Die Anthropophagie

The study differentiates incidental survival cannibalism from habitual, culturally sanctioned practices and restricts its focus to the latter, aiming to document facts, stages, and causes. It surveys possible prehistoric evidence and survivals in folklore and classical reports, then proceeds to a systematic, region-by-region ethnographic account of contemporary instances across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Australia, and the Americas. Varieties of practice, ritual contexts, and motivating factors are catalogued and compared. The work concludes by synthesizing these materials to explain reasons for persistence, variation, and the observed decline of such practices in the face of external influences and social change.