Acts of cannibalism in Asia have been reported from various parts of the continent, ranging from ancient history to the 21st century. Human cannibalism is particularly well documented for China and for islands that today belong to Indonesia.
The history of cannibalism in China is multifaceted, spanning from cases motivated by food scarcity during famines and wars to culturally accepted practices motivated by vengeance, medical beliefs, and even culinary pleasure. Records from China's Twenty-Four Histories document over three hundred episodes of cannibalism, many of them seen as an inevitable means of avoiding starvation. Cannibalism was also employed as a form of vengeance, with individuals and state officials consuming enemies' flesh to further humiliate and punish them. The Histories also document multiple instances of voluntary cannibalism, often involving young individuals offering some of their flesh to ill family members as a form of medical treatment. Various reports, especially from early history and the medieval era, indicate that human flesh could also be served at lavish feasts and was considered an exotic delicacy by some. Generally, the reports from Chinese history suggest that people had fewer reservations about eating human flesh than one might expect today.
Episodes of cannibalism in China continued into the 20th century, especially during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) famine. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), multiple cases motivated by hatred rather than hunger seem to have occurred.
In Sumatra, cannibal practices are documented especially for the 14th and the 19th centuries, with purchased children, killed or captured enemies, and executed criminals mentioned as typical victims. In neighbouring Borneo, some Dayak people ate human flesh, especially in the context of headhunting expeditions and war campaigns. In both islands and also in China, human flesh was praised as extraordinarily delicious. Accounts from the 20th and early 21st centuries indicate that the cannibalization of despised enemies could still occur during episodes of mass violence, such as the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and, more recently, the Sampit conflict.
Cases of famine cannibalism have been reported from North Korea during the mid-1990s and subsequent starvation periods, but their prevalence is debated. Various reports indicate that some Japanese soldiers ate human flesh during World War II, motivated by starvation or sometimes by hatred.
Iran Charges of cannibalism were levied against the Qizilbash of the Safavid Ismail I in the early 16th century.
India The Aghori are Indian ascetics who believe that eating human flesh confers spiritual and physical benefits, such as the prevention of ageing. They claim only to eat those who have voluntarily granted their body to the sect upon their death, but an Indian TV crew witnessed one Aghori feasting on a corpse discovered floating in the Ganges and a member of the Dom caste reports that Aghori often take bodies from cremation ghats (or funeral pyres). A Dutch photojournalist witnessed the Aghori taking partially burnt bodies from the Manikarnika Ghat cremation grounds and ritualistically consuming the flesh.
China Up to the Yuan dynasty
Cannibalism has been repeatedly recorded throughout China's well-documented history. The sinologist Bengt Pettersson found references to more than three hundred different episodes of cannibalism in the Official Dynastic Histories alone. Most episodes occurred in famine or war or were motivated by vengeance or medical reasons. More than half of the episodes recorded in the Official Histories describe cases motivated by food scarcity during famines or in times of war. Pettersson observes that the records of such events "neither encouraged nor condemned" the consumption of human flesh under such circumstances, instead accepting it as an unavoidable way of "coping with a life-threatening situation".
In other cases, cannibalism was an element of vengeance or punishment – eating the hearts and livers, or sometimes the whole bodies, of killed enemies was a way of further humiliating them and sweetening the revenge. Both private individuals and state officials engaged in such acts, especially from the 4th to the 10th century CE but, in some cases, until the end of imperial China in 1912. More than 70 cases are listed in the Official Histories alone. In warfare, human flesh could be eaten out of a lack of other provisions but also out of hatred against the enemy or to celebrate one's victory. Not just enemy fighters, but also their "servants and concubines were all steamed and eaten", according to one account.
At least since the Tang dynasty (618–907), the consumption of human flesh was considered a highly effective medical treatment, recommended by the Bencao Shiyi, an influential medical reference book published in the early 8th century, as well as in similar later manuals. Together with the ethical ideal of filial piety, according to which young people were supposed to do everything in their power to support their parents and parents-in-law, this idea led to a unique form of voluntary cannibalism, in which a young person cut some of the flesh out of their body and gave it to an ill parent or parent-in-law for consumption. The majority of the donors were women, frequently daughters-in-law of the patient.
The Official Histories describe more than 110 cases of such voluntary offerings between the early 7th and the early 20th century. While these acts were (at least nominally) voluntary and the donors usually (though not always) survived them, several sources also report of children and adolescents who were killed so that their flesh could be eaten for medical purposes.
During the Tang dynasty, cannibalism was supposedly resorted to by rebel forces early in the period (who were said to raid neighbouring areas for victims to eat), and (on a large scale) by both soldiers and civilians during the siege of Suiyang, a decisive episode of the An Lushan Rebellion. Eating an enemy's heart and liver was also repeatedly mentioned as a feature of both official punishments and private vengeance.
