Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast

Casting Lots Season 3 is now on YouTube! Make sure you’re subscribed to stay up-to-date with future releases.

Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@castinglotspodcast

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. 

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Carmella: Us again! We hope you enjoyed relistening to Season Two on YouTube.

Alix: Cameleers. I just think that there’s room in the literary market for a book about survival cannibal cameleers. Hint hint to any authors listening.

C: No promises, but one promise is that Season Three of Casting Lots is now available on YouTube!

A: Make sure to like, subscribe, and mark us as ‘read’ on… StoryGraph… where we are listed for some reason. We’ll take all the publicity we can get.

C: No such thing as bad publicity. Enjoy!

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

Casting Lots Season 2 is now on YouTube! Make sure you’re subscribed to stay up-to-date with future releases.

Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@castinglotspodcast

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. 

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Hello! Just dropping in to say that we hope you enjoyed the re-release of Season One. It does feature a load of the classics.

Carmella: We do of course need to do a post-credits scene on the Franklin Expedition episode, because on 24th of September 2024, researchers from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University were able to confirm the identity of James Fitzjames, after matching the DNA from one of his teeth with that of a living descendent. His body was found just 80km from the shipwreck site, with signs of defleshing consistent with survival cannibalism, making him the first of the expedition’s cannibalised members to be identified!

A: ‘My body, use it, feed the men.’

C: Thank you, Alix, that was beautiful.

A: Now, we don’t know if there’s been any more breaking historical survival cannibalism news, since we are pre-recording, but the most exciting news is that Season 2 is now live on YouTube. Like, comment and subscribe. I think that’s what the cool YouTubers say.

C: Yeah.

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

Casting Lots is now on YouTube! Subscribe to us now and get ready to re-listen to all your Season 1 favourites, including the Franklin Expedition, the Donner Party, the Whaleship Essex and the Raft of the Medusa…

Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@castinglotspodcast

Find out about Carmella’s books here:

UK – https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/286178/carmella-lowkis

US – https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Carmella-Lowkis/201665927

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. 

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Ahoy there!

Carmella: Did you miss us?

A: It’s been a few years since you last heard from us. How have you all been? We wanted to check back in to bring you all the latest breaking historical news of survival cannibalism. But there hasn’t been too much of that going on, sadly.

C: Sadly?!

A: They still haven’t found George Pollard’s account of the sinking of the Essex and I know it’s in Nantucket somewhere!

C: But they did find James Fitzjames’ cannibalised face!

A: And I did get really excited about those two astronauts when they got stuck on the International Space Centre.

C: So, in the absence of new content, and in the survival cannibalism spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle…

A: We are serving up a reheated dish of all of our previous episodes, uploaded to YouTube for the first time.

C: Go back for a relisten, and tell all your friends and family who aren’t cool enough to listen to podcasts in the normal way.

A: Season 1 is available now, with all your old favourites, including the Donner Party, the Raft of the Medusa, the Whaleship Essex, and, of course, the Franklin Expedition.

C: And Season 2 will drop later in the year, so make sure to subscribe.

A: And please be kind to us in the comment section on YouTube. It’s kind of scary.

C: And if you still haven’t had your fill of us, I have been a bit busy since the show ended, writing some books. No survival cannibalism, I’m afraid…

A: I’m really working on trying to convince her to write a survival cannibalism book, I promise you.

C: But if you’re into queer Gothic mysteries, which you probably are, then you may still enjoy them. My first book was called Spitting Gold, that’s out now wherever you get your books and audiobooks.

A: In this house we love and respect the audio medium.

C: And the latest is called A Slow and Secret Poison, out January 2026 in the UK and February 2026 in the US. We’ll put a link in the shownotes so you can check them out.

A: And I just realised that that was a pun about Spitting Gold and the ‘audio medium’.

C: Ohhh!

A: It’ll make sense once you read it. Now, I haven’t done anything quite so impressive, so I’m just going to round us off with a quick question for the road: have you ever been really, really hungry?

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

The time has come: it’s the final episode of Casting Lots. For real this time.

Join Alix and Carmella for all your remaining cannibalism questions answered, plus a bonus Arctic adventure involving an Italian airship and a very good dog.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. 

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to the final episode of this mini-season of Casting Lots. Alix and I asked you to send in any lingering questions about cannibalism, and here we are to answer them!

[Intro music continues]

C: Hello and welcome to the final ever episode!

A: Well, final bearing any major news stories that may or may not break in the future.

C: Yeah, you can still add to this list. [Laughs] But until then, this is the final ever episode of Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast. We mean it this time.

A: Fingers crossed. No, we do. We are genuinely out of content that we can find in English. We have scoured every bookshop.

C: We spend so much time in Waterstones looking through the indexes of various books that it’s becoming a bit creepy. And I think booksellers are going to start kicking us out.

A: I’ve actually run out of searches on eBay for ‘cannibalism book’, and they’re just trying to get me to buy cookbooks that I feel very uncomfortable about.

[Carmella laughs]

A: We have decided that all good things come to an end. And Season Four is, as we’ve said, barring the space cannibalism that might come in our lifetime– barring that, we’ve reached the end. The barrel is empty.

C: You know what happens then? [Pause] Like, ‘cause the barrel– You’re out of food in the barrel.

[Alix groans at the bad joke]

C: So it’s time to eat each other.

A: Yes, that’s actually how we’re ending the season. The entire series.It is just–

C: A live recording of Alex and Carmella eating one another.

[Both giggle]

C: [Not sure about that one] Hmm.

A: The thing is, for posterity, I feel like we have to leave that in. But also we’re going to be on so many–

[Carmella laughs]

A: I’m not sure if it’s worse, the fact we’re gonna be on like police records or like vore Reddit. Neither are good. Was this what you expected when on… It wasn’t quite Christmas Eve…

C: It was my birthday.

A: Was it your birthday?

C: It was my birthday party.

A: No, it wasn’t your– No, it was before then. It was before then, because I had been on a really dodgy Christmas lights tour of London with my best friend, had drunk both mine and her cocktails at the one that’s near her Majesty’s Theatre, Planet Hollywood. And then slightly tipsily,  texted you – who at the time, we only sort of vaguely knew each other – and was like ‘so do want to do a cannibalism podcast?’

C: So yeah, that was when the text was.

A: Yeah.

C: But the verbal face-to-face discussion was at my birthday party.

A: Yes. We are both correct. So is this what you expected?

C: I have to say I didn’t think that we would get as far as recording an episode.

[Alix laughs]

C: But we followed through, and what a journey it’s been.

A: Over the ice, dragging our sledges full of recording materials. One day, we’re going to earn back in merchandise the value of our microphone. If anyone was worried that this is like a money making scheme, rest assured that it is very much not.

C: However, the true value has been the friendships that we’ve made over the course of this podcast. And as you’ve all heard, in this most recent season, we have actually met people through survival cannibalism on the internet!

A: Now that sounds dodgy. But no, we have. We’ve made lots of friends. And in that very slightly parasocial way, there are some of you out there, who when you reach out to us, we are like, ‘Oh, those are our friends, they’ve messaged us again.’ So if you, you know, ever worry that content creators, you know, are high up above it and, you know, think highly of themselves, we do like screenshot positive feedback and send it back and forth to each other on WhatsApp, because we’re really sad, and you make us really happy.

C: Thank you so much to everyone who has ever listened to our voices telling you about cannibalism.

A: It is always a very awkward one when you’re having that, ‘Oh, so what do you do for fun?’ It’s always like ‘Well, I do embroidery and I go wild swimming. And I have a cannibalism podcast on the internet that’s got four seasons now.’ And they sort of turn round at you and they’re like, ‘Sorry, did I miss something?’ I’m like, ‘No, no, that’s exactly– That’s exactly what I said. Now, either you think this is fascinating, and we’re going to have a great conversation, or we are never going to talk about it again. And it’s entirely how you respond right now.’

C: [Laughs] It’s a talking point that I somehow inevitably bring about in every dinner party, gathering, workplace session.

A: I mean, we’ve definitely been introduced as ‘This is Alix and Carmella, they have a cannibalism podcast.’

C: 100%.

A: Like, it’s one of the easiest things to just be like, boom, you want an anecdote? Here, anecdote. And then we get all the inevitable questions. ‘Have you watched the film Alive?’ No, I haven’t.

C: ‘So do you do the cannibalism?’ No, we don’t.

A: ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Wish I knew. You know, more of the usual. Also, I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m very much out of my comfort zone, because none of this episode is scripted. So Alix is really just babbling at this point. And I don’t understand how people do this in ordinary life. I don’t have my tablet. I don’t have all of my jokes pre-prepared. I don’t know what to do, Carmella!

C: Well, on the subject of people asking us questions…

A: Oh, thank God, do we have some structure?

C: We have some structure. We asked our beloved followers and listeners to send in their outstanding cannibalism questions, the things that we somehow didn’t cover in four seasons.

A: And also to beautifully mirror our terrible episode zero. (Please don’t listen to it. We just needed Apple to acknowledge us as a podcast.) So we just wanted to wrap it up quite nicely. We started with a Q&A. Let’s end on a Q&A. So Anonymous, probably not the organisation but you know, gets all sorts, asked us on Tumblr. Do we actually know if a person would get more nutrition or energy from eating raw human flesh or cooked? Their money says cooked because the easier it is to digest, the less calories needed for digestion, equals more energy overall. And just because we really like positive feedback, still loving the show, re-listening to episodes as usual. And lots of hearts. Genuinely actually means so much that people like our podcast! Like it’s madness. The first time we had people that weren’t our friends comment on it. Like ‘Wow, real people listen to this as well.’ Okay, but I will let Carmella actually answer the question now.

C: Well, I started this by thinking about vegetables. And I do know that with vegetables, when you cook them, they lose nutrients. But I would say it depends on what you’re counting as nutrition, or what you think is most important to be getting from the food that you’re eating. So in general, when you cook food, meat, vegetables, whatever, you’re losing nutrients, just through the process of cooking. But that’s nutrients like your vitamin C, your… vitamin… others. 

[Alix snorts]

C: The other vitamins that you need to survive.

[Both laugh]

A: Your Sunny Delight.

C: Your Sunny Delight. And when you’re in a survival situation, as our subjects so often are–

A: But not always.

C: Not always. In general. What you actually need in that moment is just calories.

A: Any way you can get them.

C: Obviously, the vitamin C will become a problem in the long term. But first things first, enough energy to actually remain alive is important.

A: A minimum of 1,100 calories per day at starvation rations. That’s not a question. That’s a fact. That’s from– That’s from when I worked it all out on the back of a napkin.

C: And it stuck in your head forever.

A: It has.

C: Once you get to the pure calorific value of meat, or human meat in particular, it seems to be pretty much for much. So you will lose a certain amount of energy in the cooking process. However, cooked protein is easier to digest. And when you start looking for the different nutritional values of different types of food on the internet, even in, you know, accredited scientific literature, it’s actually a really contentious science. People can’t seem to agree.

A: And that’s even when the food in question isn’t human flesh.

C: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. So my advice to anyone who is sitting before a body and wondering whether or not to cook it, would be to prepare it in the way that you best can with the means at hand, and that will make the meat as edible to you as possible. Because I guess at the end of the day, if you are physically able to eat the meat because it’s been cooked, that’s better than if you can’t bring yourself to eat it because it’s raw.

A: If you can’t eat human sushi, human jerky will do.

C: On that note, on to the next question. Another question from an Anonymous user on Tumblr: who, out of the people we researched, resorted to cannibalism the fastest? And their suggestion is Raft of the Medusa.

A: Three days. I didn’t say that with the cadence that we gave it in the episode, but I have to be honest, Raft of the Medusa has come up as a lot of people’s favourite episodes. And I think the fact it only took them three days to descend into utter anarchy, up to and maybe including cannibalism, on day three slash four, has probably got a lot to do with it. I tend to use it as a good recommendation if people want to start the podcast. I’m like, ‘Okay, you want to avoid these really depressing ones until you’re used to it. Go with Medusa.’ And yeah, it’s a bit of a whistlestop introduction to the sort of thing that goes on, however, three days is– It’s around the quickest we’ve ever had.

C: I would counter that with the Nautilus, which, as you will recall, is a case from 1807, in which a group of people aboard a ship hit a rock during a storm, and then spend a very unpleasant time clinging to that rock as various potential helpers sail on by, waving to them dismissively. After four days, they turn to cannibalism.

A: So while we’ve covered before that ten days is generally your average. If you’ve been on starvation rations, Day Zero is the day you run out of starvation rations. From there, it’s then Day Ten, where you tend to start looking at your comrades as lunch, or indeed, pick a fallen comrade and start crunching on down… I don’t like the choice of the word ‘crunch’ that I used then.

