To civilized people, the practice of cannibalism, or eating human flesh, is a horrible thought! Yet it was practiced by many primitive tribes and may still be practiced in some parts of the world today.The first thing we must understand is that cannibals did not eat human flesh because the liked it. They ate it because it was a part of a sacred rite, a kind of religious observance.
Ancient tribes of India ate their parents as a sign of respect and honor. Many primitive people believed that they could acquire the traits of people they admired or respected by eating them, just as they ate lions to become lionhearted; deer, so they could run fast; and foxes, to be cunning.
Among other primitive peoples it was the custom to eat a criminal who had been condemned to death not the man who died his physical natural death. The reason for this was that they believed that a criminal had offended the gods. Therefore they had to be sacrificed to the gods to satisfy them. Since it was the practice to eat or taste sacrifices the gods, this had to be done even if the sacrifice was a human.
Nobody is certain how many cannibal tribes exist today. Some say none; others say that there are still several tribes on the South Pacific island of New Guinea practicing cannibalism.

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