15th century Europeans believed they had hit upon a miracle cure: a remedy for epilepsy, hemorrhage, bruising, nausea, and virtually any other medical ailment. This brown powder could be mixed into drinks, made into salves or eaten straight up. It was known as mumia and made by grinding up mummified human flesh.
Kaum Eropa abad ke-15 mengklaim telah menemukan obat ajaib, yaitu obat epilepsi, pendarahan otak, memar, mual, dan berbagai penyakit lain. Serbuk coklat ini bisa dicampur ke dalam minuman, dibuat salep, atau dimakan langsung. Serbuk ini bernama mumia, hasil tumbukan daging mumi manusia.
The word "cannibal" dates from the time of Christopher Columbus; in fact, Columbus may even have coined it himself. After coming ashore on the island of Guadaloupe, Columbus' initial reports back to the Queen of Spain described the indigenous people as friendly and peaceful— though he did mention rumors of a group called the Caribs, who made violent raids and then cooked and ate their prisoners. In response, Queen Isabella granted permission to capture and enslave anyone who ate human flesh. When the island failed to produce the gold Columbus was looking for, he began to label anyone who resisted his plundering and kidnapping as a Caribe. Somewhere along the way, the word "Carib" became "Canibe" and then "Cannibal." First used by colonizers to dehumanize indigenous people, it has since been applied to anyone who eats human flesh.
Kata kanibal muncul pada masa Christopher Colombus. Bahkan, mungkin dia sendiri yang menciptakannya. Setelah mendarat di pulau Guadalupe, Columbus melaporkan kepada Ratu Spanyol, bahwa suku asli pulau itu ramah dan damai. Namun dia juga menyampaikan isu sebuah suku bernama Karib, yang melakukan penyergapan brutal, memasak, serta memakan tawanannya. Dalam balasannya, Ratu Isabella mengizinkannya menangkap dan memperbudak semua orang yang memakan daging manusia. Ketika penduduk pulau gagal menghasilkan emas yang diminta Columbus, semua yang menentang penculikan dan perampasan dinamai Karib. Seiring waktu, Karib berubah menjadi Kanib dan kemudian Kanibal. Awalnya dipakai para penjajah untuk menghina penduduk asli, kemudian dipakai untuk menyebut siapa pun yang memakan daging manusia.
So the term comes from an account that wasn't based on hard evidence, but cannibalism does have a real and much more complex history. It has taken diverse forms— sometimes, as with mumia, it doesn't involved recognizable parts of the human body. The reasons for cannibalistic practices have varied, too. Across cultures and time periods, there's evidence of survival cannibalism, when people living through a famine, siege or ill-fated expedition had to either eat the bodies of the dead or starve to death themselves. But it's also been quite common for cultures to normalize some form of eating human flesh under ordinary circumstances. Because of false accounts like Columbus's, it's difficult to say exactly how common cultural cannibalism has been— but there are still some examples of accepted cannibalistic practices from within the cultures practicing them.
Jadi, istilah kanibal tercipta dari kejadian yang sulit dibuktikan, namun kanibalisme mempunyai sejarah nyata dan rumit. Bentuk kanibalisme juga beragam, misalkan pada mumia, mereka tidak mengambil bagian tubuh yang dikenali. Alasan kanibalisme juga bervariasi. Sepanjang budaya dan waktu, ada bukti hidup dari praktik kanibalisme. Saat melakukan ekspedisi, kemudian kelaparan, terancam, atau gagal, manusia harus makan bagian tubuh mayat atau memilih mati kelaparan. Namun dalam budaya tertentu sudah dianggap lazim untuk memakan daging manusia dalam kondisi normal. Karena pemahaman Columbus yang keliru, sulit dikatakan seberapa umumnya praktik kanibalisme... Namun ada beberapa bukti bahwa praktik kanibalisme dapat diterima dalam budaya yang mempraktikkannya.