C: No.

A: But we’re sticking with it. So ten days is your average, but three to four days. It is possible.

C: That’s like the lowest part of your range.

A: Yeah. Or is it?

C: Or is it? Well, there are some other cases which are a bit more spurious.

A: Have more dubious reference to timescale.

C: Yes. There’s also of course, Alexander Pearce, known as the Maneater of Macquarie Harbour–

A: And you will not believe how long it took us to work out how to say Macquarie when we were first recording that episode.

C: Three days!

[Both laugh]

C: Alexander Pearce was a–

A: Cannibal.

C: I was gonna say escaped convict, but he wasn’t like… ‘Attempted escaped’.

A: Well, no, he did escape.

C: Yeah. And on escape attempt number two–

A: He wasn’t a very good escaped convict. It wasn’t a permanent state of affairs for him.

C: He and his companion ran into the bush where they hid and, according to some sources, sustained themselves on catching fish and after finding a pack of rations. Allegedly on the same day as finding this pack of rations, Alexander Pearce murdered and ate his travelling companion.

A: His travelling companion who was also a massive cannibalism fanboy and thought Pearce was really cool and wanted to know what eating people was like.

C: ‘When I voted for the leopards eating my face party, I didn’t think they’d eat my face!’

A: I mean, maybe he was into it.

C: In any case, I think that this one may be more of a case of it’s more fun in the story if they’ve already had a good meal before they turn to cannibalism, than the actual facts.

A: And speaking of ones where the actual facts may or may not be true – you know it, I’m gonna go for it – it’s the Elizabeth Rashleigh potato boat, where allegedly she still had a hold full of potatoes and the crew still resorted to cannibalism. Is this true? No, it’s not. Is it a fantastic anecdote? Yes, it is. Elizabeth Rashleigh potato boat. I need that on a badge with absolutely no context. Does someone want to design me a badge with ‘Elizabeth Rashleigh potato boat’ on? We do pay everyone who makes us art, they will vouch for us. I want it. I want it to make no sense whatsoever with all of the rest of my Casting Lots merch. Our next question, or set of questions comes, from cannibal_kori on Instagram, who has asked us several questions, which is good fun to sink our teeth into.

C: [At the pun] Yeah!

A: I’ve Stockholm Syndromed Carmella, she actually enjoyed that one.

[Carmella laughs]

A: They have asked question number one: What is our favourite cannibalism story?

C: Shall I go first?

A: Go for it.

C: I’m afraid it is the Raft of the Medusa. That one is hilariously good fun.

A: It’s my mum’s favourite.

C: Well, then we know it’s the best! I would also find that out with the OC.

[Alix wheezes]

C: Sir John Franklin. The Franklin Expedition.

A: What does the C stand for– [Realising] Oh, yeah.

Both: Original cannibal!

A: Yep, I got that. I got it.

C: Just because that was my gateway cannibalism story. And therefore it has a fond place in my heart.

A: That’s what gave you the taste for it.

C: Eyyy.

A: So I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear that the story that has a place in my heart…

C: I don’t know what to say apart from that it’s the Essex, right?

A: Yeah, it’s Essex. It’s the Essex. I read In the Heart of the Sea. It changed me. Somewhere in an attic in Nantucket is Captain Pollard’s diaries. That’s not quite what I mean. It’s like in Mamma Mia.

[Carmella cackles]

A: That’s not what I mean. His account, his narrative, and I want it. It’s– Nathaniel Philbrick’s book is so fantastically written. It’s just– It’s so good. It’s so good. I mean, listen to our episode, if you want to hear me have emotions, but just read In the Heart of the Sea. Don’t watch the film. It’s beautiful. It’s not accurate. I’m going to, um, actually open up this one a bit: ‘What’s your favourite?’ And then answers, ‘Every single one we’ve ever done.’ That’s not quite what I mean. But I also want to– I want to shout out a couple. Obviously, I want to shout out Miracle in the Andes. While a lot of people as soon as you raise the podcast go, oh, did you know about the rugby crew in 1975? And it’s like, yes, yes, I did. We all know how emotional I get about, you know, the human spirit of cannibalism, and that story. Really does it for you. But the other ones, the more unexpected ones, I wanted to give a shout out that I probably only encountered because of the podcast are the weird fucked up shit of the 20th century, aka the Rooseboom and the Dumaru.

C: [Agreeing] Mmm!

A: I’m like what the fuck?

C: Clown boat.

A: Clown boat. ‘Like a clown on an evil sea.’ They don’t write ‘em like that anymore. And just because it is, and I quote myself, ‘the most fucked up shit I’ve ever heard’: Granicus.

C: Oh yeah!

A: That is a horror story that I would expect Ally Wilkes to write.

C: Eyy!

A: In fact, let’s see if we can get them to do it.

C: [Laughs] Book three, Ally, come on.

A: If you’ve not done a re-listen to some of our ‘Fun on Boats’ compilations, there is some wild stuff hidden in those.

C: They are good fun.

A: On boats.

C: And ships.

A: Thank you. Okay, we went off topic there. But let’s get back on topic, to: Do you ever feel people in dire situations should have eaten people sooner? I’ve answered this with one word. Yes.

C: Yes.

A: It does sort of lead into the next question, though, they are combined, which is: Why wait until they’re weak and distressed? The answer to that is sort of those pesky human emotions, isn’t it?

C: Yeah, this like idea that it might be wrong to kill and eat other people. So you have to wait until they’re already dead or almost dead. [Scoffs in mock disgust.]

A: We talk a good game, but I do think we would also be fucked up by it.

C: Yeah.

A: See, and this is where Miracle in the Andes is just your peak example of… I don’t want to say ‘a near perfect survival cannibalism situation’, because that is very disrespectful. And also, you know, untrue because they kept getting hit by fucking avalanches. However, people died in the crash before they suffered the effects of starvation, which meant that there were, quote unquote, ‘fresh bodies’ that they didn’t need to kill that could be eaten humanely. They were in cold conditions, that meant that bodies weren’t going to decompose or rot as quickly. It meant that people didn’t have to get to the state of being weak and distressed before they sat down and had the conversation. And because it was a very rapid and sudden loss of all food and provisions, it meant they had to have that discussion.

C: There was no long term rationing plan.

A: Exactly. And there wasn’t the assumption that oh, we will just live off the land for X, Y and Z. There was no choice but to stop and think about it. Compare that to train guy…

C: Oh, Flatters?

A: Flatters!

C: Compare that to [bad French accent] Monsieur Flatters.

A: [Worse French accent] Monsieur Flatters. [Normally] With his cameleers. It’s like comparing chalk and cheese.

C: In semi-jest, we’ve answered yes to this question, however, one thing that I can say for sure, is that there have definitely been situations where we would have liked them to use the bodies to catch more food.

A: Thank you, Peggy. The only ship that I can think of that actually use the body as bait.

C: See, in some cases, the right thing to do isn’t to eat the body immediately; it’s to use the body to acquire more food.

A: Sort of cannibalism by proxy.

C: Yeah.

A: I can’t believe no one’s asked a question about gastronomic inceset. I’m having to insert it into making up weird phrases about cannibalism.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Okay, we’ve not quite finished though, we still have more from cannibal_kori. Their final question is: What is your favourite representation of cannibalism on television? I am struggling to think of a single programme I’ve watched that has fictional cannibalism in it because I am a fact purist. So what I’m going to say here is I give my oath to you, our listeners, that by the time that you are listening to this podcast, that I will have watched the film Alive.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Because it’s actually getting silly now. Not just a documentary, not just a podcast about it. I will watch the fictionalised film. On my honour, I promise as an ex Scout. I will do it. Carm, would you like to talk about television, because you know more about media than me?

C: I would follow that up with… ‘None of them.’

[Alix laughs]

C: Out of– I greatly enjoy cannibalism media, as it will be no surprise to hear. However, despite my enjoyment of it, I think that they normally get the cannibalism wrong. You’ve got your survival cannibalism shows like The Terror or like Yellowjackets, where it’s just not accurate to how people really behave in real life, given what we’ve seen. And then of course, you’ve got your shows like Hannibal, which are all fun and games, but–

A: Bougie cannibalism.

C: And whilst I greatly enjoy Hannibal, it’s a real– Again–

A: [Laughing] Are you saying Hannibal’s not realistic?

C: Ha! Whilst I greatly enjoy Hannibal, it doesn’t quite scratch the itch of real-life survival cannibalism in the same way.

A: Can you recommend us some better cannibalism media? That is a challenge we put to you. Now we actually have one more question from cannibal_kori, but what we’re actually going to do since we’re on the topic of cannibalism media, if you don’t mind Carm, I’m going to jump to another question that I think we need to, um, explain.

C: We need to address… It’s the elephant in the room.

A: It is the massive white polar bear in the room. And it’s from someone who has such a long name on Twitter that I can’t read their handle, but nonetheless, such a beautiful name, so I’m going to read it in full, because Jess The Polar Dilf Enthusiast–

[Carmella giggles]

A: Has addressed us with a question which I think might be slightly leaned towards me, Alix, but nonetheless, I will atone for my sins– Who was re-listening to our Franklin episode and got the sense that we didn’t love The Terror series. Was there a reason for that? Or did it just not resonate with us? So I’m going to hand over to you, Carm, to start with, because you said you’ve been watching survival cannibalism media such as The Terror and they got things wrong. So I’m going to hand that one to you. And then I will explain myself.

C: Indeed, as we discussed with the Mayday Podcast when they guested earlier this season, I loved The Terror! I really enjoyed it. I had a great time watching it. However, do I think it’s the best depiction of survival cannibalism? I’m not saying it’s inaccurate, but–

A: I am.

C: It’s very much in the camp of the bad guys do the cannibalism. The good guys don’t want to and are only forced to buy pressure. And also, I mean, a little bit, the bad guys are gay. So there’s multiple things in The Terror that I would just critique, despite greatly enjoying it as a piece of media.

A: The ratty gay cannibal lives. Well–

C: And you know, he is an icon, he– And significantly does not live.

A: Yeah, that was the bit I was about to correct there, I was like ‘well…’ It just really– I know that they were going for ‘look, he thrives in being evil’, but it really inherently pissed me off that everyone else was looking haggard, and he was looking fine. Like, I know, that’s the visual imagery that they’re going for. And I know they had a massive fuck-off polar bear. So they weren’t exactly being completely a fictionalised recreation. But that just really annoyed me. And also, yes, as Carm says, the cannibalism was very much what evil people do for evil reasons. And as we’ve seen, that’s just not true. Anyone could do cannibalism, evil or not. But I will–

C: Which leads us on to the true question at the heart of The Terror. Who is actually evil? Is it Hickey or, Alix–?

A: How dare you accuse me of being in The Terror?!

[Both laugh]

A: Apparently my theory that the true villain–

[Both giggle]

A: I’m genuinely not sure whether my slightly autistic, acerbic wit came through when I made the argument that Goodsir was the real villain of The Terror. I know he’s not. I just think it’s really funny to accuse him of being the bad guy, because he is one of like, two good men in a crew and cast of like, 130. But yes, no, I am fully aware that Goodsir is not the true villain. You know who is the true villain? Tobias Menzies. And do you know why? Because I met him once. He was not polite. He was not a polite man. And it did mean that I went into The Terror slightly biassed against James Fitzjames. It was like ‘I hope you get cannibalised! You’re a bad man.’ And then they didn’t even bloody cannibalise him. When he asked for it.

C: Where is the justice?

A: I’m sorry, but ‘My body, use it, feed the men.’ They could have turned that show around, had they made that decision? Because what a peak moment of the humanity of cannibalism. ‘My body, use it, feed the men.’ And the show didn’t even acknowledge it! it was like that was Tobias Menzies’ redeeming moment for me. I don’t care that I’m conflating Tobias Menzies and James Fitzjames.

[Carmella laughs]

A: And the real story of the Franklin Expedition. Don’t give a shit. If they’d have done that? Five stars.

C: So to fully answer your question, it’s that from like a fun narrative storytelling point of view, we can acknowledge that it’s a good show, but from our lofty heights as survival cannibalism experts, the show is trash.

A: [Laughs] You can get cancelled now.

[Carmella laughs]

A: But no. I know this is my disparaging comment about In the Heart of the Sea as well. But The Terror is a beautiful show, like the accuracy of the set pieces and the uniforms and just it resonates so well, that it’s actually quite disappointing yhat they went for cannibalism equals bad guys.

C: Yeah.

A: Because that’s always going to dock some stars in our opinion. 

C: Too easy.

A: It’s too basic.

