Saturn devouring his Son by Giambattista Tiepolo

Child cannibalism or fetal cannibalism is the act of eating a

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

fetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal deve ...

Ritual practice accusations

Historical accounts

According to 14th century traveller

Odoric of Pordenone Odoric of Pordenone, OFM (1286–1331), also known as Odorico Mattiussi/Mattiuzzi, Odoricus of Friuli or Orderic of Pordenone, was an Italian late-medieval Franciscan friar and missionary explorer. He traveled through India, the Greater Sunda Is ...

, who gave an account of a place called

Lamuri Lamuri or Lambri was a kingdom in northern Sumatra, Indonesia from the Srivijaya period until the early 16th century. The area was inhabited by Hindu population around the seventh century. There is also evidence of Buddhism. The region is also ...

(the account was later borrowed by Sir John Mandeville's in his ''Book of Marvels and Travels''), describing the people Lamuri as cannibals who purchased children from merchants to slaughter them.

Modern cases

China

The performance artist Zhu Yu claimed that he prepared, cooked and ate real human bodies, including fetuses, as an artistic

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

. The performance was called ''Eating People'', and he claimed it was to protest against cannibalism. It was intended as "

shock art Shock art is contemporary art that incorporates disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience. It is a way to disturb "smug, complacent and hypocritical" people. While the art form's proponents argue that it is "imbedded with ...

". The

Chinese Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture (MOC) was a ministry of the government of the People's Republic of China which was dissolved on 19 March 2018. The responsibilities of the MOC, which were assumed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, encompassed cultur ...

cited a menace to social order and the spiritual health of the Chinese people, banned exhibitions involving culture, animal abuse, corpses, and overt violence and sexuality and Zhu Yu was prosecuted for his deeds. Snopes and other urban legend sites have said the "fetus" used by Zhu Yu was most likely constructed from a duck's body and a doll head. Other images from another art exhibit were falsely circulated along with Zhu Yu's photographs and claimed to be evidence of fetus soup. Critics see the propagation of these rumors as a form of

blood libel Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mur ...

, or accusing one's enemy of eating children, and accuse countries of using this as a political lever. Capsule pills purported to be filled with human baby flesh in the form of powder were seized by South Koreans from ethnic Koreans living in China, who had tried to smuggle them into South Korea and consume the capsules themselves or distribute them to other ethnic Korean citizens of China living in South Korea. Experts later suggested that the pills had actually been made of newborn placenta for the documented practice of

human placentophagy Human placentophagy, or consumption of the placenta, is defined as "the ingestion of a human placenta postpartum, at any time, by any person, either in raw or altered (e.g., cooked, dried, steeped in liquid) form". While there are several anecdotes ...

Satire

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

's 1729 satiric article " A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public" proposed the utilization of an economic system based on poor people selling their children to be eaten, claiming that this would benefit the economy, family values, and general happiness of Ireland. The target of Swift's satire is the rationalism of modern economics, and the growth of rationalistic modes of thinking at the expense of more traditional human values.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Photos in South-Korean newspaperItalian Asian articleLJ News
Cannibalism Child murder