Cannibalism and Boiling Alive

When most people think of humans cooking inside large pots, they think of cannibalism. Stories, comic books, television programs, and movies all tend to portray a similar theme: missionaries or other strangers who are captured by a primitive tribe and cooked alive in a large iron cauldron.

There are many different ways to cook food. Why should it be so common for people to associate pots with cannibalism? Media exposure and tradition may be one powerful reason. But even more likely is the natural association between cooking and pots. Pots have been used to cook all kinds of food for most of mankind's history. It is only logical to assume that those who may have cooked humans used pots to do it.

Imagine my surprise after reading some historical accounts of cannibalism to find that there is no evidence that real cannibals ever cooked people whole inside pots (let alone alive). It appears that the common image of a missionary simmering in a big pot is purely myth. That is not to say that cannibalism is a myth; it is not. Nor does it mean that cannibals did not use pots for cooking flesh. There are simply no reliable accounts of cannibals killing victims by boiling them alive or even boiling victims whole after they had died.

There is plenty of evidence that cannibalism has been practiced throughout human history. Archeologists have discovered human bones in cooking hearths in China that are as old as 500,000 years. Nor has cannibalism been confined to one particular region. At various times in history, there is evidence of cannibalism on all continents. However, archelogical information does not provide any information about motivation or technique. For this information, we rely on first hand accounts of cannibalism.

Most first hand information about cannibalism in recent times was compiled from the accounts of explorers and missionaries working in the 17th through the 20th centuries. These men and women were part of the mass colonization of Africa, the South Pacific, and the western hemisphere during the height of European imperialism. According to the accounts, cannibalism was common in some parts of these areas. It is hard to guarantee the accuracy of these reports. But most historians consider them to be genuine.

The first surprising fact of these accounts is that cannibalism in many cultures was not commonly motivated by a lack of other food. Instead, cannibalism was often practiced for religious reasons, as a by-product of war, or as a special addition to an otherwise conventional diet. In certain religious ceremonies, the sacrifice of a human was made more significant to the gods by eating some portion of the victim after death. In war, some cultures came to believe that by eating your vanquished enemy, his best qualities where transferred to you. But some of the most disturbing accounts of cannibalism where motivated by the third reason: human meat in some of these societies was considered a rare delicacy that could enhance an otherwise plain diet. Under the first two circumstances, torture of the victim played little or no part in the act of eating human flesh. As we shall see, that is not true about the third.

By and large, most victims of cannibalism where killed before being cooked and eaten. This is definitely true in religious ceremonies and in battle. But when a group of humans came to crave the taste of human flesh for its own sake, it appears depravity and torture were much more common. In this circumstance, some victims were indeed cooked alive. Here is an account of a missionary, David Cargill, about his experiences in the islands of Figi in 1838 [1]:

Some of the circumstances connected with the immolation of human victims are most revolting and diabolical. The passions of the people during the performance of these horrible rites seem inflamed by a fiendish ferocity which is not exceeded by anything we have ever heard in the annals of human depravity.

When about to offer a human sacrifice, the victim is selected from among the inhabitants of a distant territory, or is procured by negotiation from a tribe which is not related to the persons about to sacrifice. The victim is kept for some time, and supplied with abundance of food, that he may become fat.

When about to be immolated, he is made to sit on the ground with his feet under his thighs and his hands placed before him. He is then bound so that he cannot move a limb or a joint. In this posture he is placed on stones heated for the occasion (and some of them are red-hot), and then covered with leaves and earth, to be roasted alive. When cooked, he is taken out of the oven and, his face and other parts being painted black, that he may resemble a living man ornamented for a feast or for war, he is carried to the temple of the gods and, being still retained in a sitting posture, is offered as a propitiary sacrifice.

These ceremonies being concluded, the body is carried beyond the precints of the consecrated ground, cut into quarters, and distributed among the people; and they who were the cruel sacrificers of its life are also the beastly devourers of its flesh.

The unnatural propensity to eat human flesh exists among them in its most savage forms. The Feegeeans eat human flesh, not merely from a principle of revenge, nor from necessity, but from choice. Captives and strangers are frequently killed and eaten... The flesh of women is preferred to that of men, and when they have a plentiful supply the head is not eaten. In some cases the heart is preserved for months...

Still, despite the obvious cruelty of this account, these missionaries and others make no mention of cooking people in large pots. Further, where victims were cooked alive, all of the accounts recite roasting as the technique of choice (usually using a shallow pit lined with hot stones as described above).

Of course, small pots where used to cook humans in some cannibalistic societies. There are many accounts of South American tribes who, after killing, disemboweling, and butchering their victims, made stew from their flesh. But these were small cook pots used for preparing ordinary sized portions. Giant pots are never mentioned.

If some cannibals practiced cruel torture on their victims, why didn't they boil people alive in huge pots? We can only speculate on the answer to that question.

One reason may be the lack of large cauldrons to cook their victims. Many of the tribes where cannibalism was reported did not have advanced metal making capability. Large iron cauldrons were probably out of their technological reach. However, large pots could be made using clay pottery techniques. Many South American tribes produced very large and beautiful works of clay or stone. Large cooking pots should have been within the reach of these societies.

The most likely reason boiling alive was not a part of cannibalism is that it is not a particularly practical or appealing way to cook whole humans. It is not practical because cooking humans alive in a pot presents a number of challenges to the would-be cannibal. It is not appealing because boiling large cuts of meat is not generally considered tasteful whether you are a cannibal or not.

Discounting cannibalism for the moment, it is very uncommon for humans to cook any meat alive (lobsters are the only exception I have come across). It is simply easier to prepare and cook meat that is dead. Even when animals are cooked whole, they are usually skinned, washed, and disemboweled first. Cooking an animal alive provides no opportunity to properly prepare the meat and this may be dangerous to those who eat it later. Cannibals who chose to boil their victims alive might have had to worry about the abdominal cavity bursting under pressure due to the lack of disembowelment, or the victim excreting wastes into their carefully prepared soup. These problems don't arise when using other cooking techniques.

Boiling is most often used to prepare soups and stews. These recipes always call for meat that has been chopped into small, manageable chunks. Larger cuts of meat are usually baked or roasted. These observations seem equally applicable to cannibalism. Large pieces of meat boiled in water until they are gray are not appetizing to many people. I doubt that whole humans boiled alive in a pot were appetizing to cannibals.

Whatever the reasons, history seems to show that cannibals did not boil people alive in pots. Our favorite jungle stories appear to be just that: fiction. For actual accounts of men and women being boiled alive, we must leave behind cannibalism and look into the history of "civilized" societies and their modes of punishing criminals and traitors.