Acts of cannibalism in Africa have been reported from various parts of the continent, ranging from prehistory until the 21st century. The oldest firm evidence of archaic humans consuming each other dates to 1.45 million years ago in Kenya. Archaeological evidence for human cannibalism exists later among anatomically modern humans, but its frequency remains unknown. Later in East Africa, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was reputed to practise cannibalism, and acts of voluntary and forced cannibalism have been reported from the South Sudanese Civil War. While the oldest known written mention of cannibalism is from the tomb of the Egyptian king Unas, later evidence from Egypt shows it to only re-appear during occasional episodes of severe famine.
Reports describing cannibal practices were most often recorded by outsiders and were especially during the colonialist epoch commonly used to justify the subjugation and exploitation of non-European peoples in Africa and elsewhere, therefore such sources need to be particularly critically examined before being accepted. There is nevertheless good evidence of cannibal customs once existing in certain contexts in some African regions as well as in other parts of the world (including Europe). The idea of a universal taboo against cannibalism, implicitly or explicitly used by some authors to reject any such evidence, has been criticized as ethnocentric by others since it takes a notion from the modern Western world and declares it to be universal.
The oldest records of cannibalism in West Africa are from Muslim authors who visited the region in the 14th century. Later accounts often ascribe it to secret societies such as the Leopard Society. Cannibal practices were also reported among various Nigerian peoples. The victims were usually killed or captured enemies, kidnapped strangers, and purchased slaves. Cannibalism was practised to express hatred and to humiliate one's enemies, as well as to avoid waste and because meat in general was rare; human flesh was also considered tastier than that of animals. While its consumption during peacetime seems to have ceased, cannibal acts are on record for civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone around the turn from the 20th to the 21st century.
In the late 19th century, cannibalism seems to have been especially prevalent in parts of the Congo Basin. While some groups rejected the custom, others indulged in human flesh, often considering it superior to other meats. Killed or captured enemies could be consumed, and individuals from different ethnic groups were sometimes hunted down for the same purpose. Enslaved people were also sacrificed for the table, especially young children, who were otherwise in little demand but praised as particularly delicious. In some areas, human flesh and slaves intended for eating were sold at marketplaces. While cannibalism became rarer under the colonial Congo Free State and its Belgium-run successor, colonial authorities seem to have done little to suppress the practice. Human flesh still appeared on the tables up to the 1950s and was eaten and sold during the Congo Crisis in the 1960s. Occasional reports of cannibalism during violent conflicts continue into the 21st century.
Cannibalism was also reported from north of the Congo Basin, extending up to the Central African Republic Civil War, which started in 2012. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, dictator of the Central African Republic, seems to have eaten the flesh of opponents and prisoners in the 1970s. In the 19th century, cannibalism was also practised in the Southern African Zulu Kingdom and adjacent areas during times of famine and social disruption, particularly during a violent period that became known as Mfecane.
Tropes and discourses
Cameroonian anthropologist Francis B. Nyamnjoh notes that accusations of cannibalism, whether justified or not, were often used to "other" non-Western peoples, thus serving to justify their colonization and exploitation. Claims of cannibalism were sometimes also used to justified slavery, since it was argued that enslavement was a better fate than the risk of being killed and consumed at home.
Criticizing the often "morbid fascination" of Westerners with cannibalism in a narrow sense – "making a meal of the flesh and bones of others" – as "parochial" and prone to lead to othering, Nyamnjoh pleads for a wider concept of cannibalism or cannibalization that is not limited to the eating of human flesh, but includes other ways of benefiting from other people's bodies and lives, including "enslavement and extractive colonialism in the past" as well as "extractive capitalism" and human trafficking today. He notes that, with such a wider understanding, cannibalism and cannibalization are "ubiquit[ous]" and indeed "the only game in town", instead of just a custom of "purportedly inferior others".
Nyamnjoh notes that cannibalism in a narrow sense was and is often regarded as "an evil act... associated with primitive savages living dangerously like wild animals at the margins of humanity and human civilisation, and needing to be stamped out at all costs", with even those advocating cultural relativism usually becoming "uneas[y] when it comes to making a case for tolerance and accommodation of cannibalism". Some authors, who find it difficult to accept cannibalism as one of many possible human behaviours, but do not want to appear narrow-minded by openly condemning it, have responded with a "blanket disbelief in ritual [= not just exceptional] cannibalism". This stance superficially acknowledges cultural relativism, but avoids confronting the complex realities of diverse human experiences in other societies, the sometimes challenging "other ways of being human" that may including consuming the flesh of others. Nyamnjoh suggests that instead of making implausible arguments against the mere existence of cannibalism, it is more productive to accept it and view it in context. This perspective includes recognizing that there are other exploitative practices that, while not involving the physical consumption of others, are still deeply harmful to them.