The final decades of the dynasty were marked by large-scale rebellions, during which both rebels and regular soldiers butchered prisoners for food and killed and ate civilians. Sometimes "the rebels captured by government troops were [even] sold as food", according to several Official Histories. At the same time, warlords likewise relied on selling human flesh to finance their rebellions. A Persian merchant visiting China during the turbulent Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–979), which followed the fall of the Tang dynasty, recorded that cannibalism was often inflicted as a punishment and that, after war campaigns, the followers of a defeated warlord were killed and eaten by the victors. He added that human flesh was openly sold in markets, leading him to conclude that cannibalism was "permissible for them according to their legal code".
References to cannibalizing the enemy also appear in poetry written in the subsequent Song dynasty (960–1279) – for example, in Man Jiang Hong – although they are perhaps meant symbolically, expressing hatred towards the enemy. The Official Histories covering this period record various cases of rebels and bandits eating the flesh of their victims. Since this time, the euphemism "two-legged sheep/goat" (兩腳羊 – liǎngjiǎoyáng) was sometimes used to refer to humans who were eaten or intended to be eaten.
The flesh of executed criminals was sometimes cut off and sold for consumption. During the Tang dynasty, a law forbade this practice, but whether the law was effectively enforced is unclear. The sale of human flesh is also repeatedly mentioned during famines in accounts ranging from the 6th to the 15th century. Several of these accounts mention that animal flesh was still available but had become so expensive that few could afford it. Dog meat was five times as expensive as human flesh, according to one such report. Sometimes, poor men sold their wives or children to butchers who slaughtered them and sold their flesh. Cannibalism in famine situations seems to have been generally tolerated by the authorities, who did not intervene when such acts occurred.
Several accounts suggest that human flesh was occasionally eaten for culinary reasons. An anecdote told about Duke Huan of Qi (7th century BCE) claims that he was curious about the taste of "steamed child", having already eaten everything else. His cook supposedly killed his son to prepare the dish, and Duke Huan judged it "the best food of all". In later times, wealthy men, among them a son of the 4th-century emperor Shi Hu and an "open and high-spirited" man who lived in the 7th century CE, served the flesh of purchased women or children during lavish feasts. The sinologist observes that while such acts were not common, they do not seem to have been rare exceptions; the hosts did not have to face ostracism or legal prosecution. Key Ray Chong even concludes that "learned cannibalism was often practiced ... for culinary appreciation, and exotic dishes [of human flesh] were prepared for jaded upper-class palates".
The Official Histories mention 10th-century officials who liked to eat the flesh of babies and children, and during the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), human flesh seems to have been readily available at the home of a general, who supposedly served it to one of his guests as a practical joke. Accounts from the 12th to 14th centuries indicate that both soldiers and writers praised this flesh as particularly delicious, considering especially children's flesh as unsurpassable in taste.
Pettersson observes that people generally seem to have had fewer reservations about the consumption of human flesh than one might expect today. While survival cannibalism during famines was regarded as a lamentable necessity, accounts explaining the practice as due to other reasons, such as vengeance or filial piety, were generally even positive.
Ming and Qing dynasties Various reports from the early modern period indicate that cannibalism was still practised during famines when other provisions were exhausted. Especially during the chaotic transition from the Ming to the Qing dynasty in the 17th century, severe famines repeatedly led to cannibalism. During a famine in 1622, government troops took the providing of human flesh into their own hands, "openly butcher[ing] and [selling] people in a market where one jin [] of flesh could be exchanged for one liang [] of silver." Around 1640, a drought in Henan and Shandong became so bad that "women and babies were arrayed in the market as human food and were sold by the slaughterers just like mutton and pork." Sometimes, women and children were slaughtered in the back rooms of butcher shops while customers were waiting for fresh meat. A few years later in Sichuan, "hundreds of the young and weak" were kidnapped, killed, and eaten; in the markets, men's flesh was sold at a somewhat lower price than that of women, which was considered tastier.
Contemporary reports indicate that in Shaanxi – located between Henan and Sichuan – cannibalism became so common in the early Qing period that the local government "officially sanctioned" the sale and consumption of human flesh. Butchers legally turned towards killing people sold to them and then "sell[ing] their meat"; human-based dishes were also served in restaurants. The History of Ming, one of the Official Dynastic Histories that documented cannibalistic acts, accepted them as inevitable in bad times. "When driven towards dangers, what choices do they have?" it asked rhetorically about a famine in 1611, where people were "selling their daughters and sons, and eating their wives and children".