C: To return to cannibal_kori, if we may, they had one final question for us. Which is: [with strange enunciation] Would either of us try human meat? I don’t know why I pronounced that like Matt Berry in What We Do In The Shadows!

[Alix laughs]

C: [More normally] Would either of us two try human meat if we could, without killing anyone, of course?

A: We do appreciate the disclaimer.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Yes, with a caveat. If it was like that, lab grown meat?

C: Oh, yeah!

A: Definitely. If it was from a person. From a human person. Human-grown, as it were. I’m less likely to say yes. Well, you don’t know where they’ve been. I don’t think… Oh, this is one hell of a sentence to say. I don’t think people are, you know, bred for their meat.

C: [Laughs] So you’re more worried about the taste experience?

A: The taste experience. Believe it or not, the ethics. The general… Well, you know, the guy that made tacos out of his own leg?

C: Yeah.

A: I mean, he lost that in a motorbike crash. I’m like that’s not exactly…

C: You’re concerned about the hygiene?

A: Yeah, it’s not hygienic. And also it’s like with not necessarily organ donation because you don’t really have a choice about that, you take it or leave it, but thinking about say like sperm donors, like you get…

C: [Laughing] Okay! This has taken this has taken an entirely new tack!

A: But, like… You get you get like all of the specs.

C: [In a farmer voice] ‘That’s sperm, that is.’ [Pause] Don’t know why I said it in that voice!

A: Like, you know, ‘five foot nine, brown hair, athletic, Taurus.’

C: You spend a lot of time on sperm donor websites do you, Alix?

A: I watch a lot of documentaries. I’ve seen it in films.

C: So it must be true.

A: It must be true. I don’t know. I just– I just feel like you know, ‘Oh, do you want to try some human sausage?’ from someone off the street is likely to be dodgy. So I would feel more comfortable having lab-grown human. Go on then, Carmella, yes or no? Human meat.

C: Well, I question the phrasing of the question of ‘would I, if I could?’ I think it’s more that I would eat it if I had to in a survival situation. But I’m not going to choose to recreationally sample it, no.

A: Because I think that’s the nature of the question. The question is, if you could just give it a go?

C: Yeah, for funsies. And as everyone knows, my opinion of cannibalism for fun is very low.

A: It’s a serious subject. No fun allowed when it comes to cannibalism. No one must enjoy it. And that is why we are a serious podcast.

C: No jokes here, everything we say is entirely sincere.

A: And this is why we must close the podcast forthwith, for we have enjoyed it too much.

C: [Laughs] Next question comes from Ally Wilkes.

A: Friend of the podcast.

C: Not sure why they didn’t just ask us this earlier when we were chatting, but whatever.

A: I think it’s because we explicitly asked for questions for the Q&A.

C: No, this is all completely organic. Ally asks, in a situation in which everyone has the same limited access to… [Whispered] Fuck. [Struggling to pronounce ‘antiscorbutics’] Antiscor– Antis– I thought it was ‘antiscorbitants’ but that’s not a… In a situation in which everyone has the same limited access to vitamin C, would eating the flesh of your comrades offer an advantage in terms of vitamin C intake?

A: Yes, but not in the way you’d probably be hoping. I mean, as Carm’s already said, when she was answering about is it better to cook the meat or eat it raw, if you cook it, you’re gonna get rid of some of the vitamins in it. But let’s be real, there are not a lot of [also unable to pronounce it] antisco– Fuck. There are not a lot of antiscorbitants [sic] going to be knocking around in these bodies. So to be perfectly honest with you, it is more of a point of we’re cutting down on the number of people who need vitamin C, than you’re likely to get much usable vitamin C out of a human body. You’ll get some versus eating nothing and dying. But it’s probably not going to be added to the Boots wellness aisle anytime soon. And finally, a question that’s come out from several people. Well, question slash ‘more of a comment really’ (I’m looking at you, Ellis) asking whether we’ve done anything on Cannibal Island, the Siberian Gulag Nazino. Hate to break it to people, but we have.

C: It was very early on in Season One.

A: So as a little treat, Carmella’s gonna tell us again.

C: Alix told it last time. Clearly, it wasn’t memorable enough.

[Alix laughs sarcastically]

C: So to recap; Nazino Island, or Cannibal Island.

A: [Ironically] What happened there?

C: Or [page turning noises] ‘The Island of Death’. In 1933, 6,700 prisoners were deported by the Soviet authorities to Nazino Island in Siberia, just north of the Arctic Circle.

A: So this is an ice episode.

C: It is. Ostensibly, they were sent there to construct a special settlement

A: Of death.

C: Noice. [Laughs] Not nice. With guards overseeing their every move, they were left with no tools or shelter, and just a handful of rye flour handed out once every five days.

A: ‘You’ll be fine. Just get on with it.’

C: ‘How much do people need to eat? One handful of rye flour every five days? Yeah, that sounds right.’

A: Sounds about right.

C: Nearly 300 people died on the first day alone just from the bad conditions. The prisoners suffered starvation, violence, dysentery and exposure to the elements. Not to mention the reign of terror led by the guards, who executed people for minor offences and, you know, wouldn’t let them leave. And yet, more and more people kept being shipped in.

A: Well, they’re trying to settle, and for some reason these people just keep dying.

C: They’re just not thriving in these conditions, what?

A: They’re just not putting the effort in.

C: By three months in, only about a third of the prisoners remain alive. And you guessed it, they’d been resorting to cannibalism to do this.

A: [With fear] I think I’ve just remembered one of the stories from this one.

C: It’s bad.

A: It is bad.

C: Content warning: this is gonna get gory.

A: Oh, yeah. [Strained] Carry on.

C: This is of course murder cannibalism, the type of cannibalism where they’re not already dead. Victims – often the women – were tied to trees so that flesh could be stripped off them like, as we said in our previous account of this, ‘kebab meat’.

A: [Horrified] Yeah.

C: Yeah, you remember the kebab meat now?

A: I remember the kebab meat now. Maybe everyone just sort of pushed this one out of their minds.

C: From the horror. A resident of nearby Nazino Village, later in life, recalled a woman from the so-called Island of Death was brought to her house en route to another camp.

A: She’s the woman with the legs, isn’t she?

C: Her calves had been cut off and cooked to eat… She was still alive.

A: [Shuddering] Yeah, that’s my entire reaction to that.

C: Later, several officials were reprimanded and sentenced to prison terms of one to three years.

A: Now, I don’t want to say that a just punishment would have been being sent to cannibal island. But punishment fits the crime? No, no, it’s just too sick. It’s just too sick.

C: So if you’d forgotten that one, you’re welcome for being reminded now. But on the subject of cases from the past that we may have missed.

A: Well, all of our cases are from the past. It’s how history works.

C: I–

A: [Giggles with malice] I mean, you know I’m not gonna cut that.

C: No. Thank you for that contribution, Alix.

A: We’re coming up to the end, I’m getting overexcited.

C: As I was saying, despite our scraping the barrel and really scraping it, I think Alix has managed to grab up one final morsel of food from the wood of the cask.

A: Maybe like part of the lid had like a leather stoppage on, and we’re literally scraping off.

C: Like sucking the cork.

A: Yeah.

C: Yeah.

A: But yes, I have found another case. It’s another ice one. And firstly, this is not properly scripted. So who knows where this is going to go? And secondly, this is a Carmella special.

C: [Delighted] Did they or didn’t they?

A: It’s a did they or didn’t they?

C: Yes!! Okay.

A: After three seasons of having a go at Carmella for doing did they or didn’t they? I thought the best treat would be to do a Carmella special of my own.

C: They definitely did. Continue.

A: The end.

C: Full stop.

A: So we’re going to set the scene. I’ve said it’s an ice one. I’ve said I’m into my 20th century bullshit. And what does Alix also quite like doing? Normally I’ve had about one per season of ones that involve…

C: Gastronomic incest?

A: There is no gastronomic incest.

C: [Laughs] I’m running out. The tender human soul?

A: Do you want me to tell the story or not? It’s a flying one.

C: Oh, okay! I didn’t guess that.

A: No.

C: We got a plane.

A: We don’t have a plane.

C: Oooh?

A: We’ve got an airship.

C: Ooh… what’s an airship? Like a hot air balloon?

A: Yeah, it’s like a blimp.

C: [Excited again] Oh, like a blip! We got a blimp! 

A: It’s like a blimp. It’s like the Hindenburg.

C: We’re blimping.

A: We’re blimping.

C: Blimp away.

A: So it’s 1928. We’re in the Arctic and an Italian airship named… the Italia.

C: Simple, love it.

A: Otherwise known as N-4, because that’s the– there’s a long and convoluted history that to be honest, I’ve not written down and there is a very good book called N-4 Down by Mark Piesing that I highly recommend. But all we need to know is it’s 1928, the airship Italia is trying to be the first airship to sail over the North Pole.

C: Why is everyone so obsessed?

A: They just think it’s neat. She did not succeed in flying over the North Pole.

C: [Mock surprise] No!

A: So her captain is a man called Umberto Nobile. He is joined, as he is on every single journey that he ever does, with his dog. 

[Carmella gasps in delight]

A: Titania.

C: Have you just made up this story?

A: Nope! Genuinely has a dog.

C: It’s gonna go badly wrong.

A: Dog survives.

C: Hey! 

A: Not all the people survive.

C: Ah, who cares about them?

A: But the dog survives. The explorer Roald Amundsen actually gets really pissed off with Nobile, because he’s like, ‘why the fuck is he bringing that fucking dog?’ It’s not even a working dog, it’s like a terrier.

C: Oh, is it like his comfort animal? Wait, no, that’s not the word.

A: Emotional support?

C: His emotional support animal.

A: Yeah.

C: Aww.

A: I mean, you need emotional support when you do what he does, which is–

C: Yes, you really do!

A: Crash his fucking airship into the Arctic.

A: Now who’s laughing, Amundsen? Still Amundsen.

A: Amundsen actually dies in trying to rescue him, so it’s definitely not Amundsen! He’s going down like ‘that fucking dog!’

C: The dog gets the last laugh. 

A: [Agreeing] The dog gets the last laugh. Okay, so on the 25 of May, N-4, the Italia, crashes. Now, as we’ve covered, the Italia is an airship, not an aeroplane.

C: Blimp.

A: Blimp.

C: Schloop.

A: Schloop! [Laughs] And something very unfortunate happens when she crashes.

C: More unfortunate than crashing?

A: More– You say that, it is more important than crashing.

C: Explosion?

A: More unfortunate. She partially crashes. Her gondola, where some of the crew are, crashes. Nine men and Titania are thrown to the ground. The rest of the crew, with the gondola having been smashed and the weight leaving…

C: [Realising] Oh.

A: Fly away. They have no means of control and are never seen again.

C: Yeah, that is unfortunate.

A: It is quite unfortunate. The 25 of May 1928. Nine men and one dog are somewhere in the Arctic. And that question of ‘somewhere in the Arctic, where are they?’ continues. I’ve already spoiled that Amundsen comes on a rescue and dies. But there’s a little bit of history between Nobile and Amundsen. They’ve worked together before, didn’t get on.

C: [Disappointed] Oh, okay. I thought [suggestively] a little bit of history, huh?

A: It’s not a Bills & Boon history.

C: Why don’t– Why don’t they get on, you know? Bad breakup?

A: ‘I can’t believe you hate my dog, Amundsen.’

C: ‘It’s me or the dog.’

A: ‘I’m sticking with the dog.’ So that is definitely 100% what happened there? However, Amundsen is one of the explorers who’s like, ‘Nope, we’re going on a rescue mission. Off we go.’

C: It’s like no matter how much I hate you, you don’t deserve to starve to death in the Arctic.

A: Exactly. And it is recognised by Arctic explorers that this shit is bad and not going to be good for anyone on the ground, and so the rescue effort begins. But the men of the Italia also want to save themselves.

C: Good for them.

A: Two Italian naval officers, Adalberto Mariano and Felippo Zappi, Swedish meteorologist Finn Malmgren, who has an injured shoulder from having been thrown out of a fucking airship–

C: That will do it.

A: Decide on 30 of May that they are going to walk to safety. They’re going to go and find help. They’re going to go to King’s Bay. That is where they’d flown out of, so it’s not entirely unreasonable. Spoilers: yeah, it is. On the 11 of July, rescue ship the Krassin comes across Zappi and Mariano. There is no sign of Malmgren. His body is never found.

C: [In a silly detective voice] Oh, how interesting!

A: Now, Malmgren had been in the Arctic before. He’d flown on another airship, the Norge, in 1926. He’s actually, if you’re into your metrological Swedish articles, he’s published. He’s–

C: [Mock impressed] Oh, wow, there we go!

