This seems to be justified because the need for any savage sacrifice would be unnecessary if people were not threatened with starvation. The search for food is his most urgent concern.

If the gods, as, for example, among the Fijians, were considered great hunters of human flesh, then cannibalism made it possible to get quite close to them, acquiring new power. The gods were especially active at the beginning of time, and this period is very holy for primitive man; constantly returning to it, such a person draws his strength from him. For this reason, cannibalism was also very possible.

At the same time, there is no doubt that cannibalism, as M. Eliade notes, is a type of behavior characteristic of a given culture and based on a religious (more precisely, pre-religious) vision of the world. Meanwhile, I would like to clarify that culture should be understood not only as religious, spiritual and moral development, but also as the state of the productive forces.

It should not be thought that such wild notions took place and are taking place only among primitive peoples. The fact is that such views are stored in the universal unremembered memory and, through the mechanisms of the collective unconscious (the corresponding theory was created by C. G. Jung), are returned to people living not only in the countries of the so-called third world, but also in quite civilized ones. This is confirmed by the analysis of criminal cases of serial sexual murders.

It allows us to conclude that these ideas continue to live even now among those who did not know about the significance of cannibalism in antiquity and therefore did not evaluate the relevant acts in such a capacity. The sexual killer Chikatilo bit off and ate the nipples and uterus of the murdered women, that is, those parts of the body that are associated with sexual life. This can be interpreted as an attempt to symbolically take possession of a woman, since he, being impotent, could not do this in reality.

The same criminal ate the tips of the tongues and testicles of the boys, which can be explained by his desire to take from them the male sexual power, which he, the impotent, did not have. Such symbolic cannibalistic acts can be observed in some other sexual killers, including Dzhumagaliev, whom, according to him, the eaten female body endowed with the gift of prophecy and led to an increase in "an independent train of thought." In other words, he allegedly acquired qualities that he had previously been deprived of.

3. Symbolic cannibalism is closely intertwined with that kind of this phenomenon as a whole, which can be called ritual, when a person is sacrificed to a deity or some secret powerful forces in order to propitiate them, gain the desired benefits, but at the same time, individual parts of the body are eaten by the killers themselves in order to master the qualities and abilities of the eaten. Since the savage gave part of the body of the victim to the deity, and consumed the other himself, he, as noted above, thereby created a common meal with the deity, that is, psychologically as close as possible to him, and this promised him great benefits.

It seems that the presence of ritual motivation among modern cannibals should by no means be ignored. The fact is that in our country, unfortunately, the most barbaric beliefs, which have nothing in common with civilized religion, have become dangerously widespread. Therefore, cannibalism on such mystical grounds is by no means excluded. The fascination of persons suspected of the corresponding crimes with ancient secret teachings can serve as a sign indicating the presence of the named motive.

Let me remind you that Dzhumagaliev was very interested in animal and human sacrifices. His intention to grease the grave of his grandfather with the fat of a murdered woman can be regarded as an attempt at sacrifice, but this is not yet an act of cannibalism, which interests us in the first place, especially since the sacrifice was made not to God, but to his grandfather.

4. Cannibalism of persons who kill and eat other people, treat acquaintances with human meat or sell it, but their actions do not show motives characteristic of cannibals from the first three groups. It seems that the cannibalism of representatives of this type is generated by an unconscious feeling of oneself as a biological being that does not belong to the human race, is completely outside of this race, is not connected with it either socially, or psychologically, or biologically, and even more so morally. Acts of cannibalism may be accompanied by erotic, sadistic or mystical fantasies, which can also be observed in representatives of the first three groups.

Among this group of cannibals, one can single out those who, by eating other people, assert themselves in the eyes of a small antisocial group, showing themselves to be superhuman. Cannibalism can also act as a way of self-affirmation, when a person seeks to prove to himself that he is able to overcome all prohibitions and norms, acting only as he wishes.

5. In ancient times, at the stage of transition from animals to humans, cannibalism was generally common, and human body eaten like animals and plants. This was the wildest era, when man had not yet completely separated himself from the animal world, and even more so from among his own kind, which, apparently, was preserved for a long time among the most archaic tribes. Many primitive people even believed that individual animals not only surpassed them in their physical strength, but were also smarter, more cunning, more resourceful than them. I think that not distinguishing oneself from the animal world, not feeling oneself as a person, all the more autonomous, is main reason cannibalism in so-called prehistoric times.

An ever-modern myth about a lost paradise, a noble savage, the most beautiful land and magnificent landscapes, an ideal state (for example, the pre-Columbian era), etc. completely ignores the fact that all these previously supposedly existing "benefits" and "beauties" in almost all cases in a significant number were associated with cannibals and cannibalism. But the fact is that the savage cannibals, in turn, have their own ideas about the lost paradise, about the original boundless happiness, when a person was immortal and directly communicated with God (gods), he did not need to work, because his "simply" fed by nature or fabulous agricultural implements that worked like automata.

It would seem that one might think that his idleness in those blissful times was also expressed in the fact that he did not grow cereals, did not hunt and did not raise livestock: it was enough for him to go to war against another tribe or capture a careless neighbor to ensure himself an excellent dinner. or dinner.

In any case, despite all its disgust and danger, cannibalism has deeply rooted itself in human consciousness, and although civilization has achieved undoubted successes since its wide spread, it from time to time and in different forms reappears. But, of course, one should not exaggerate the scale of this phenomenon and associate it only with difficult socio-economic phenomena or a decline in morality.

