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How 19th Century Sailors Embraced a Custom of Cannibalism
And what finally put an end to it
Imagine this scenario: A handful of emaciated sailors look warily at their captain. They’re stranded in the middle of nowhere in a small whaling boat and the food ran out days ago. The captain holds out his fist, five straws poking out the top. “We draw lots and see who gets eaten,” he says, his voice quivering.
“What?” the young cabin boy looks from sailor to sailor, waiting for the punchline. They’re always having him on, teasing and making up stories. Although, this doesn’t seem like a good time to joke around. “You’re not serious?”
“That’s just what happens at sea in these situations,” the captain says, as if addressing the faded wooden boards beneath his feet. “I don’t like it anymore than you do, but what other choice do we have?”
A Strange Prediction?
Edgar Allan Poe wrote about cannibalism at sea, in his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. In the book, a cabin boy called Richard Parker was killed and eaten by his fellow crew members.
In an eerie coincidence 50 years later, a sailor with the same name as Poe’s unfortunate book character, Richard Parker, came to a similar ending.
In an eerie…