A: He’s still being cited and stuff to this day. Like he did know his shit. However…

C: He died.

A: He died. The end. No. However, clearly, that wasn’t quite enough. And so the question is, what happened to Malmgren?

C: They ate him.

A: Allegedly, on the 15 or the 16 of June, Malmgren collapsed and asked to be left behind so the others could go on.

C: I mean, that happens.

A: It does happen. When Zappi and Mariano were rescued, it was noted that Mariano was in the standard level of salvation one would expect, but Zappi was, quote, “well nourished”, and also wearing all of Malmgren’s extra clothes, his coat and his gloves.

C: So he wasn’t sharing with Mariano?

A: The day before they were rescued… Now this is one hell of a Russian name for me to try and pronounce not having written it phonetically. Chukhnovsky. Is it right? I don’t know. Did I say it confidently? That’s good enough.

C: There we go.

A: The Soviet rescue pilot of the Karrin [sic] allegedly spotted three figures. Tow alive and one corpse.

C: Hmm.

A: There are a lot of accusations that end up in the media in the following days and weeks after the rescue of the survivors, both human and canine–

C: Yay!

A: That the two Italians cannibalised, quote, “that Swedish man”. 

[Carmella laughs]

A: “Nobile aides accused of cannibalism on icy trek”. And this was raised, you know how the gutter press is, to various Arctic explorers, all of whom refused to pass judgement on what had or hadn’t happened. Because they quote, “knew what snow and ice could drive a man to.” Now Zappi actually would later go and speak to Malmgren’s mother and seek forgiveness? It’s not quite clear, but apparently, she did forgive him. And–

C: Mariano.

A: Mariano. I feel bad for Mariano because A) I can’t remember his name a lot, B) He’s not the one that mainly gets accused of the cannibalism, and C) he dies only a few months after being rescued. So all in all, he’s not having a lot of luck. But at least he isn’t Mawson. Zappi is my Mawson. But Malmgren’s mother forgives the two of them for whatever they may have done, and says that she entirely believes the account that they gave, they didn’t do anything. 

C: Hm, So why do they need forgiveness then?

A: And in the other slightly strange situation, Mussolini’s government– Oh, yeah, that’s fascism going on in this story as well. It has everything.

C: Hey!

A: Mussolini’s government would actually give Malmgren’s mother a pension. A Swedish man who happened to die on an Italian expedition gets a full pension. Almost as though she’s being paid off? The book N-4 Down does actually say that this might give some weight to those accusations. Zappi: did he do it?

C: Absolutely.

A: I knew you’d say that–

C: Zappi was happy to eat another man. That was the worst way to finish that joke.

A: I’d actually like to– This is gonna be quite a long quote. Because this is from Time magazine 1928.

C: Okay! I’m ready.

A: And it has some fantastic accusations of cannibalism in. It’s about the Nobile expedition, and it’s about whether or not Malmgren was eaten. Quote: “Excitedly played by citizens of many lands, last week, was the game of Ring Around Nobile—a question game. Was that Swede really eaten by those two Italians?”

C: My favourite game!

A: “Would Dictator Mussolini snub and degrade General Nobile?”

C: Would he?

A: “What about Titina, the General’s little, yapping fox terrier bitch?”

C: What about her?!

A: “Why wasn’t she eaten?”

C: Because she’s a good girl.

A: This is… It’s on a par with ‘clown on an evil sea’. I’m not sure it’s the best quote we’ve ever given on this podcast but still, I’m glad we’ve got something with this much raw power for our final episode.

C: Okay, I’m ready.

A: [Snorts] Serious. “Is bitch eating worse than cannibalism?”

[Both laugh]

C: Is it? We all must know the answer to this question!

A: Oh dear.

C: Is bitch eating worse than cannibalism, Alix?

A: Sometimes you just read a sentence and I’m like, ‘oh, that’s going in the podcast. Can I find a context? No, I can’t. Is it going in? Yes, it is.’ Bitch eating. Worse than cannibalism. Okay, to be honest about sort of the end of that bit of the quote. It then just goes on with, you know, a bit of Soviet talk, and then goes on to say that, quote: “Coldly, factually the Soviet press service Tass presented details on the basis of which cannibalism might be imputed to Captains Filipo Zappi and Alberto Mariano (respectively Pilot and Navigator of the Nobile dirigible Italia), who set off to tramp across the ice to land with the Swedish meteorologist Dr. Finn Malmgren, but were alone when rescued…Tass reported–” I don’t know who Tass is, by the way, but he reported “that, on the day before the rescue… a Soviet plane photographed them from the air, and that a third man or his remains was… visible, prostrate on the ice. Tass told that when Captain Zappi was rescued he said that Dr. Malmgren had been left behind some days previously–”

C: [Intrigued] Hmm!

A: “(At his own request) to die. Tass stated that Captain Zappi was wearing, when rescued, Dr. Malmgren’s fur boots and coat, and two other pairs of fur boots and two other coats–”

C: [Laughing] How many men did he eat?! And how was he wearing that many boots?

[Both laugh]

A: “Whereas Zappi’s comrade, Captain Mariano, seemed sick, weak, and wore no fur boots.” End of quote. So that’s the basis of my ‘did he or didn’t he?’

C: Well, he certainly had a lot of fur boots.

A: And that is enough to condemn any man.

C: If we were going to end on any story, that story certainly has all of the hallmarks of a Casting Lots episode.

A: We weirdly made it a bit Bills & Boon.

C: We shoehorned in all the old jokes.

A: We didn’t manage to shoe in turtle ducks or portable soup.

C: We’ve said them now.

A: I’ve said them now. Is there anything else that our audience will want to hear us say?

C: Tiny horses.

A: Cameleers.

[Carmella chuckles]

A: Gastronomic incest.

[Silence]

C: We can’t let that be the final word of the podcast.

A: I think we’re gonna have to! I don’t really want to say it’s been an honour. That sounds weird. But also…

C: It’s been a pleasure.

A: It has been a pleasure. No, this podcast has been… I’m getting emotional.

C: It’s a shame that we’ll never speak to one another again after this moment.

A: [Laughs] It’s been nice knowing you, Carmella. I mean, it’s been a lot more work than I think I could have ever imagined when I slightly drunkenly said ‘do you want to make a cannibalism podcast?’ Because I was like, ‘Yeah, it’ll be a couple of episodes. We’ll have some fun. It’ll be fine.’ And then four years and a pandemic later. Not that the two are connected… But no, it’s strange to be wrapping up on something that has been quite a big part– I mean, you’re a hotshot soon-to-be-published author now. But this has been a big part of my life. You’re on to bigger and better projects.

C: No, no, nothing will ever trump Casting Lots.

A: There is no sincerity in Carmella’s eyes. It’s been good.

C: It’s been good. Thank you again for listening, and we hope that you’ve had your fill.

A: And if you haven’t, well, hopefully, you’ve learned what to do by now…

C: Eyyy!

A: Casting Lots does not actually endorse cannibalism.

[Both laugh]

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for listening to our Season Four taster menu. This really is the final season. We mean it this time. We’ve actually run out of content now.

[Carmella laughs]

A: For now. But we hope that you’ve enjoyed having an extra helping.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

We are joined by our final dinner guests, writer Nibedita Sen and Ana and Luca of The Mayday Podcast, to talk speculative fiction, colonialism and some disastrous adventures that may not have ended in survival cannibalism, but probably should have.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Nibedita Sen and The Mayday Podcast.

Nibedita can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @her_nibsen, or check out her website at https://www.nibeditasen.com/.

‘Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island’ is published in Nightmare Magazine (May 2019, 80). Read it here: https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/ten-excerpts-from-an-annotated-bibliography-on-the-cannibal-women-of-ratnabar-island/.

The game ‘First Times’ is available in Strange Horizons (2022): http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/first-times/.

Watch Nibedita and Carmella along with some other familiar faces in the panel ‘Worldbuilders After Dark: Cannibalism in Real World and Genre Fiction’ via Worldbuildersinc on YouTube (14 December 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik7yV0kVJdM.

The Mayday Podcast can be found online at https://themaydaypod.com/, and on Twitter and Instagram as @TheMaydayPod.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Welcome to Episode Five. This time, we are joined by Hugo-nominated writer Nibedita Sen, and Ana and Luca of The Mayday Podcast.

[Intro music continues]

A: Hello, we have another guest with us today. Now any eagle eyed followers of Casting Lots on other media – there’s got to be at least someone out there- may recognise the voice of our next guest from a panel that Carmella was on a few years ago, but I will let her introduce herself. So, Nibedita who are you?

N: Well, first off, I’m very happy to be here. Yes, I am Nibedita Sen. I am a queer, Indian writer of science fiction and fantasy, mostly fantasy, mostly in the horror slash dark fantasy adjacent corner. And a lot of my work deals with themes of food or more generally speaking, hunger and consumption and appetites, particularly which appetites are catered to, and which appetites are deemed taboo or monstrous. And sometimes that involves cannibalism.

A: You can see the crossover there emerging perfectly as to why we were ‘Oh, would you like to come and tell us some more about your work?’

C: Yeah. So I think a great place to get started with the conversation then would be your piece that you wrote, I think in, I want to say 2019. But correct me if that’s incorrect-

N: Time has no meaning anymore.

C: Some years ago…

A: What was 2019? Five years or like three months? Who knows?

C: Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island.

N: Yes, it’s a very long title.

[Laughs]

C: Could you please tell us a little bit about that? 

N: Yeah, so Ten Excerpts is, it’s a funny piece. It’s written in the form of an MLA Bibliography, an annotated bibliography, because one of the things I was playing with in that piece was the idea of academia and racism and colonialism within academia and how the frameworks of academia are used to excuse and prop up colonialism. And I wanted to kind of use the form against itself to subvert itself and talk about well, cannibals. But telling a story pieced together from extracts from these fictional academic papers and articles about cannibals, and sort of telling the story in the gaps between those things and things that are not being said and things that are being deliberately left out, speaking to the story of these women who are cannibals and the ways in which the world reacts to them, and what it- what it means really, to be a woman and have an appetite that is deemed monstrous, or deviant.

C: And I think reading it was so interesting from the Casting Lots perspective, because obviously, we include a bibliography with every episode, which is a bibliography of cannibalism, and it’s, it is something that we are often confronting and thinking about in our episodes that what sources are we using and how are those sources interacting with the stories in a biased way? We will often get sources that will claim cannibalism can’t possibly have happened because these are white Europeans-

N: Right.

C: Or cannibalism must have happened for this purpose because of this culture. And yeah, I think that that’s something that your story obviously is talking to and really highlights.

N: Right? Yeah, like the sources in that story. Start with, they start with the start with white European scholars who are writing at a remove, and it slowly transitions into works. It starts with academic articles, and it translates- it transitions into things like an article on Bitch Media erm, or a blog post written by actual diaspora, actual women from this community of, this fictional community of cannibals who were taken from their home by colonial British well-meaning explorers.

A: “Well meaning”

N: Yeah, [Laughs] Yeah, just that transition from European people, academics writing at a removed from this position of comfortable superiority transitioning into here, people who actually lived it, who are actually diaspora were from that community, what it means to them. 

A: And one of the joys of fiction, especially when it comes to the sorts of stories that we end up telling, and I’ll apologise but I don’t really mean it because I’m going to make a really bad pun, because that’s just what happens here– is actually being able to flesh out these stories. 

C: [Pained] Oh.

A: Told you it was bad. But a lot of the time, all we have are – gonna do it again. The bare bones of- Carmella’s face. 

[Laughter]

A: The bare bones of the facts like this is what did or didn’t happen. This is what someone said about it. We don’t actually have the emotions or the feelings and those are often things that we have to read into the narratives that we’re telling. But of course, with your fictional cannibalism, with these stories, you’re able to give that life in a way that really can’t be done with real historical events.

N: Yeah, well, first off, I have ended so many of my conversations on food and science fiction with ‘food for thought’ that I cannot- [Laughs] I am in no position to criticise in fact, I appreciate puns greatly. Secondly, yeah, yeah I mean, you guys, deal with survival cannibalism, which necessarily means some kind of dangerous situation, which not everyone survives. Right. So, people might not be able to directly bear witness to what happened. But yeah, I do. In my own work. I do really like the idea of pushing back against. Here’s what you were told. But here is someone directly bearing witness and taking back control of the narrative. And maybe in some ways – here’s another pun – turning the tables–

A: Nice.

N: On their oppressors.

C: So as Alix said, we’re often fleshing out real-life cases to tell our stories at Casting Lots, I was wondering, were there any real-life inspirations behind your story, whether from history or– hopefully from history, but maybe from the present day?