This would be a primitivization: as shown above, the causes and mechanisms of the phenomenon under consideration are rather complex and ambiguous. However, the individual acts of cannibalism that occur make a deafening impression, and those people who directly encounter them usually come into a state of shock.

It can be assumed that Christianity also adopted cannibalism, but in a completely different form (it can be called psychological). Thus, during the Last Supper, Christ established the sacrament of the Eucharist, or communion, as a grace-filled means of uniting believers with Christ — communion of His body and blood as a true lamb. During the supper, “Jesus took bread and, having blessed, broke it and, distributing it to the disciples, said: take, eat: this is my body. And taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them and said: drink all of you from it, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Gospel of Matthew, 26:26-28). Of course, the communion of His body and blood, despite all the differences in the understanding of the Eucharist by different branches of Christianity, is always symbolic.

Another, no less serious, hypothesis is the assumption that the sacrament of the Eucharist is a relic of the ancient totemic custom of divine eating (geophagy), in which participants in the mysteries ate the meat of a sacred animal and drank its blood. Later, images of animals and gods began to be used for such sacrifices. J.J. Fraser noted that "the custom of killing a god in the face of an animal arose on a very early stage human culture. Tearing apart and devouring alive, for example, bulls and calves, was, apparently, ti-

personal trait of the Dionysian cult. If we take into account the custom of depicting God in the form of a bull and generally giving him features of resemblance to this animal, the belief that in the form of a bull he appeared before believers at sacred rites, as well as the tradition that he was torn to pieces in the guise of bull, then we have to admit that, tearing apart and devouring the bull at the festival of Dionysus, the cult participants believed that they were killing the god, eating his flesh and drinking his blood. J.J. Frazer gives numerous examples of the eating of a god from the life of primitive tribes.

The killing of the representative of God (according to J.J. Frazer) left a noticeable mark, for example, in the sacrificial rites of Kondon. So, the ashes of the slaughtered maria were scattered over the fields; the crops and the field were sprinkled with the blood of a Brahmin youth; the flesh of the slain naga was placed in grain bins for storage; the blood of the Sioux girls was sprinkled on the seeds. The identification of the sacrifice with the bread, that is, the conception of it as the incarnation or spirit of the bread, makes itself felt under the conditions that were applied to establish a physical correspondence between the spirit and the natural object that serves as its incarnation or representative. The Mexicans, for example, sacrificed children to young shoots, and old people to ripe ears.

So, there are two versions about the origin of the Eucharist, which, as I suggested above, is symbolically generated by cannibalism. Which of them is more true, or both are true and do not contradict each other, was not the "simple" cannibalism of the Eucharist preceded, that is, the anthropophagy of theophagy? It is possible that in different parts of the world life itself solved this issue in different ways, but, most likely, the first preceded the second, but not vice versa, or they existed simultaneously, which is most likely.

Let's get back to criminal cannibalism.

Dzhumagaliev's cannibal actions could not have been dictated by hunger or the desire to establish himself as a superman in anyone's eyes or in his own. He resorted to cannibalism in order, in his own words, in this way to acquire certain and very necessary qualities for him, that is, he followed his long-gone ancestors in this - I mean the mechanisms of the collective unconscious. It seems, however, that not only this motivated the behavior of this cannibal, but more his unconscious desire in general and completely return to wild antiquity. That is why he lived in caves for a long time, in other words, he practically led the existence that the first people on Earth had.

An overvalued attitude towards animals can also be regarded as an attempt to return to the animal world, but on a psychological level. There is reason to believe that schizophrenia has become the mechanism that contributed to the creation of the necessary prerequisites for the formation and implementation of all these trends.

In other words, schizophrenia created some internal conditions for the formation and manifestation of cannibalistic tendencies in this person, but in itself can in no way be considered as a cause or source of such actions. Schizophrenia is just medical diagnosis rather than a full explanation of socially dangerous behavior.

We can talk about the presence various degrees and forms of cannibalism. Kirsanin, for example, having killed I., who had offended him, in 1944, immediately after the murder, according to the testimony of witnesses, he began to drink his blood from a wound on his neck. When the strangers dispersed, he removed the skin from the face, head and neck, from the oral cavity and nasopharynx with the handle of a shovel. Not once after the arrest, nor later, including in a conversation with me, Kirsanin could not explain why he did all this: “I did everything as if in a dream, something guided me, did everything mechanically; I didn’t want to, but my hands did it, it went dark in my head. Then I buried this skin, I don’t remember where.”

He worked as a deboner at a meat-packing plant, became addicted to the blood of slaughtered animals, and found satisfaction in this. After his dismissal from the meat-packing plant, in the absence of blood, he began to kill dogs and drink their blood. He also drank human donated blood. He says that "if necessary, I will crush it again."

The foregoing suggests that Kirsanin is a dangerous cannibal personality with vampiric tendencies. He weakly manages his desires and needs, the implementation of which is not mediated by social, moral norms. It is characteristic that he does not remember well what he did, everything happened as if in a fog, in a dream, what moved him, he does not know.

Investigators have not obtained irrefutable evidence that Kirsanin ate parts of the victim's body, but some circumstances suggest that this is exactly what he did. First of all, it remains unclear why he skinned, and cannibalism seems to us a more likely assumption. The skin of the murdered man was never found, and the perpetrator himself could not explain where he had taken it. The fact that he drank the blood of animals psychologically prepared him for cannibalism.

Yu.Zh. Antonyan from the book "The History of Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice"