June 2, 2012

If Bigfoot Eats A Human, Is It A Cannibal?

Cannibals are all over the news. Humans are eating humans, and you can’t avoid that it’s all the buzz at the Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Anomalist News, and hundreds of other online sites.  I posted about this yesterday at the Twilight Language blog, in “Sychronmystic Cannibals?“.

So I got to pondering,

Why are Forest Giants and Windigos/Wendigos called “Cannibals” and “Cannibal Giants” when they eat humans? Why do Bigfoot scholars so casually use the word “Cannibals” when talking about Sasquatch eating humans?

The image of a “cannibalistic” Wendigo confronting a human is from the Dark Horse comic series B.P.R.D.

If a Bigfoot eats a human in a forest, is it a cannibal?

Think about it.

What’s the definition of cannibalism and cannibals? The word “cannibalism” originated from caníbales, the Spanish name for the Carib people, a West Indies ethnic social group formerly well known for their practice of eating other humans. Cannibalism, also called anthropophagy, is defined as the act or practice of humans (Homo sapiens) eating the flesh of other human beings, although prehistorically Neandertals eating CroMagnons and CroMagnons eating Neandertals has been called cannibalism. Humans eating Homo floresiensis, the so-called little people, the Hobbits of Flores Island may have taken place, and I’m sure that would be called cannibalism, as well.

But why should Bigfoot who munch on humans be called “cannibals”? They aren’t humans. Or, at least, that hasn’t been proven yet.

What do you think?

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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