N: Yes and no in that, so my story is about this fictional island called Ratnabar. And there’s people on that island who practice funerary cannibalism, which is a form of paying respect to the dead and this is a thing that is actually practised in several cultures across the world is you eat a portion of the dead as a way of showing respect as a way of making sure their legacy endures, that you take of them into yourself and you preserve their memories and their lineage and to honour them. It’s a way of honouring the dead. 

C: Hmm.

N: So that’s what the tribe, this people in my story does. And while Ratnabar isn’t real, I was somewhat inspired by this island of people called the Sentinelese which is in the Andaman Islands. It is an island of what we call uncontacted peoples, which is that they have had little to no contact with the modern world and have in fact, mostly violently repelled any attempts to make contact with them, which people have tried to for various reasons, mostly ranging from well-meaning to patronising.

A: They’re mostly missionaries, aren’t they? 

N: Yeah, yeah. The Sentinelese are not to my knowledge cannibals. That part I completely made up. Yeah, cannibalism crops up a lot in fiction, and when it’s not outright being depicted as this horrifying, monstrous taboo thing, it often is to the tune of cultural, ritual funerary cannibalism. 

A: One of our other interviewees gave us a rather nice phrase that rang a bell when you were describing the cannibalism of your story, which is called ‘affection cannibalism’ as a form of emotional connection between the dead and the living. So that, that rang a bell there as a softer term, considering that…

C: Cannibalism’s a loaded word.

A: Yeah, it has a bad rep, shall we say?

N: I have never heard that term. But I love it. And I may just, like, steal it to use forever. Because, yeah, that is absolutely what it is. It is. It’s an act of, in the right context. And in the context, certainly in my story, that it’s being used. It’s an act of respect, of love and affection, of wanting to keep part of someone, quite literally with you.

A: I don’t necessarily want to go off on a tangent about the Uruguayan flight disaster. But I will nonetheless. No, just really briefly, it just reminds me of those moments, even in survival cases, such as when Nando gave permission for the bodies of his mother and sister to be eaten, if necessary, when he left the crash site, and it was this ultimate act of love and compassion for his fellow men. So, there are more similarities, I think, in this sort of affection cannibalism sphere than necessarily just funerary or just ritual or just survival.

N: Right? Obviously, you guys are the experts on things like the Donner party, right? Like I won’t pretend to be an expert that that’s you guys’s area of expertise, but to my knowledge, there were people in that party who as they died, begged their children and surviving family members to eat them once they were dead. Because yeah, it’s- it’s in many ways. It is the ultimate act of love, knowing that you are dying and wanting those, your loved ones who survive you to survive and wanted to give of yourself even past death, to be sure they can survive. This is of course presuming the context in which consent can be given, which is not always the case.

C: Yeah.

A: It is one of the things that we’ve discussed before that cannibalism is one of the only forms of the consumption of meat that can technically be vegan. 

N: Yeah.

A: If you give consent.

N: Yes. And it did not even result in the death of the person involved. I don’t know if you guys heard about this, there was this case. Again, time has no meaning some amount of years ago where someone lost their- had to have their foot amputated after an accident, like, then had that amputated foot made into chilli, which he invited his friends to come over and eat, again, fully with their knowledge. He wasn’t this wasn’t a Arya Stark baking the Frey lords into pies to serve to their dad kind of thing this was fully with their knowledge and consent. And it’s situations like that. It’s like, well, it’s your it’s literally a part of your own body. Why would you not have, you know, if– who, if not you, could give consent to permission for that to be shared?

C: I’m familiar with that story. I think my favourite thing about it is that this man texted all of his friends that he thought would be most up for cannibalism with ‘do you want to come over and eat my leg?’ And it’s definitely a conversation that we’ve had with so many of our friends. Like, if I were to lose the leg do you want to be on the guest list?

[Laughter]

A: Although imagine the conversation you’ll have to have with the doctors to persuade them to let you keep it.

N: Yeah, I wonder what went into this guy getting to take his foot home in an icebox, honestly. Again, people get to keep tumours that have been extracted. You get to keep your teeth when they’re extracted. 

C: Placentas?

N: Yeah. People eat those.

C: Exactly. It’s such a hazy area really, isn’t it? Of what you define as truly cannibalistic?

N: I guess I mean what like super fascinates me in my work is just a question of why eating flesh is a bridge too far, when we’re perfectly okay with consuming people in every other way. Like something I say a lot that I completely believe is true is that colonialism is the ultimate form of cannibalism, right? Like, colonialism might not be literally devouring people’s flesh, but it is certainly devouring their country’s resources, their country’s natural resources, their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their blood, sweat and tears. You know, it’s– it’s a consuming, devouring extracted process in every way and then we as a culture have built our lives around excusing and defending it and condoning it and normalising it. So, it’s just really interesting to me to wonder why all of that is okay, but then actually going so far as to literalise the consumption is a step too far.

C: I think something that we’ve come across a lot is that in the earlier European cases of survival cannibalism, it’s normally people going out being colonisers and often we’ve found that they’ve come back with tales of cannibalism in these far-flung countries and it– I think it’s almost– it speaks of a cultural anxiety around being the ones going out and metaphorically cannibalising other cultures you say and also literally cannibalising one another when they run into hot water. And yeah, I think there’s definitely a projection there. And it’s interesting that cannibalism as taboo seems to have risen up at around the same kind of time in those European cultures as a sort of deflection from facing up to the reality I guess. 

N: That’s a really good point. That’s a really smart point. Yeah, if I may draw a parallel, it reminds me of a lot of the well, for lack of a better word panic around artificial, artificial intelligence or robots in science fiction, which often truly to me, seems like it’s coming from a place of ‘what if women and minorities treated us the way we treat women and minorities?’ There’s a reason androids AI are so often feminine or feminised in science fiction, right? 

C: Hmm.

N: It’s, it seems like it’s coming from a place of– the same kind of place of here’s a race of- a class of beings that we have deemed sub-humanoid and who we wish to exploit. What if they rose up against us and treated us the way we treat them horror?

C: That’s a really interesting parallel.

N: Right. Definitely wonder if there’s something to the fact that oh, you know, we are aware at some level that we are devouring people, God forbid that the tables be turned on us.

A: It came up in our almost infamous Douglas Mawson episode as well. The concept of sort of cannibalism by proxy. So, the argument with Douglas Mawson is sort of, did he or didn’t he? 

C: He did. He did eat. He ate Mertz.

A: Carmella is on the ‘he did.’ But even if he didn’t physically consume him, if he had eaten all of the resources that Mertz will have needed to survive, leading to Mertz’s death and his own survival. What is that, if not one step away from cannibalism? He didn’t physically consume him. He did everything but that final act.

N: He devoured what he needed to survive. He devoured his chance to live.

A: Yeah.

N: If not directly his flesh. 

A: Yeah, it’s quite fun looking at sort of how far cannibalism can stretch out. We’ve had it in terms of how far survival can stretch out if it’s the survival of the body or the survival of the soul. But then how far cannibalism as a definition also has a bit of elasticity.

N: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, one story I mentioned, Ten Excerpts, is the work of mine that most explicitly deals with literal cannibalism, but metaphorical or somewhat meta metaphor, adjacent teams of consumption and devouring are all through my work. It fascinates me.

C: What is it about that that fascinates you? If if you don’t mind us asking as fellow fans of the subject-

A: Enthusiasts of food.

N: I mean, that’s what it comes down to right? It was like I really love food. I mean not just to eat and enjoy because it’s food is delicious and why would you not, like, glory and delight in the joy and variety and fun it brings, but also because food is so inextricably tied to every aspect of our lives. Like, I actually– I have taught a workshop on food and science fiction and fantasy before and I use this acronym called CAGER, which is Class, Ability, Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion. And food intersects with every single one of these, right? Your class, your finances, your socio-economic background influences how you your relationship with food, and what food you might have access to. Your disability. You ever see people making fun of people for buying pre-peeled garlic?

A: Oh, it drives me absolutely-

N: Calling them lazy. Ability or disability affects your ability to access food or to prepare foods. Gender, obviously food preparation is so gendered the burden of who prepares food is historically been super gendered thing. Ethnicity, certain- if you’re a person of colour, you’re very familiar with what the way your foods, your historical cultural foods, are called smelly or messy or any amount of things compared to like more traditional European foods, right? Religion, need I even say, like, is connected to food in so many ways. But yeah, just food just like it intersects with every single aspects of our identities, and it’s so fraught, but it’s also something that every single one of us needs, like we cannot survive without food we cannot survive without eating and hunger. The experience of hunger is one of those things that I read a lot of dark fantasy and horror and hunger is so perfect for that because there is nothing quite like hunger to remind you how fragile the comforts and the protection of civilization is. Where hunger comes knocking, at the end of the day, we’re all just animals and we’re all just meat no matter how civilised or safe or superior we might think we are. None of us are anything but helpless in the face of hunger when it comes to it. And no matter how superior or civilised or safe you might think we are, none of us are safe from becoming prey or becoming something to be consumed. And so much of the world has predicated its identity on thinking that it could never be prey, that it is the predator. That is it is the one who sets the table. It is the one who decides what appetites are acceptable, what appetites are, catered to, and what appetites are monstrous or deviant. Right? Like, I’m a woman, I’m a queer woman. I’m a queer woman of colour, I’m very familiar with what it is to have my ambitions, my appetites, metaphorically speaking, ambitions, but also literally appetites and like wanting to eat more wanting to go in for a second helpings. Very familiar with what it is like to have that deemed gluttonous or excessive or just not appropriate for my gender or my sex or my race. Yeah, and it’s just I went off on a tangent there…

A: It was a very good tangent!

N: But I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s – as somebody who writes a lot of horror and dark fantasy – there is this vicious delight in turning the tables on people who have historically been the ones deciding the menu. And there’s something so horrifying about realising that you might be on the menu.

A: In a way it’s similar to our sort of sheer catharsis, when we have two real types of survival cannibalism stories, and in the nicest way possible they’re the ones that Alix and Carmella laugh at and the ones that Alix and Carmella absolutely do not laugh at. And it is that element of catharsis and someone facing their comeuppance and a hubristic mission versus a tragic famine. And how we can find a sort of savage delight out of the former, and very much, not the latter.

N: Absolutely, completely agree. Yes. When you’re from a subset of society that has historically been forced to rein yourself in and restrict yourself, there is, as you said, a savage delight in breaking past that and exercising your appetites, no matter how deviant or monstrous people might label them.

C: It’s this idea of identifying what it is that makes a monster in horror and adjacent genres, monstrous and identifying with that.

N: Yeah, there’s a – Yeah, I mean, as I like to say, it’s, a lot of my work is ‘Oh, you think I’m a monster? I will show you what monstrous means!’

C: Love that.

A: I do quite like the idea that we’re making a sort of feminist statement with our weird little cannibalism podcast.

N: I mean, that’s, I think you are. I agree. I also love that. And one of the extracts in my story Ten Excerpts explicitly says, I don’t have the text to hand but something along the lines of ‘men have historically been the arbiters of the discourse and women are the dish to be consumed’. 

A: [Impressed] Ooh.

C: That’s good. Well, I think that that’s a beautiful place to finish up on. Thank you. That was amazing. Before we let you go, did you have any upcoming projects that you would like to make our listeners aware of?

N: Hmmm. Does it have to be cannibalism related? 

C: No, it can be absolutely anything.

N: Okay. Well, nothing upcoming, something relatively recent that I released was Strange Horizons did this special issue of short, interactive fiction games about sex and sexuality and I have a piece in there called First Times that’s about well, horromancy and time travel and losing your virginity more than once.

C: Amazing. Love the title. That’s genius. Love a pun here.

N: Yes. So yeah, that’s Strange Horizons, it’s called First Times. And of course, the story we’ve been discussing here is Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island. Why did I give it such a long title?

A: It’s very academia

N: It really is.

C: Am I right in thinking that that one’s available online?

N: Yes, yes, it is available at Nightmare Magazine for free. 

C: Great, we’ll pop a link in the show notes below for everyone to go and read. It is– it is a very good read. I do recommend.

A: And we’ll also include a link, I believe it will still be live to a recording of the panel ‘Cannibalism in Real World and Genre Fiction’, which both Nibedita and Carmella took part in. 

C: Yes. So if you missed it, you can go and rewatch on demand. [Laughs] Thank you so much for joining us, Nibedita. It’s been wonderful.

N: Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.

A: Thank you so much. It’s been great. 

N: Yeah, I feel like we could have gone for double the time, honestly. There’s so much to talk about. So much food for thought if you will.

C: Eyyy.

A: Beautiful. 

