Cannibalism is the act or practice of eating members of the same species, e.g. humans eating humans (sometimes called anthropophagy), or dogs eating dogs. Among humans, this practice has been attributed to people in the past all over the world, including rituals connected to tribal warfare. The degree to which cannibalism has actually occurred and been socially sanctioned is an extremely controversial subject in anthropology with some anthropologists arguing that cannibalism is almost non-existent and viewing claims of cannibalism with extreme skepticism, while others argue the practice was common in pre-state societies.
Several archaeologists have claimed that some ruins in the American Southwest contain evidence of cannibalism. Individual cases in other countries have been seen with mentally unstable persons, criminals, and, in unconfirmed rumors, by religious zealots.
In the US, the Donner party is a case of cannibalism due to hunger. There are claims, which are not without controversy, that cannibalism was widespread during the hungry years in the Ukraine in 1930s as well as during the Chinese Civil War and the Great Leap Forward in China.
Non-human cannibalism
For some species, cannibalism under certain well-defined circumstances, such as the female red-back spider eating the male after mating, is believed to be a common, if not invariable, part of the life cycle. In vertebrates (except for many fish), cannibalism is not generally observed to be uniformly routine or widespread for any given species, but may develop in extremes such as captivity or a desperate food shortage. For instance, a domestic sow may eat her newborn young, though this behavior has not been observed in the wild. It is also known that rabbits, mice, rats, or hamsters will eat their young if their nest is repeatedly threatened by predators. In some species adults are known to destroy and sometimes eat young of their species to whom they are not closely related--famously, the chimpanzees observed by Dr. Jane Goodall. Some of these observations have been questioned (for example by Stephen Jay Gould) as possible products of sloppy research. For example, while there are many observations of female praying mantises eating their mates after copulation, there are no known observations of this occurring in the wild; it has only been observed in captivity.
Cannibalism Continued Wikipedia
Aztecs Cooked, Skinned, Ate Humans Discovery - January 2005
Prehistoric cannibalism triggered human evolution Pravda - January 2005
Historical Perspective Crime Library
Cannibalism: A modern taboo BBC - December 2003
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