First attested | 1874 |
---|---|
Region | Africa and Central America |
Details | Lives in African and Central-American forests |
A man-eating plant is a fictional form of carnivorous plant large enough to kill and consume a human or other large animal. The notion of man-eating plants came about in the late 19th century, as the existence of real-life carnivorous and moving plants, described by Charles Darwin in Insectivorous Plants (1875), and The Power of Movement in Plants (1880), largely came as a shock to the general population, who believed it was impossible for plants to consume animals or move under their own power. Authors began to exaggerate these abilities for dramatic effect, causing the proliferation of fiction about such plants. [1]
The earliest known report of a man-eating plant originated as a literary fabrication written by journalist Edmund Spencer for the New York World . [2] Spencer's article first appeared in the daily edition of the New York World on 26 April 1874, and appeared again in the weekly edition of the newspaper two days later. [3] In the article, a letter was published by a purported German explorer named "Karl Leche" (also spelled as Karl or Carl Liche in later accounts), who provided a report of encountering a human sacrifice performed by the "Mkodo tribe" of Madagascar: [4] This story was picked up by many other newspapers of the day, which included the South Australian Register of 27 October 1874, [5] where it gained even greater notoriety. [6] Describing the tree, the account related:
The slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey. [7]
The hoax was given further publicity by Madagascar: Land of the Man-eating Tree, a book by Chase Osborn, who had been a Governor of Michigan. Osborn claimed that both the tribes and missionaries on Madagascar knew about the hideous tree, repeated the above Liche account, and acknowledged "I do not know whether this tigerish tree really exists or whether the bloodcurdling stories about it are pure myth. It is enough for my purpose if its story focuses your interest upon one of the least known spots of the world." [8]
In his 1955 book, Salamanders and other Wonders, science author Willy Ley determined that the Mkodo tribe, Carl Liche, and the Madagascar man-eating tree all appeared to be fabrications: "The facts are pretty clear by now. Of course the man eating tree does not exist. There is no such tribe." [9]
In James W. Buel's Sea and Land (1889), [10] the Yateveo plant is described as being native to Africa and South America, so named for producing a hissing sound similar to the Spanish phrase ya te veo (lit. 'I already see you'), and having poisonous "spines" that resemble "many huge serpents in an angry discussion, occasionally darting from side to side as if striking at an imaginary foe" which seize and pierce any creature coming within reach. [11]
William Thomas Stead, editor of Review of Reviews, published a brief article in October 1891 that discussed a story found in Lucifer magazine, describing a plant in Nicaragua called by the natives the devil's snare. This plant had the capability "to drain the blood of any living thing which comes within its death-dealing touch." According to the article:
Mr. Dunstan, naturalist, who has recently returned from Central America, where he spent nearly two years in the study of the flora and the fauna of the country, relates the finding of a singular growth in one of the swamps which surround the great lakes of Nicaragua. He was engaged in hunting for botanical and entomological specimens, when he heard his dog cry out, as if in agony, from a distance. Running to the spot whence the animal's cries came. Mr. Dunstan found him enveloped in a perfect network of what seemed to be a fine rope-like tissue of roots and fibers... The native servants who accompanied Mr. Dunstan manifested the greatest horror of the vine, which they call "the devil's snare", and were full of stories of its death-dealing powers. He was able to discover very little about the nature of the plant, owing to the difficulty of handling it, for its grasp can only be torn away with the loss of skin and even of flesh; but, as near as Mr. Dunstan could ascertain, its power of suction is contained in a number of infinitesimal mouths or little suckers, which, ordinarily closed, open for the reception of food. If the substance is animal, the blood is drawn off and the carcass or refuse then dropped. [12]
An investigation of Stead's review determined no such article was published in the October issue of Lucifer, and concluded that the story in Review of Reviews appeared to be a fabrication by the editor. [13] The story in fact appeared in the September issue, [14] preceded by a longer version in an 1889 newspaper describing Dunstan as a "well-known naturalist" from New Orleans. [15]
Pellucidar is the internal surface of a fictional Hollow Earth invented by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a crossover event, Tarzan, who was also created by Burroughs, visits Pellucidar.
Choctaw mythology is part of the culture of the Choctaw, a Native American tribe originally occupying a large territory in the present-day Southeastern United States: much of the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. In the 19th century, the Choctaw were known to European Americans as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" even though controversy surrounds their removal.
Cherokee spiritual beliefs are held in common among the Cherokee people – Native American peoples who are Indigenous to the Southeastern Woodlands, and today live primarily in communities in North Carolina, and Oklahoma. Some of the beliefs, and the stories and songs in which they have been preserved, exist in slightly different forms in the different communities in which they have been preserved. But for the most part, they still form a unified system of theology.
Jasper Fforde is an English novelist whose first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. He is known mainly for his Thursday Next novels, but has also published two books in the loosely connected Nursery Crime series, two in the Shades of Grey series and four in The Last Dragonslayer series. Fforde's books abound in literary allusions and wordplay, tightly scripted plots and playfulness with the conventional, traditional genres. They usually contain elements of metafiction, parody, and fantasy.
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
Anthropophagy may refer to:
The Questing Beast, or the Beast Glatisant, is a cross-animal monster appearing in many medieval texts of Arthurian legend and modern works inspired by them. In the French prose cycles, and consequently in the quasi-canon of Le Morte d'Arthur, the hunt for the Beast is the subject of quests futilely undertaken by King Pellinore and his family and finally achieved by Sir Palamedes and his companions.
Skull Island is the name most often used to describe a fictional island that first appeared in the 1933 film King Kong and later appearing in its sequels, the three remakes, and any other King Kong-based media. It is the home of the eponymous King Kong and several other species of creatures, mostly prehistoric and in some cases species that should have been extinct long before the rise of mammalian creatures, along with a primitive society of humans.
The fossa is a slender, long-tailed, cat-like mammal that is endemic to Madagascar. It is a member of the carnivoran family Eupleridae.
Temperance Daessee Brennan is a fictional character created by author Kathy Reichs, and is the hero of her crime novel series. She was introduced in Reichs' first novel, Déjà Dead, which was published in 1997. All the novels are written in the first person, from Brennan's viewpoint. Like her creator, Brennan is a forensic anthropologist. In a number of novels it is indicated that Brennan's background lies in physical anthropology, rather than medicine, and throughout the novels she stresses the importance of correct crime scene process.
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Human genetic chimerism, which can not only cause a wide range of illnesses but also lead to the same person having more than one profile in genetic fingerprinting, has served as a plot device in many works of fiction. Most known examples are subsequent to the 2004 book Free Culture, where author Lawrence Lessig digresses briefly to describe chimerism and suggest that it could, and had yet to, be well used as a television plot device.
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Vegetarianism in the Romantic Era refers to the rise of vegetarianism associated with the Romanticism movement in Western Europe from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Many of the late Romantics argued in favor of a more natural diet which excluded animal flesh for a plethora of reasons including the state of human and animal health, religious beliefs, economy and class division, animal rights, literary influence, as well as from new ideas about anthropology, consumerism, and evolution. The modern vegetarian and vegan movements borrow some of the same principles from the late Romantics to promote the adoption of diets free from animal products.
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The Woman Eater is a low budget 1958 British horror film directed by Charles Saunders and starring George Coulouris and Vera Day. Produced by Guido Coen, the film recounts the story of a crazed scientist who feeds women to a flesh-eating tree in return for a serum that can bring the dead back to life. The film was released in the UK in 1958 by Eros Films on a double bill with the Swedish crime drama Blonde in Bondage (1957).
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