Unofficial custom practised by officers and crew of ships on the open ocean
A custom of the sea is a custom said to be practiced by the officers and crew of ships and boats in the open sea, as distinguished from maritime law, which is a distinct and coherent body of law governing maritime questions and offenses.
Among these customs was the practice of cannibalism among shipwrecked survivors, by the drawing of lots to decide who would be killed and eaten so that the others might survive.[1][2]
Traditional rules for survival cannibalism among sailors
This specific custom, also known as "the delicate question" or "the proper tradition of the sea", specified that in case of disaster, when there was not enough food for the survivors, corpses could be eaten. If "there were no bodies available for consumption, lots were drawn to determine who would be sacrificed to provide food for the others". As long as the lottery was fair, giving everyone an equal risk of dying to become food for others, this was considered "entirely legal" and justified by the circumstances. "On the whole, sailors and the general public knew and accepted [this] protocol of cannibalism to survive ship disasters."[3]
If properly conducted, cannibalism was legitimated by a custom of the sea; and the popular literature, augmented by the unrecorded tales seamen told each other, ensured that there was general understanding of what had to be done on these occasions and that survivors who had followed the custom could have a certain professional pride in a job well done; there was nothing to hide.[4]
Referring to William Arens' widely-read book The Man-Eating Myth, he added that, since "maritime survival cannibalism, preceded by the drawing of lots and killing, was a socially accepted practice among seamen until the end of the days of sail ... it is ... not an exception but a counterexample" to Arens' thesis "that cannibalism, as a socially accepted practice, is a myth".[5]
The only cases when cannibalism in maritime disasters sometimes led to legal prosecution was "when the lotteries were fixed or absent altogether", in violation of the accepted custom.[3] Such violations were nevertheless common enough. Captains and other crew members were often unwilling to put their own lives at risk, as the rules of the custom demanded, instead choosing to sacrifice those they considered "more expendable ... (such as slaves, young boys, and passengers)" to serve as food for the other survivors.[6]
The case of R v Dudley and Stephens (1884 14 QBD 273 DC) is an English case that developed a crucial ruling on necessity in modern common law, at the same time ending the custom of lot drawing and cannibalism. Accused were two crew members of an English yacht, the Mignonette, who in 1884 were shipwrecked in a storm some 1,600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. After a few weeks adrift in a lifeboat, 17-year-old Richard Parker fell unconscious due to a combination of hunger and drinking seawater. Two of the three others on the boat decided to kill and eat him (the third man abstained). They were picked up four days later. The case held that necessity was not a defense for a charge of murder, and the two defendants were convicted, though their death sentence was commuted to six months' imprisonment.[7]
In this case, the rules of the traditional custom had not been adhered to since no lots had been drawn. However, the judges made it clear that they did not consider necessity a possible justification for murder regardless of the circumstances; they did not consider killing anyone acceptable, even if this was the sole way to ensure the survival of the others, instead "pompous[ly]" declaring that the right course of action, under the circumstances, would have been for everybody to starve to death.[8]
After this judgment, there were no more cases of openly admitted cannibal killings on board British or American ships. This does not necessarily mean that they no longer occurred — but the sailors had undoubtedly learned that more discretion was now required since the custom had effectively been declared unlawful in the Mignonette case. In the 1890s, there were two more highly suspect cases of maritime hunger cannibalism, but the survivors asserted that the eaten had died a natural death. Nobody seemed strongly inclined to try to prove otherwise, and no juridical proceedings followed.[9]
In other countries, the defense of necessity to prevent starvation in the case of shipwrecks proved somewhat more durable. In the 1890s, two such incidents occurred on Norwegian vessels. In one case, sailors drew lots to select a victim, while in the other case, two sailors were stabbed to death and eaten because the other sailors considered them close to death anyway. In both cases, the authorities investigated but decided not to press charges, considering the acts as justified by necessity.[10]
Historical examples of lot drawing before survival cannibalism
Saint Christopher case
Sometime between 1629 and 1640, seven Englishmen in the Caribbean embarked on an overnight voyage from Saint Christopher Island but were blown out to sea and lost for 17 days. During this time, starving, they cast lots to see who would sacrifice his life for the others. The lot fell to the man who had suggested the scheme, and he consented to his subsequent killing. His body sustained the rest until they made their way to Saint Martin. They were returned to Saint Christopher, where they were put on trial for homicide. The local English judge supposedly pardoned them, declaring that the crime was "'washed away' by 'inevitable necessity'".[11]
The case cannot be found in the island's legal records, which start only in 1644 but was described, supposedly based on eyewitness accounts, by the Dutch surgeon Nicolaes Tulp in his Observationes Medicae (1641). Simpson considers his account credible, noting that he likely received information from the Dutch authorities in Saint Martin, who had decided to send the sailors back to Saint Christopher for trial.[11]
Essex
A whale striking the Essex on 20 November 1820, depicted in a sketch by Thomas Nickerson
After a whale rammed and sank the whaling shipEssex of Nantucket on 20 November 1820, the survivors were left floating in three small whaleboats. They eventually resorted, by common consent, to cannibalism to allow some to survive.[12] Of the seven crew members eaten, six died of starvation and exposure; one, Owen Coffin, lost a lottery, and was shot. The captain volunteered to take Coffin's place, but Coffin refused, accepting his lot stoically.[13]
Doubtful cases
In the case of the Mary, which sank in 1736, and the Euxine, which shipwrecked in 1874, lots were ostensibly drawn to determine a victim for killing and cannibalism. However, in both cases there are doubts whether the lot drawing was fair (and whether it even happened), since the lot fell, conveniently from the viewpoint of the core crew, on an "obvious victim". In the case of the Mary, a passenger was singled out; in the case of the Euxine, the deadly lot fell on an Italian "boy" of about 20 years, who was both a foreigner (speaking little English) and the youngest surviving crew member.[14]
Cases where no fair lottery was held
Depiction of a cabin boy by Thomas Rowlandson (1799). On the Francis Spaight, only the four teenage cabin boys were submitted to a lottery, which resulted in one of them being killed and consumed.