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

C: Welcome back to casting lots podcast and thank you to Ana Luca who are joining us today from The Mayday Podcast. Would you guys like to tell us a bit about yourselves and your connection to cannibalism?

Ana: Yes. Hello. So I’m Ana. 

L: And I’m Luca – I’m sorry. 

A: What cousins from Melbourne, Australia. We have as I said, the Mayday podcast tales of mystery and misadventure. So we currently have one season of the podcast out with 15 episodes, pretty proud of mostly we talk about exploration, disasters, maritime mysteries, or anything, we can kind of fit roughly into the topic that we like.

A: So exactly our sort of thing. 

Ana: Yeah. 100%. What if we’re vibing with a topic? That’s us? That’s we’re talking about it now everyone has to listen, they have no choice.

L: There is an episode on the Black Death, which does not fit under our topic at all, but Ana I just really liked it. So…

Ana: When you have a non captive audience over audio, they just got to listen to it.

C: I just really loved the Black Death.

Ana: Just a huge fan of diseases. Really love it. So we talk about in this household, it’s all tuberculosis and plague.

L: That’s all you talk about in this episode. 

A: That’s great. 

Ana: Thank you. Finally, people who understand me,

L: I can’t believe I’m the straight guy in the room is in this like, context?

Ana: You’re the weird person who doesn’t want to talk about diseases and scary things. 

L: Yes, absolutely. 

Ana: Just give a little plug. We are the Mayday pod on Twitter and Instagram. And also our website is The Mayday Pod dot com, and we’re on Spotify, iTunes, wherever people want to listen to podcasts.

A: And may I also say your logo is so snazzy.

Ana: Thank you. Yeah, that was me. I did a little like, enter a few days of weird, not Photoshop, cheap online version of Photoshop kind of playing around. And yeah, that’s what I said, well, not quite proud of actually.

A: It’s nice. I like it every time it pops up when I’m refreshing. And I’m like, oh, something’s gonna go very wrong here.

Ana: And God doesn’t it every single time. So I’ll give you guys a little bio of me. I’m a historian and a PhD student. And I’m currently working on a project related to sort of the relationship between health, decolonization and nation building in the Philippines during the Second World War and a bit after, so not at all related to the things we talk about in the podcast. But still, if you like, you know, health, disease and war and death, I guess.

C: Who doesn’t?

A: You can get some plagues in there, some pestilence it all comes, it all comes together.

Ana: Absolutely. You know, I’m just cramming it in with as much disease history as possible. Back in 2018. I got super into the Franklin Expedition and a TV show called The Terror which is also how I kind of got to know Carmella. And that sort of just led us sort of a no rolling hill of rolling rock down a hill of various cannibalism stories in history and exploration, which led to our podcast.

L: Yes. That is so true. If you’re the rock rolling down the hill, then I am Sisyphus. Struggling dearly. Yeah. I’m Luca. I’m a writer and history enthusiast. But I actually work in accounting. I studied a bit of economics and politics and philosophy and history at uni. But now I just, I just vibe and I just made podcasts

Ana: You do a lot of cool creative things.

L: But yeah, Truly, this came about because Ana was like, I’m a historian, and I was like, I love podcasting. So let’s try it out. But specifically, so I just need to admit to the two of you. I don’t like cannibalism.

[Laughter]

L: Like at all. I I just find it quite queasy inducing. And that’s just all I got to say on that really, but I think through exposure therapy on a has managed to bring me around to being able to have conversations about it without doubling over.

Ana: Yes, every day. I just assault Luca with stories or like media about like cannibalism, survival cannibalism specifically, so I’m working on it, we’re going to have some episodes which are going to make it really struggle. But it’s going to be fun to me. And that’s what matters.

[Laughs]

A: You know, that will be here to help. 

L: Yeah.

Ana: I’m so grateful. 

C: I love that

L: She has been trying to make me watch The Terror literally since day one since she got back from the UK.

Ana: Yeah, I’ve been back for like a year and a half. And all in all that time, always. I’m just there like, it’s coming. It’s gonna happen. You’re gonna have to watch it succeed one day.

C: I love that combined. You two have the same origin story of why I started this podcast with Alix. Well, why I agreed to start the podcast with Alix, which is that I also watched The Terror and I also found cannibalism really scary. And I would, I would say that Luca through exposure, you can become so comfortable with cannibalism that it freaks other people out.

Ana: I’m manifesting this for us. Give us time, you will be like this. 

L: I don’t know if I want that.

Ana: Have no choice in the matter.

A: I’m going to recommend starting with literature. I’m going to go with the classic as always read In The Heart Of The Sea Don’t watch the film. Don’t watch. 

Ana: Very wise.

A: We all know my feelings about the film. But the read the book, it sneaks up on you. And then you’re like, Oh, that’s gross. Oh, that’s a really fascinating fact about the Nantucket fishing economy. And then you’ve got Oh shit, they’re eating each other.

Ana: You’re so right. We will absolutely get Luca in with the fascinating facts about the Nantucket Fishing Club. Economic History, and then get him.

A: Nathaniel Philbrick is your guy.

Ana: We have a copy, it’s gonna happen. Do you worry.

A: He could be your gateway drug.

L: I don’t know if I want to take a gateway drug. That’s the thing.

Ana: Yeah, it’s still again have to emphasise your lack of choice in the matter.

L: One day, I will. I will make you engage with media that has leeches in it and you will-

[Disgusted noise]

Ana: I’m so sorry. That is my phobia. That yeah, leeches cannot do this on your loves medical history can’t do cannot touch them. Bleugh.

C: That’s a tough one, I feel like they come up a lot.

Ana: Yeah, sometimes if you just like an I dunno, kind of read around those sentences you kind of get by. This is this is absolutely how it is for you and cannibalism. Isn’t it?

L: It’s literally that yes.

A: I mean, we did have some people that would not cannibalism fans at our launch party. They sort of had to sit to the side on a sofa. We were like I’m sorry. Here it here is our platter of all of the human themed food that we have on one side. And here are the people that don’t like cannibalism who have to sit and talk to each other on the other side while we play a reskin game of Werewolf, but it’s it’s Cannibal.

Ana: Oh, was it the Donner Dinner Party or just like a variant on that?

C: It was a game of my own creation. 

Ana: Oh, incredible.

A: I have the Donner Dinner Party next door.

Ana: It’s so good. Yeah, I have made Luca play that and he struggled through but it was fun. It’s pretty good.

L: I mean, it’s just werewolf but you got to eat people. 

A: I mean, the werewolves eat people.

Ana: The improved Werewolf. Exactly, and that’s cannibalism of a kind.

L: It’s different though, isn’t it? Because they’re werewolves, not people!

Ana: They’re people the rest of the time.

A: They’re furries. 

Ana: They are, they’re furries.

L: Just like Ana.

Ana: Just like oh, no, I’m not a furry. All right, please, for your listeners. If you include this. I’m not a furry. I like werewolf movies. Luca’s mean to me about it? 

A: Well, this bit is going straight in the bloopers.

[Laughter]

Ana: That’s for the best I think.

A: Shall we return to Luca’s worst nightmare? And talk a little bit about cannibalism.

Ana: I love it. Let’s do it.

A: You can do it. Luca. I believe in you. 

L: I’m trying. 

A: Because what I really wanted to ask is I’ve been listening through the podcast. And my question is obviously here at Casting Lots we think well, we’d be able to go on for more seasons if there were more instances of survival cannibalism, but we’re quite limited to only covering disasters, which feature survival cannibalism. You guys do disasters, which may or may not feature survival cannibalism. So, my question is which disaster which didn’t feature survival cannibalism, A) should have done and) B would have been improved if it had? My main one, it goes straight to the Burke and Wills expedition because that was just- I was fully expecting it as I was listening to that double bill and was genuinely shocked that it didn’t happen.

L: You will be unsurprised to know that that was also one of the ones that I was like, yeah. It’s like it should have like you were literally starving. That was your main problem. I hate to say it, but there was a solution to this problem. 

A: Yeah, it was so many months.

L: It causes me pain. Yes, literally,

A: What were you even eating? 

Ana: And they were just so bad and everything else they’d planned. You’d think that’s where their brains would go? Like yeah.

L Yeah. Yes, we actually have a handful of things between us that we think probably could have and or should have, for various reasons. It causes me pain but you know, I think there is a reasonable point at which the lack of food is your issue. It’s happened before. So, Burke and Wills was indeed my- one of my suggestions. Would you like me to just like run through like a very brief rundown of what what happened on the Burke and Wills expedition?

A: That would be amazing for our listeners who may not have listened yet but will definitely go and listen after this.

L: There’s a reason that it was two episodes and it was because as I was like reading these books and finding these sources, I was like Jesus Christ, what the fuck?

Ana: Oh, it should be emphasised, especially because your listeners are international and definitely like a lot in the UK, where you guys based. We are Australian Burke and Wills is not well known outside of Australia, but a lot of us grew up with versions of the story of them, often without some of the grisly details and sometimes a much nicer portrayal of what happened then the historical truth, which is that it was bonkers (L: Fucked) and batshit. Yeah.

L: Yeah, as I say, not famous outside of Australia. But I grew up in a town that had statues of both Burke and Wills. So and that was like a small country town. So like, they’re pretty, they’re pretty everywhere. There’s like a massive statue of them actually, like, right me, like Botanical Gardens, the largest gardens in Melbourne. So, they are everywhere and they should not. 

[Laughs]

L: So essentially, right, as Australia was being colonised there was a reward put up for anyone that could travel from the southern part of the continent, up to the Gulf of Carpentaria, which is like the northern most sea without dying and up through the interior, because of that part had been unmapped by European settlers, and they essentially wanted to know what was in there was it is mostly desert and jungle. It is 3250 kilometres to travel. 

And this Irish immigrant called Robert O’Hara Burke was selected by this committee, his Victorian exploring committee to lead this expedition, he was one of the wildly unqualified and an awful guy. And they and it went poorly. About halfway up, four guys decided to split off from the group, this massive group that they had, they left camping under this very famous now tree that is called the Dig Tree. And these four guys basically made a break the half that distance, like 1500 kilometres up to the Gulf of Carpentaria made it but they were like, almost dead on the way there. 

And then they had to get all the way back down, which they did not do. They got back to the Dig tree. One of them had already died at that point, three guys remaining, and they got back to the tree to find that their travelling companions had left earlier that same day. So basically, they were fucked. And at this point, already starving, they dug up some supplies from underneath the Dig Tree, and decided in their infinite wisdom, instead of travelling back home the way that they had come in the way that they knew to go off in another direction and to attempt to travel through the desert to South Australia, which is just not the right direction along the path that had never been travelled and was not known to anyone other than the indigenous nations in the area who they had been persistently attacking on their travels.

C: Classic. 

L: And they basically made it like.

Ana: Yeah.

L: They basically made it like a couple of Ks and then died on a riverbed of starvation. One guy John King survived. He was the only survivor from that leg of the expedition. And it was only because an indigenous nation the Yandruwandha people of that area basically saved him and affected him. And the other two died of starvation and one of them had died like earlier than the other, and that is truly where I think cannibalism should have come into play, like- Again- I don’t think it should have come into play at all. But it was gonna happen.

Ana: If there’s some spare bodies that are already dead. Like, you know? 

L: Yeah. Why are you why are you calling 100 metres up the riverbed to die alone? When there was another? There was like there wasn’t supply of food.

Ana: There were options.

A: Where the bodies found? Or is there the possibility he did have a little chew down before he died?

L: So they were found, and there is no like a written account of there being any chewing happening.

[Laughs]

L: That being said, the like amount of propaganda and like advertising that was happening around this whole thing is strong possibility that they found some chewing and they just didn’t record it.

A: It does tend to come out someone tends to gossip.

Ana: I’m gonna say there’s so much drama around this expedition and how mismanaged it was so many people were very aware of what a mess sort of came out of all of it. So yeah, probably there would have been some kind of indication. Like to make them look even worse.

L: It was extremely expensive for its time. And all of that money was wasted, like a couple of months in and then this went on. It was supposed to one for three years. And it only made it to about-

[Laughs]

C: Oh.

L: Yeah. Why do we have statues of this guy? Like truly.

Ana: It’s so embarrassing that we continue to like memorise these people who just had no qualifications for what they were doing and prove that by completely fucking it up.

A: I do get strong Greeley vibes from Burke and Wills. 

Ana: Yeah, very much. 

A: That’s a lack of leadership, shall we say?

L: It’s so funny, like a little fun fact that I enjoy is on the way up while they were still travelling through colonised areas where small towns were popping up because it was right during the Gold Rush and Victoria. Basically Burke the leader of the expedition would stay with like in hotels and with people in their farm houses and stuff while he left his dudes like camping on the side of the road. Guys, yet lack of leadership is truly that is the that is the word.