Nyamnjoh warns that one must be careful when considering historical accounts attributing cannibalism to others, since "claims and accusations of cannibalism served as the perfect excuse for enslavement, colonisation, exploitation and forceful Christianisation and Westernisation". Whether factual, exaggerated, or imagined, such statements were used to justify "the colonising, enslaving and dispossessing... of non-Western 'Others – hence, ironically, charges of cannibalism served to justify the subsequent "cannibalisation" of the accused by Western colonialists.
For example, from reports that human flesh was eaten and sold in some African regions, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel concluded that Africans in general had not "progressed even to a limited extent" and were "incapable of making a distinction between human flesh and ram flesh". He described Black Africans in general as so "sensuous" that they treated "human flesh [a]s purely an object of the senses, like all other flesh". For him, the "eating of human flesh is quite compatible with the African principle", while Europeans "instinctively reject it" as "utterly barbarous and revolting". In his racist stereotyping, he thus saw a general "African principle" or character that included cannibalism as one of its fundamental traits, while Europeans generally rejected it due to their higher "consciousness". He went on to claim that "slavery is 'natural' to Africans" because "human beings are valued so cheaply" among them and because their "moral sentiments are ... altogether deficient", in this way justifying their enslavement and exploitation.
While stating that scepticism and a thorough examination of historical accounts and archaeological evidence are therefore indeed called for, Nyamnjoh warns against throwing out the "baby" of credible evidence with the "bathwater" of exaggerated or merely rumoured "cannibal talk". He states that some authors seem "overly defensive" in their unwillingness to accept even well-substantiated accounts of cannibal customs. He suspects that, "even among... non-Western critics", this is due to "a rather limited Eurocentric idea of consumption and of what it means to be human". If one unconsciously accepts the old European prejudice that anyone who eats human flesh is "less than human", then the only way of defending those "accused" of such practices is to claim that they did not do it. But if one rejects such a "skewed Eurocentric understanding", it becomes easier to accept that cannibalism is "part and parcel of being and becoming human" and that it made sense for those who practised it.
Nyamnjoh also describes it as illogical that sceptics readily accept "state violence, bloody wars of genocidal proportions and violent encounters, slavery, colonialism and myriad forms of rabid imperialism" as part of the historical record, while rejecting the idea of cannibal practices that may well "have gone with or resulted from such conflicts". Other authors likewise observe a "strong ethnocentrism" in the idea that cannibalism could never have been a socially accepted custom, in that a taboo of our own society is silently (or explicitly) declared to be universal. Kajsa Ekholm Friedman notes that such an utter rejection of cannibalism as human possibility makes sense only if one implicitly considers it "the worst thing of all" – worse than any other behaviour people engaged in, and therefore uniquely suited to vilifying others. She calls this "a remarkable opinion in a culture [the European/American one] that has been capable of the most extreme cruelty and destructive behavior, both at home and in other parts of the world."
Nyamnjoh and others also note that Europeans were quite hypocritical when condemning the cannibalism of others, while at the same or almost the same time practising their own forms of cannibalism – especially medicinal cannibalism – at home. Other authors state that when Europeans associated cannibalism only with (often darker-skinned) others, they ignored the "long history of cannibalism" of their own continent, well attested by archaeological and historical evidence.
Even when practised within Africa, cannibalism was not necessarily a purely local phenomenon. In the Congo Basin, it became more widespread and common due to the Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trade, the international ivory trade (since ivory was not rarely paid for with slaves who were then eaten), and the violent and exploitative regime of the colonial Congo Free State, which sometimes tolerated cannibal acts among its own local troops and allies.
North Africa Early history
Cannibalism was occasionally practised in Egypt during ancient and Roman times, as well as later during severe famines. The oldest written reference to cannibalism known from anywhere in the world may be from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian king Unas (24th century BCE). It contained a hymn in praise of the king portraying him as a cannibal who eats both "men" and "gods", thus indicating an attitude towards cannibalism quite different from the modern one.
Cassius Dio recorded cannibalism practised by the bucoli, Egyptian tribes led by Isidorus against Rome. They sacrificed and consumed two Roman officers ritualistically, swearing an oath over their entrails.
13th century In the early 13th century, the Arab physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi lived in Cairo when a severe famine, caused by the Nile failing to overflow its banks, devastated the country. According to his detailed description, in 1200 CE, the food situation became so dire that many people turned to cannibalism.