In other cases, it is known that somebody was killed for survival cannibalism without a fair lottery taking place. In such cases, the victim was almost always a person of low status, such as an enslaved Black person or a teenage boy.[6]
In the winter of 1765/66, the American ship Peggy drifted for months after a severe storm had destroyed all its means of navigation. Having eaten all their provisions and any remaining "tobacco, lamp oil, candles, and ... leather", the crew told the captain they would hold a lottery to decide who should be slaughtered to feed the others. But among themselves, they had already decided to kill the one Black slave on board, and after a sham lottery, they "shot him through the head. One of the crew ate the victim's raw liver; some of the rest of the body was cooked, and the remainder was pickled."[15]
At nearly the same time, in 1766, a vessel named Tiger was shipwrecked. After provisions had run out, the sailors decided to kill the one "negro youth" on board (probably an enslaved person) rather than drawing lots, as one of them freely reported afterwards. The dead body was then smoked to last longer.[16]
The Irish sailing barque Francis Spaight capsized and almost sunk in December 1836 near the coast of Canada. All provisions were lost or spoiled. Four of the fifteen survivors were teenage apprentices. Two weeks after the accident, the captain decided that "lots should be drawn between the four boys, as they had no families, and could not be considered so great a loss to their friends, as those who had wives and children depending upon them." The boys protested against this unfair decision, but in vain. The lot fell on fourteen-year-old Patrick O'Brien, whom the ship's cook then killed. During the next few days, the sailors survived by drinking his blood and eating his flesh.[17]
In the late nineteenth century, a British resident magistrate met a captain named Anson whose crew "had run short of provisions" while "bring[ing] a yacht from England to Australia". Accordingly, they had killed and "eaten the cabin boy". No lot drawing is mentioned, but they had somehow escaped legal consequences, "probably upon some plea of self-preservation".[18]
Fictional references in literature
Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), has a minor character, Richard Parker, whom the shipwreck's survivors cannibalise. In an eerie parallel to the actual case of the Mignonette, which happened more than 50 years later, both cannibalised people shared the exact same name.
In 1866, W.S. Gilbert wrote a song, "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell", in which the last survivor of shipwreck sings that he is the entire crew after drawing lots and eating his other shipmates.
The 2019 movie Harpoon, in which three friends are stranded aboard their yacht at sea, references both the incident aboard the Mignonette and the Edgar Allan Poe story. One of the characters is also named Richard Parker.
Human cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal. The meaning of "cannibalism" has been extended into zoology to describe animals consuming parts of individuals of the same species as food.
Méduse was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1810. She took part in the Napoleonic Wars during the late stages of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 and in raids in the Caribbean.
The Boyd massacre occurred in December 1809 when Māori of Ngāti Pou from Whangaroa Harbour in northern New Zealand killed and ate between 66 and 70 European crew members from the British brigantine ship Boyd. This was the highest number of Europeans killed by Māori in a single event in New Zealand.
Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck.
Boon Island is a barren, rocky island in the Gulf of Maine 6 mi (9.7 km) off the coast of York, Maine, United States. The island, which is approximately 300 ft (91 m) by 700 ft (210 m) at low tide, is the site of Boon Island Light, at 137 ft (42 m) high, it is the tallest lighthouse in New England. Numerous vessels have been wrecked on its rocky shoreline. John Winthrop, the English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, mentions passing Boon Island in the 1600s.
The Virginia Beach Surf & Rescue Museum honors and preserves the history of Virginia's maritime heritage, coastal communities, the United States Lifesaving Service, and the United States Coast Guard along the Atlantic coast.
Monty Python's Lifeboat (Cannibalism) sketch appeared on Monty Python's Flying Circus in Episode 26. It was also performed on the album, Another Monty Python Record, retitled "Still No Sign Of Land". The sketch was inspired by the famous 1884 English criminal law case of R v Dudley and Stephens which involved survival cannibalism among castaways after a shipwreck.
