Thursday, 7 February 2013
Cannibals.
I became very fond of my Neanderthals, but I couldn’t ignore
the fact that they had one or two habits which are really no longer acceptable
in the Home Counties.
Cannibalism, for instance. There are Neanderthal bones which
do seem to have been stripped of their flesh as if for...well, dinner.
I could have had my Neanderthals constantly at war, but that
would have muddied the other strands of the story. I needed a reason why my
Neanderthals could be cannibals without being savages.
Then I remembered the marvellous books by Sir Arthur Grimble about the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and his account of ancestor worship there. Might
not cannibalism be a form of respect shown to an ancestor?
It’s certainly be a form of practical recycling, if nothing
else.
I also remembered Douglas Adams’ cow in The Restaurant at
the End of the Universe.
And between my memories of the books of these two brilliant
writers, the cannibalism of my Neanderthals began to make absolutely perfect sense.
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Well, yes I see what you mean but still....I blench a bit. ...
ReplyDeleteI think the cannibals of the Pacific call human meat long pork, if that helps.
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