Cannibals in Papua New Guinea....?

Question

What is the story with that? Is it a religious thing? Why are they cannibals? What is the history and for what reasons are they this way? I'm doing a very short paper. Thanks!

Answer 1

For starters, see...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guinea
http://whyfiles.org/012mad_cow/6.html
see also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal
Interesting stuff... I'm reading a National Geographic article right now, about a possible gentic immunity to prion disease, and may have a few more links to post in a little while.

Here's an article about how a mutation on the M129V or E219K gene can protect against prion disease.
Prion disease is a disease that occurs in the brain from eating tainted brain tissue. Mad Cow disease is a well known prion disease although there are others. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0410_030410_cannibal.html
Now I'm wondering, many genetic mutations protect against certain diseases when one has a single copy of the gene, but can cause diseases if one has two copies of the mutated gene. I wonder what double copies of this mutated gene causes?
I've searched on this but found nothing. But this would be worth watching out for in future develiopments.

Answer 2

They are practising voodoo.