Ana: He was the worst. Yeah, he sucked so much.

L: He dare I say deserved death.

A: There is also something about the fact that obviously, I know that these are new settlements, it’s not quite the same as treking up the M25. And there being a Travelodge. I mean, like we are exploring new lands, I’m just gonna go to the local hotel and then going to, you know, the pop-up Tesco’s and gonna get a microwave meal and do that in my room. We’re exploring, and you’re surrounded by people. 

Ana: Yeah.

L: Yeah, it took them two months to travel 750 kilometres. And they were travelling along the same route as the Royal Mail, which was travelling these routes. And the Royal Mail took two weeks to travel the same path they took two months on.

[Laughs]

C: When you’re slower than the Postal Service. That’s really embarrassing.

L: Yeah, all round and embarrassing chapter in Victorian history. If I may say

Ana: One of many, like, I’m gonna be honest our history is not the best.

A: Well, of course, here in Britain, our history is you know, pure and unfettered. [Laughs] Britain has never done anything wrong in its life ever.

Ana: Should have be noted that at this point, you know, all still British people in a British colony. So yeah, that was British people doing this to congrats.

L: Yeah, Burke was an Irish immigrant who had worked for the police in Dublin.

Ana: And then work for the police in Victoria. 

L: He was a cop.

C: Yeah, just goes to show. 

A: So were there any other disasters other than the infamous Burke and Wills? And I keep wanting to say Burke and Hare, because obviously here in the UK, Burke and Hare are the Body Snatchers, but it’s Burke and Wills. Anyone else who could have should have would have done a cannibalism?

Ana: Well, I feel like Burke and Wills is definitely the most egregious case of the of the topics that we’ve covered. I was going to bring up briefly the Scott expedition, because it’s, that’s obviously very well discussed well understood expedition, but for those who don’t know, Robert Falcon Scott led an expedition in Antarctica 1910 to 1912 slash 13. But he died in 1912. Various like members of the expedition were going on that different little parties doing a lot of scientific exploration was interesting stuff. But Scott’s team go to the South Pole realise they got the about a month after Roald Amundsen didn’t get to be the first ones there on the way back, and a lot of things went wrong and they all have the, you know, several men left they all slowly died. That being said, they died one after another in succession. And, you know, like what slowly losing energy ,didn’t have food, they had missed a drop of food that had been left sort of further along. So, there were certainly several points there when you think maybe like, I know you were all noble Englishmen, but you could have had a little like, chomp?

C: Noble Englishmen love to have a chomp is one thing that we’ve learned.

Ana: Yes. Exactly. Your podcast is fact. Like, just shows multiple times they’ve done the chomp this time. No, come on, Scott.

L: Does that improve your opinion of Scott or, or the opposite?

Ana: I respect the practical man. Like he was there writing these little journals, he could have been you know, having a little meal, making sure his fellow men were fed. 

C: Scott’s always one that surprises me as well, that there’s not even any whiff of it around. Because obviously, the South Pole one that we’ve covered at Casting Lots is Douglas Mawson. Who, again, there’s no hard evidence that cannibalism happened, but there were at least rumours whereas Scott it seems like ya know, maybe it just didn’t happen. But you have to wonder did it cross their minds and then they decided not to?

Ana: Yeah.

C: I mean, it’s I feel like if you’re very hungry and there’s a dead body there and you’ve heard the stories you’ve got to at least be eyeing it up.

Ana: I what we know is right like three of their bodies were found obviously because they all died very close together. But I don’t think they ever found Captain Oates body? I can’t actually remember exactly but he left earlier, disappeared in a blizzard. Did he leave? Or…

A: I’m just stepping outside I may be some time or could that all be an illusion?

Ana: Could one of the most famous quotes in exploration history had been completely made up which also a possibility regardless of cannibalism, but could have been completely made up to hide some cannibalism?

A: You heard it here first.

L: Based on no historical evidence we are going to imply that Captain Oates was eaten by his fellow explorers.

C: His name was Oates. 

A: It is a food name.

[Gasp, laughs]

L: They just got confused they didn’t know what was going on. 

A: You know when you, you know you’re so hungry. You picked your people as food they just saw a massive bowl of porridge.

[Laughs]

Ana: Oh my god, this is it. This is the point we do the third revision of the Scott history, have a new wave of literature about the cannibalism.

A: We’re still finding Arctic cannibalism stories. They’re out there we just need to you know, melt some ice. Climate change.

[Laughs]

Ana: Oh God, the world’s going down the toilet environmentally, but at least we might find some bodies and evidences of cannibalism.

L: I think you have a couple more of potential cannibalism candidates. I have one final one for myself. I don’t know if you didn’t know much about the Batavia.

A: I love the Batavia. Sorry, that was a very weird reaction.

[Laughs]

Ana: But it’s exactly what we’d expect from you, Alix. With love, but that is being said. Can I say briefly before Luca explains the notes Batavia that I mentioned this in our episode, but I went to the replica of the Batavia] that’s in the Netherlands. And when I was there, I was there with my young stepbrother, who at the time must have been about 11. And we definitely had to do some explaining what some of the like, texts on the wall all meant when you’re reading the like little history of it. And yeah, it was a lot of shielding of eyes and kind of ferrying child along.

A: I’ve lent you the book, Carmella I don’t know if you’ve read it yet?

C: I haven’t read it yet. So Luca, please fire away and be my introduction.

A: Watch Carmella’s face…

L: In 1628 The Dutch East India Company is doing its thing. And they build a new flagship, they call it the Batavia, named after their capital in the Dutch East Indies, which is now modern day Jakarta in Indonesia. They loaded up with 341 people, some mercenaries, some sailors, merchants, civilian civilians. There’s a whole host.

A: There’s a few sexy women as well. 

C: Hmm.

Ana: Key to the story. 

L: Yeah, unfortunately. 

Ana: Yeah. Horrifyingly important.

AL One main sexy woman gets through alright.

L: Well, she gets through, I’m not sure whether alright?

Ana: The trauma would be pretty-

A: I’ll stop interrupting. I’m just excited. 

Ana: Nah, this is great.

L: Exactly. Among the crew is a gentleman called Jeronimus Cornelisz which I’m almost definitely pronouncing wrong with my with my Australian accent.

Ana: I don’t think he deserves to have his name pronounced properly.

L: At the time he was already a convicted Satanist. He was a bankrupt apothecary and heretic who was fleeing a Holland at the time, while they’re on the way over there initially with a fleet of seven ships and they, a couple of them, lose sight in those in the storm. And then the world’s worst mutiny breaks out on the way over to Batavia. It’s truly- like as I was reading their plans, I was like, You guys are the dumbest fucking people. 

[Laughs]

A: It’s such a stupid plan.

L: Just awful. It’s lead by Cornelisz and the captain of the ship and basically the captain of the ship as part of the mutiny steers the Batavia off course intentionally, just in a direction and this is 1628 so, Australia had not officially been discovered. 

[Laughs]

L: They were heading directly for the coast of Western Australia but had no idea what was there like they just assumed it was open water and they were probably going to hit like South America or something, they had no idea. One fateful night, the ship, Batavia strikes a reef and begins to sink and spends the next week sinking slowly into the water and the crew. I don’t even know if I want to go into the orgy, but they have an orgy that night, because they think they’re all going to die the next day because they can’t see that but a hop, skip and a jump away is a small island. They cannot see in the nighttime waking up seeing the island like Oh, amazing, great, let’s unload-

A: Let’s never talk about this orgy again.

[Laughs]

Ana: The world’s most awkward morning after occurs because they see an island.

A: Okay, buttoning up the the breeches, putting the big flouncy jacket back on.

Ana: Truly it must have been, like, surely.

L: Anyway, incredible fact is that Cornelisz was actually afraid of water. So he spends the next week on the boat refusing to go into the water to swim to this island, or take a boat to his island. But finally when the Batavia is like literally breaking apart and beneath his feet, he gets over there. I think it’s like 40 people died drowning, trying to wade slash swim to this island. Like it’s a huge number, which like, Yeah, but also like really? Guys, backstroke.

Ana: The complete disrespect from Australians when can’t swim.

A: Wear your pyjamas and float.

[Laughs]

Ana: Yeah. Just find a plank and like, you know, hold it. Oh, it’s fine.

L: You’re on a boat. Like, I don’t know what your expecting. Cornelisz gets over the island. There’s already been like a small camp set up. Turns out the commander of the ship who was not part of a mutiny obviously, has already taken a boat and a bunch of people and sailed for Batavia, the city to find help and or just to get away. So he’s gone. Cornelisz is now the ranking officer slash sailor on this island so seizes power and basically goes ape, and like starts just killing so many people like, like anyone that disagrees with him. Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s considered Australia’s first serial killing. That’s how like, absolutely awful it gets.

A: I’ve heard it referred to as Australia’s first Civil War.

L: That’s fun. That’s good.

Ana: Yeah, I like that. 

L: That is that is very fun. There was almost certainly other civil wars. We just don’t have them recorded.

Ana: Yeah, it’s definitely indigenous conflicts that, like talks about are included in that. But anyway, classic Australian history.

L: No, no, no it’s almost definitely called that. But like, that’s only because it’s really in history is really racist. Cornelisz basically they don’t have enough food to sustain themselves. And he decides that he wants to become a pirate king. So-

C: We all have that ambition.

A: I mean, that was part of the reason called the mutiny. 

C: Oh, okay. He wanted to be a pirate king. We- I mean, you’re saying this guy is awful. But so far I’m hearing Satanist, wanna be Pirate King and I’m thinking icon but- apart from all the murders…

L: Yeah, yeah, so we thought the same

Ana: That we definitely are enjoying then yeah, the murders. So many murders really starts to like dampen the cool guy image.

L: Yeah, so it’s not-

A: Have you got the bit where he makes his followers sign in blood that they’re always going to obey oaths? 

L: I, I , I didn’t have that in the notes but I’m glad you mentioned it. Yeah, basically he is like a psychopathic tyrant so they don’t have enough food. So he starts just like sailing people out onto small islands around the place and then just like leaving them there being like, oh, we’ll be back later, no intention of returning. So they all start starving.

A: Light a fire if you fine water.

L: Classic. So they’re starving and he then decides that isn’t fast enough and also there are people that haven’t been obeying his every wish. So he sets up a hospital tent but if you go there injured he just has you killed.

[Laughs]

L: And-

C: That’s one way to solve it.

L: Which is just-

Ana: Early medicine is really wack.

[Laughs]

L: Yeah, and like should not underemphasise that his followers and himself are committing horrific crimes throughout this thing. They’re not just killing people but they’re doing it in awful ways. They are assaulting the women repeatedly, you know, treating them as slaves. They kill a baby. Like as, it gets as bad as you can think, it’s real bad. And then there’s like his whole kerfuffle [Laughs] where he sails a bunch of more experienced mercenaries out to an island and he’s like ‘find water, light a fire if you do’ and they do the unthinkable and they actually find water. And they light the fire. And he doesn’t come back because he intended them to die.

A: Like, oh shit.

L: So they’re led by a guy calls Hayes. They set themselves up a camp and they’re like trained mercenaries so they actually know what they’re doing.

[Laughs]

L: And that is where, that’s where the fighting breaks out. There’s a basically like a whole back and forth. It’s a whole thing and then-

A: They have a civil war.

L: And then, exactly. And then at the eleventh hour the captain of the ship, Jacobs, comes back sailing from Batavia, the city on a boat the Sardam I think it is. 

A: A ship, sorry!

L: Oh on a ship, I should – you’re correct.

[Laughs]

Ana: We’re constantly affectionately refer to all ships as boats in this household. Just to be annoying, so apologies Alix.

A: I’ve only just trained Carmella.

[Laughs]

L: S’little boat. That’s all. 

Ana: She’s a big boat. Big boat.

A: I’m leaving, I’m leaving the recording.

[Laughs]

L: Sardam rocks back up, long story short has all the mutineers tried for mutiny and err, killed? I think has all of them killed. Alix, you might be able to?

A: One of the ones who gave witness and the youngest are both not executed, they are instead the first white settlers of Australia-

L: Yes.

A: Because they are just dumped on the mainland and been like ‘Just look after yourselves’.

L:Yup, which, like, iconic of Jacobs to be honest. They dump them off this, off the coast of this unknown land that they’ve just discovered, “discovered”.

Ana: Air quotes.

A: Quite literally crashed into.

Ana: Isn’t that how all discovery works? Kinda? You just sail til you hit a place, you know?

