Anthropophagy Explained
Anthropophagy is the custom and practice of eating the flesh or internal organs of human beings. It may refer to:
- Human cannibalism, the consumption of human flesh or organs by other humans. Human cannibalism has been observed in various contexts, including religious human sacrifices, warfare, and survival strategies in extreme conditions.
- Anthropophages, a mythical race of cannibals first described by Herodotus.
- Child cannibalism, the act of eating a child or fetus – a recurrent topic in myths, legends, and folktales, but also a documented practice in various societies, often connected with infanticide (the killing of unwanted infants) or with slavery.
- Self-cannibalism, the act of eating one's own flesh. This can be a symptom of a mental disorder, motivated by curiosity and a desire to shock, or an act enforced as a form of torture.
- Man-eater, a human or animal who feeds on human flesh. More specifically, the term is used for non-human predators such as tigers, wolves, hyenas, crocodiles, and piranhas that attack humans to kill and consume them as a part of their hunting behaviour. Man-eating plants exist in legends, but not in reality.
- Anthropophagic movement, a Brazilian art movement of the 1920s founded and theorized by the poet Oswald de Andrade and the painter Tarsila do Amaral.
- Manifesto Antropófago ("Anthropophagic Manifesto"), a 1928 essay by the Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade which suggests that Brazil's history of "cannibalizing" other cultures, absorbing their best elements, is a major strength and a way for Brazil (and South America in general) to assert itself against European post-colonial cultural domination. The manifesto has been regarded an important influence on the Tropicália art movement.
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