Cannibalism in the Americas has been practiced in many places throughout much of the history of North America and South America. The modern term "cannibal" is derived from the name of the Island Caribs (Kalinago), who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in The Bahamas. Numerous cultures in the Americas were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism. However, these claims may be unreliable since the Spanish Empire used them to justify conquest.
SS Earnmoor was a tramp steamer that sank during a storm in 1889. The survivors drifted for 21 days in an open boat and were allegedly forced into cannibalism to survive.
Owen Coffin was a sailor aboard the Nantucket whaler Essex when it set sail for the Pacific Ocean on a sperm whale-hunting expedition in August 1819, under the command of his cousin, George Pollard, Jr. In November 1820, a whale rammed and breached the hull of Essex in mid-Pacific, causing Essex to sink. The crew escaped in small whaleboats, with sufficient supplies for two months, but were not rescued within that time. During January 1821, the near-starved survivors began to eat the bodies of those who had died. When even this resource ran out, the four men remaining in Pollard's boat agreed to draw straws to decide which of them should be killed, lest all four die of starvation. Coffin lost in the lottery, and was shot and eaten. The captain volunteered to take Coffin's place but Coffin refused, saying it was his "right" to do so that the others might live.
William Brown was an American ship that sank in 1841, taking with her 31 passengers. The survivors took to two boats, which later separated to increase their chances of being found. Nine crewmen and 32 passengers occupied the overloaded longboat. At the instigation of the first mate, who was placed in charge by the captain, some of the crew, Alexander Holmes among them, forced 12 of the adult male passengers out of the boat. In the case of United States v. Holmes, Holmes – the only crewman who could be found – was charged with murder and convicted of manslaughter for his actions.
SS Myron was a wooden steamship built in 1888. She spent her 31-year career as lumber hooker, towing schooner barges on the Great Lakes. She sank in 1919, in a Lake Superior November gale. All of her 17 crew members were killed but her captain survived. He was found drifting on wreckage near Ile Parisienne. Her tow, the Miztec, survived. Myron defied the adage that Lake Superior "seldom gives up her dead" when all 17 crewmembers were found frozen to death wearing their life jackets. Local residents chopped eight of Myron's sailors from the ice on the shore of Whitefish Bay and buried them at the Mission Hill Cemetery in Bay Mills Township, Michigan.
R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, DC is a leading English criminal case which established a precedent throughout the common law world that necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder. The case concerned survival cannibalism following a shipwreck, and its purported justification on the basis of a custom of the sea.
George Pollard Jr. was the captain of the whalers Essex and Two Brothers, both of which sank. Pollard's life, including his encounter with the sperm whale that sank Essex, served as inspiration for Captain Ahab, the whale-obsessed character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
Francis Spaight was a transport ship in the 19th century, owned by an Irish merchant from Limerick, Ireland. The ship was engaged in trade with North America, such as transporting Irish emigrants to North America and transporting timber on the return trip. Francis Spaight became infamous for an incident of cannibalism.
Captain John Deane was an English sailor with a long career in the Royal Navy and Russian Navy. He rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy, commanding in the Capture of Gibraltar. Deane later commanded a trading vessel, the Nottingham Galley, shipwrecked on Boon Island in 1710. Deane spent 1714–1721 in service with the Tsar Peter the Great commanding a Russian naval ship. He then worked in Flanders as British Consul to the Port of Ostend until 1736, when he retired to his native Wilford, Nottingham. He died in 1761 from injuries in a violent assault. His wife died on the next day.
Acts of cannibalism in Europe seem to have been relatively prevalent in prehistory but also occurred repeatedly in later times, often motivated by hunger, hatred, or medical concerns. Both anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals practised cannibalism to some extent in the Pleistocene, and Neanderthals may have been eaten by modern humans as the latter spread into Europe. Amongst humans in prehistoric Europe, archaeologists have uncovered many clear and indisputable sites of cannibalism, as well as numerous other finds of which cannibalism is a plausible interpretation.
The Old Town Hall is a historic building in the High Street in Falmouth, Cornwall, a town in England. The structure, which accommodates a small art gallery, is a Grade II* listed building.
References
↑ Walker, Andrew (2011). Is Eating People Wrong? Great Legal Cases and How they Shaped the World. New York: Cambridge University Press. p.22. ISBN978-1-107-00037-7.
↑ Philbrick, Nathaniel (2001). In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Penguin. chapter 11.
1 2 Scott, Richard; McMurry, Sean (2011). "The Delicate Question: Cannibalism in Prehistoric and Historic Times". In Dixon, Kelly J.; Schablitsky, Julie M.; Novak, Shannon A. (eds.). An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party's Alder Creek Camp. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. p.228.
Learmonth, Eleanor; Tabakoff, Jenny (2014). No Mercy: True Stories of Disaster, Survival and Brutality. Text Publishing Company. ISBN978-1922147240.
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