It's "very bitter." What body organ was never eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea?

In the highlands of Papua New Guinea live the Fore people, who even before 1960 ate their dead relatives, considering it a sign of great respect for their relatives. They would eat the dead person completely, except for the gall bladder, because it was "very bitter".

This strange display of respect for relatives played a cruel joke on this tribe. Because of cannibalism, they contracted the deadly kuru disease and in a few years the Foree population was reduced by a thousand people. Women and children were more often affected, the DailyStar writes.

In the eastern part of Papua New Guinea, at an altitude of 1500 - 2000 meters above sea level, there are different Papuan tribes, between whom there have always been wars. To stop the constant conflicts, a patrol post was organized here in 1950.

According to Wikipedia, the first patrol officer of the area, John MacArthur, in 1953 saw a little girl of the Fore tribe sitting by a fire and shivering badly. Locals explained to the officer that the girl was a victim of witchcraft by a foreign shaman and would therefore die in a few weeks.

MacArthur, of course, did not believe in witchcraft, but he saw that many members of the Fore people had similar symptoms. The natives called the condition "kuru," which in the local language means "shivering with cold, fear" or "spoiling."

The officer contacted the health officer Vincent Zygas, but research took a long time to understand what kind of ailment was mowing down the tribal people and how to counteract it. American virologist Daniel Carlton Gajduszek joined the study of the unknown disease in 1957. Together with Zygas, they found out that the disease is completely independent and is not a form of another infection.

For several more years, scientists tried to figure out how this neurological ailment, which they called "kuru", was spreading so quickly among the forere. Careful research led to an unexpected explanation. It turned out that kuru spread easily among the people of this tribal nation because of their ritual postmortem cannibalism, which was at the heart of the burial ritual of deceased tribal members.

According to Daniel Gajdushek, a physician who saw these postmortem rituals, the Foree piously believed that eating the bodies of their relatives was an act of considerable respect for them. One could refuse to be eaten while still alive. But the Foree did not want their bodies to be eaten by worms, they wanted their relatives to show them respect one last time after death.

Many tribes of Papua New Guinea practiced aggressive cannibalism towards other tribes. But the Fore sincerely believed that with the brains and organs of their dead relatives came to them all the good traits of the dead in life. Since men needed strength and speed, they ate the muscles of the deceased. Children and women, on the other hand, eat the brains and other internal organs.

Anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum, who often traveled to New Guinea to research the kura said there was one organ the Foree did not eat. "Every part of the body was eaten except the gallbladder, which was considered very bitter," the scientist noted.

Despite the fact that all members of the Fore tribe participated in the postmortem ritual, but the Kuru were mostly children and women who were sick. And no more than 2% of adult males suffered from this ailment.

After careful observation of the ritual, doctors came to the conclusion that women prepared the postmortem "feast". They rubbed the blood of the deceased on themselves and their children, especially all their wounds and scratches, in the belief that it would cleanse and heal them. It was through the blood that ailments were transmitted. And men did not participate in this wiping, but only ate meat already cooked on the fire, so they did not get infected.

It was only after the cause of the Kuru's spread was clarified that the Fore tribe stopped performing the kabalistic ritual of their dead since 1960. However, new cases of the disease were registered in the Fore tribe every year until 2005. However, all of them occurred in people born before 1956, before the ban on cannibalism, and participated in the rituals. This indicates that the incubation period can last several decades.

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