Take the medicinal cannibalism in Europe during Columbus's time. Starting in the 15th century, the demand for mumia increased. At first, stolen mummies from Egypt supplied the mumia craze, but soon the demand was too great to be sustained on Egyptian mummies alone, and opportunists stole bodies from European cemeteries to turn into mumia. Use of mumia continued for hundreds of years. It was listed in the Merck index, a popular medical encyclopedia, into the 20th century. And ground up mummies were far from the only remedy made from human flesh that was common throughout Europe. Blood, in either liquid or powdered form, was used to treat epilepsy, while human liver, gall stones, oil distilled from human brains, and pulverized hearts were popular medical concoctions.
Contohnya praktik kanibalisme di Eropa pada masa Columbus. Mulai abad ke-15, permintaan mumia meningkat. Awalnya, mumi curian dari Mesir mampu memenuhi kebutuhan akan mumia, namun permintaan tersebut terlalu tinggi jika hanya disuplai mumi Mesir, dan para oportunis mencuri mayat dari kuburan Eropa untuk dijadikan mumia. Penggunaan mumia berlanjut hingga ratusan tahun. Hal itu tercatat dalam indeks Merck, ensiklopedia medis terkenal pada abad ke-20. Dan mumi terkubur bukan satu satunya obat yang terbuat dari daging manusia yang umum di Eropa. Darah dalam bentuk cair maupun serbuk, digunakan untuk menyembuhkan epilepsi, sedangkan hati manusia, batu empedu, minyak sulingan otak manusia, serta hati tumbuk dikenal sebagai bahan pengobatan populer.
In China, the written record of socially accepted cannibalism goes back almost 2,000 years. One particularly common form of cannibalism appears to have been filial cannibalism, where adult sons and daughters would offer a piece of their own flesh to their parents. This was typically offered as a last-ditch attempt to cure a sick parent, and wasn't fatal to their offspring— it usually involved flesh from the thigh or, less often, a finger.
Di Tiongkok, praktik kanibalisme yang dianggap lazim, terjadi 2000 tahun yang lalu. Satu praktik kanibalisme yang umum adalah kanibalisme filial, yaitu anak lelaki dan perempuan dewasa menawarkan potongan daging mereka kepada orang tuanya. Ini adalah cara terakhir untuk menyembuhkan orang tua yang sakit, dan yang tidak berakibat fatal bagi si anak, biasanya yang dipilih adalah daging dari paha atau kadang jari.
Cannibalistic funerary rites are another form of culturally sanctioned cannibalism. Perhaps the best-known example came from the Fore people of New Guinea. Through the mid-20th century, members of the community would, if possible, make their funerary preferences known in advance, sometimes requesting that family members gather to consume the body after death. Tragically, though these rituals honored the deceased, they also spread a deadly disease known as kuru through the community.
Ritual pemakaman kanibal adalah bentuk lain kanibalisme yang diterima budaya tertentu. Contohnya adalah masyarakat Fore di Papua Nugini. Selama pertengahan abad ke-20, anggota masyarakat di sana, jika memungkinkan, akan memilih cara pemakaman yang diinginkan, terkadang anggota keluarga diminta berkumpul memakan mayat si almarhum. Tragisnya, meskipun ritual ini bertujuan untuk menghormati si almarhum, hal itu juga menyebarkan penyakit mematikan bernama kuru.
Between the fictionalized stories, verifiable practices, and big gaps that still exist in our knowledge, there's no one history of cannibalism. But we do know that people have been eating each other, volunteering themselves to be eaten, and accusing others of eating people for millennia.
Antara cerita karangan, berbagai macam praktik kanibalisme, dan perbedaan besar yang ada dalam pengetahuan kita, tidak ada sejarah kanibalisme tunggal. Namun manusia memang sudah saling memakan, merelakan dirinya dimakan, dan selama jutaan tahun menuduh orang lain makan daging manusia.