I am really not very good at keeping up with this
blog. As much as I hate to admit it I am a lot better at keeping up with things
if I actually have to handwrite them. Anyways, on to the actual blog post!
My group project is on endocannibalism. We are
doing a comparison between the Australian Aborigines and the Brazilian Amazons.
Under “endocannibalism” in the Encyclopedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186851/endocannibalism)
you can find the following; “In some cases, the body of a dead person was
ritually eaten by his relatives, a form called endocannibalism. Some Aboriginal Australians performed such practices
as acts of respect. In other cases, ritual cannibalism occurred as a part of
the drama of secret societies.”
While I was looking at the endocannibalism among
the Australian Aborigines I found a ceremony in which they drank another’s
blood. This made me think about the definition of cannibalism. Cannibalism, by
definition, is the eating of another of the same species’ flesh. But what about
the blood? This made me think about vampirism. Vampirism, I suppose, can be
associated with cannibalism, or it can be quite separate.
While I was looking at various articles and websites
I came upon this article about a couple in a psychiatric hospital in Sweden (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094724/Cannibal-ate-girlfriend-finds-love-vampire-bars-psychiatric-unit.html).
Another article same story but entertaining narrative (http://gawker.com/5881668/). The man,
Isakin, decapitated and ate his girlfriend, and the woman Michelle, stabbed and
drank her boyfriend’s blood. Both Isakin and Michelle posted online about what
they had done, which imminently led to their arrests. They also both opted for
indefinite psychiatric treatment rather than a life sentence. They had internet
and cellphone access and that is how they started “dating” and later got
engaged.
Experts say that there is no chance that they will
be released, even in a country as liberal as Sweden is. They both have posted
online about their relationship and say that they just want to live a happy
normal crime-free life. (I cannot for the life of me find anything else online
about them apart from newspaper articles about the initial engagement; probably
because anything else has either been removed or is not in English.) The
article says that the court had not yet decided whether to allow them to marry
or not, and I cannot find anywhere whether they did end up getting married or
not. Perhaps no decision has been made yet.
So…what do I have to say about this? I think that
they are lucky to be in such a liberal country as Sweden, that much is for
sure! They are allowed cellphones and internet, not to mention they escaped a
life sentence in jail for what seems like a cushy psychiatric hospital! The
popular view from the comments that I read under the newspaper article is that
Isakin and Michelle are probably safer in the psychiatric hospital than they
would be if they were let out. I wish I could have found something more on them
other than the one main article.
I know this blog post doesn’t have much to do with
the Archaeology of Death, but I couldn’t help it, I just found it fascinating!
They are as quoted “the world’s most evil couple”, and it’s been over a year
since they got engaged and I haven’t seen or heard anything else about them. A
vampire and a cannibal getting together? What could be more interesting?! I
wonder what their life would actually be like if they were let out (and no one
else murdered them!). I really doubt that they would lead a “normal” life
though. But I bet they could work well together…
No comments:
Post a Comment