[Laughs]

L: It happens.

A: The moon.

L: But, the story continues because they come back to Batavia and they, the most beautiful woman on the boat who had suffered an awful experience, I believe it was her baby that was killed gets tried for inciting the mutiny. Yeah, like in court. And basically she is acquitted but like not by much and also there was an application submitted to the court to torture her for information and it is not- and I believe it is not [unknown] it is not known whether or not it was granted or whether it was denied. So possibility she was tortured as part of her trail. But she gets acquitted and lives.

Ana: So traumatised. 

L: And is one of the reasons that women were not allowed on boats after that.

C: It takes just one bad apple.

[Laughs]

L: Temptresses and harlots.

A: Yet there’s no rule against satanists! 

L: No, no.

Ana: In fact they should be in positions of command.

[Laughs]

L: I’m just baffled by the power structures of the Dutch East India Company that they’re like, ‘hmm, we’ve made this state of the art flagship, we’re going to put this guy in charge that’s fine and under him, second in command is just the worst guy you’ve ever heard of’

[Laughs]

L: A bankrupt apothecary and convicted satanist.

A: What could possibly go wrong?!

C: So yeah, that is such a messy story that you would be really unsurprised to hear there was cannibalism in there would you? And yet.

L: Yeah, see, it’s the fact that they were killing people because they didn’t have enough supplies for the long term and like, that is not the whole reason obviously, they were killing people because they enjoyed it. That was one of the reasons-

A: And because he was batshit insane.

L: Yes.

Ana: Absolutely.

L: So it’s kind of like, you’re already killing them, like.

Ana: It, like, they’re there, the bodies are there. Ya hungry or concerned.

L: Like, just go for it.

A: But it’s like, they were making such detailed records of everything that was happening, that, to the extend of, ‘huh this is how we poisoned the baby and then it didn’t work.’

L: Yeah, oh. That was one of my favourite parts. Yeah, he was such a bad apothecary that he tried to poison a baby, which like, they’re so fragile, you like-

Ana: They’re so small. 

L: You give babies like the wrong temperature of milk and they’re sick. Like he tried to poison this kid and it didn’t work. Like he couldn’t even poison a baby.

Ana: Lame apothecary can’t even poison a baby. Come on.

L: Got someone else kill him instead.

C: Ugh.

Ana: Yeah, it’s dark.

L: But yeah, as you say, they were keeping super detailed records and they for sure – well, not for sure but they probably would have mentioned if they’d been having a nibble.

Ana: Or there’d be some rumour, or something.

L: Yeah.

A: And they found a lot of [L:Yeah] bodies, or well they found a lot of skeletons. Is that- I have two fun Batavia facts and by fun I mean, that’s dubious definition but we’re all friends here. The first is that percentage wise Batavia has a higher death toll than Titanic if you look at the number of people who set our versus the number of people who came out the other side.

L: Yeah which is, 341 set sail on Batavia and only 122 survived.

A: More fatal than Titanic.

C: Yeah, that’s pretty bad odds.

A: But now it’s a lovely verdant green island because the soil was filled with the bodies of the dead. I feel it was Darwin, it’s always Darwin rocking around and looking at things.

Ana: Classic.

A: But I feel that 200 years later it was Darwin who was like ‘that’s a wonderfully beautiful island’ and it’s like, yes it’s been watered with blood.

[Laughs]

Ana: Bet there’s lots of food on it now. That’s no problem.

L: The Australian archaeologists are really having a time over there. There’s lots to dig up.

A: It’s nicely protected though. [Yeah] They keep putting them back every time like a fisherman digs up a skull they just put it back.

Ana: Like, not dealing with that today.

A: Like they’ve sort of worked out who some of the people were by like the records and by the notekeeping, like ‘hmm that was a man who got hit by an axe, hmm, luckily we have these notes that say that a man got hit by an axe in this location’ then they’re like, there you go Jeronimus, you stay there.

[Laughs]

A: They just put them back.

Ana: You’ve got to love some excellent record keeping even amongst murdering mutineers.

L: Yeah.

A: It’s like they were thinking about us.

Ana: So grateful.

[Laughs]

L: You know if you wanted to be a Pirate King then you’ve got to have a good administration. That’s all I’m saying.

Ana: Yup.  

L: But yes, that is a Batavia, a very very very brief overview of it. Er, there are many things to say about it.

Ana: If you wanna hear more check out our podcast episode on it in which Luca is in pain the entire time.

[Laughs]

L: It’s like e- the incompetence being matched with the psychopathy.

Ana: Brutality?

L: Yeah.

Ana: Following that very excellent horrifying story this one I’m just mentioning because I am really obsessed with Himalayan and mountaineering history – that’s come up a lot on the podcast.

L: Hmm.

Ana: And we did a two-parter on the yeti. More of it’s, kind of about how the Western idea of the yeti appeared, the history of mountaineers who claim to have seen it, that kind of thing. The little titbit I wanted to mention about that is that one of the theories about what the yeti could be was that it was local people who had been exiled or had been tried for crimes and just sent out of where they’d been living, whatever village etc, and were just living in the mountains off scraps and there’s this sort of Western spread idea that maybe these people were the yetis and that they were attacking or even eating other people. But I think it’s pretty obvious that this was just a racist colonial theory and that almost definitely that wasn’t the case at all, but I thought I’d just mention it as a fun little ‘once people thought this was cannibalism’ kind of thing.

C: Good fun! That reminds me of our episode on Yermak Timofeyevich in the Russian Ural mountains which also, in passing through the mountains there are rumours that the local people would eat anyone who walked though. So perhaps a common theme in mountaineering. 

Ana: Very much. If it’s white people doing the mountaineering they’re assuming that the local people are-

C: Yes.

Ana: Trying to eat them.

C: Actually just a common theme in all colonial exploration now that I really reflect on it. 

Ana: Very true.

A: It’s like, well if we’re doing it, they must be doing it too.

L: Yes I think it’s projection. That’s what I think it is.

A: Now, I think we could keep going forever really, but I think we do have to wrap up where we are today so Ana and Luca is there anything that you would like to plug to our listeners? Any upcoming projects? Any season two news?

Ana: We don’t have an exact date for when season two will come out but we are in the process of sort of doing the research and should be soon recording our first episode of the next season.

C: Hmm.

Ana: So you guys will enjoy this, we will be starting off with the Franklin Expedition-

A&C: Yay.

Ana: And doing it in serval parts because there is so bloody much to say.

[Laughs]

C: Yeah.

L: And later on in this season I’m excited to be delving into Amundsen and I’m gonna just do his whole life because like, what did that guy do that wasn’t super interesting?

[Laughs]

Ana: Absolute king.

C: I can’t wait to listen to those, I’m very exited to hear that. We’ll put a link to The Mayday Podcast in the show notes or you can look it up in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc, so do go listen dear listeners.

Ana: Yeah.

L: Yeah. And all our posts are on the Mayday Pod dot com.

Ana: Or on the Mayday Pod on Instagram or twitter and occasionally a tumblr that we don’t really update enough.

[Laughs]

L: A twitter that we should really tweet from more.

Ana: Really the instagram’s where it’s at.

C: Thank you very much for joining us, it’s been great having you.

A: This has been absolutely fabulous, and thank you for joining us from Australia! We have had to do a lot of timezones.

[Laughs]

A: But we’re digitally all in the same room.

Ana: Yeah, it was really great to do this recording, thanks for having us.

L: Yeah, thank you very much.

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Thank you for listening to today’s episode, featuring Nibedita Sen and The Mayday Podcast. Join us next time for all your cannibalism questions answered!

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Ana: Um, we did want to check something before all of this. Can we swear or not? Because we swear but bleep it in our normal podcast.

Carmella: Swearing is allowed. 

Alix: You can swear.

Luca: Amazing, 

Ana: Great, fantastic. This podcast is Australian friendly. Thank god.

C: Yeah, I think we’ve marked it as explicit just because of the- the cannibalism. So-

A: Anything goes.

Ana: That’s a fair point.

C: Nothing’s off limits.

A: That’s a tagline.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

Why do we (being the specific group of people who make and listen to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast) enjoy narratives about survival cannibalism so much? Authors Ally Wilkes and Linnea Hartsuyker join us to discuss the power of storytelling.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Ally Wilkes and Linnea Hartsuyker.

Ally Wilkes can be found on Twitter as @UnheimlichManvr and on Instagram as @av_wilkes, or visit her website to find out more: https://www.allywilkes.com/. All the White Spaces (Titan Books, 2022) is out now: https://titanbooks.com/70684-all-the-white-spaces/. 

Linnea Hartsuyker can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @linneaharts, or explore her website: https://www.linneahartsuyker.com/. The Half-Drowned King is the first novel in her trilogy of books (Little, Brown, 2017): https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/linnea-hartsuyker/the-half-drowned-king/9780349142531/ 

For further information on the caloric content of sea lice, please refer to ‘Chances for Arctic Survival: Greely’s Expedition Revisited’ by J.M. Węslawski and J. Legeżyńska in Arctic (2002), 55(4), pp. 373-379: http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic55-4-373.pdf.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Episode Four. Today, we are speaking to author of All the White Spaces, Ally Wilkes, and author of The Half-Drowned King trilogy, Linnea Hartsuyker.

[Intro music continues]

C: Welcome to Episode Four. Today we are speaking to author of All The White Spaces Allie Wilkes, and author of the Half Drowned King trilogy Linnea Hartsuyker.

A: Welcome to our next guest, Ally Wilkes. Now, Ally, do you want to tell us a little about yourself and your connection to cannibalism? Do feel free to leave out anything that will get you into any form of legal trouble?

Ally: Yeah, I feel almost like I should have my lawyer present with me for this, Alix. Hi, everyone. I’m Ally Wilkes. I’m a horror writer and a long time polar exploration and grizzly polar tales enthusiast, my debut novel, All The White Spaces is out now in the UK in the US. Sadly, it doesn’t have any survival cannibalism, per se. But it’s got lots of stuff. There’ll be familiar to friends of the pod, imperial hubris, the ice, frostbite, the ice, the sad fate of animals on polar expeditions. ‘Oh, God, we’re all gonna die down here’. Portable soup and the like. 

A: And ice. I don’t think you mentioned the ice. 

Ally: Oh, yeah, the ice, the ice is a massive part of it.

C: It really delivers on all points, including ice.

Ally: Thank you. I like to try and cram it in there.

C: Well, I think that that’s a nice segue into a question that we would love to hear your thoughts on? Which is why do you think the poles are such a good place for horror?

Ally: Hmm, I’ve been thinking about this a lot myself, because my debut book is set in Antarctica, and my second novel will be set in the Arctic. So, it’s no secret that I’m pretty much obsessed with that sort of area. I think for me, what it is, is the combination of both the sort of agoraphobia of the poles, the wide open spaces, the nothingness, the loneliness, the emptiness of it, the weather that’s trying to kill you constantly, and the claustrophobia of the environments that people put themselves in to survive, so the ships beset on all sides, you know, the powder keg of tensions as people start overwintering and going slightly mad, or like tents and things getting worse and worse, because as we all know, once you’re in the tents, it’s probably all over for you. Let’s be fair. So it’s got that wonderful, and I think very gothic combination of the wilderness and the deathly outside, and then the claustrophobic and really pent up inside.

A: Now, one of the reviews of All The White Spaces calls it a mixture between The Terror and The Thing. And that always just puts me in mind of when my favourite real life anecdotes about Antarctica being there every year, just after the last flight has left and they’re about to overwinter there is a showing of The Thing for everyone that is left at the Antarctic base. And there is something very, not quite cathartic about that. But there’s a bit of black humour going on there surely.

C: Isn’t like when you’re at work, and they make you watch a safety training video of what not to do. [Laughter] Guys, we don’t want to see any of this.

Ally: In fact, it gets even better because on the Scott Amundson base, which is the base at the South Pole where this The Thing screening happens every winter, they also screen alongside it. Perfect double bill, The Shining. [Laughter] We definitely don’t want to see any of this guys, no axes, none of that. Thank you.

A: I don’t know if I’m remembering this correctly. But I feel that someone goes into a physical altercation over someone’s spoiling a book series at the Antarctic?

Ally: Yes, that’s right. That was- I can’t remember which base it was on. I think it was on one of the Antarctic Peninsula bases, and it devolved into fisticuffs when someone spoilt the end of a novel someone else was reading, which really does show that when you are in these sort of powder keg environments over winter, it takes the least petty thing for people to really reveal their worst selves. And of course that’s a gift for horror writers.

A: If you’re working with heightened emotions, and the minute one of those emotions is hunger…

Ally: Yeah, exactly. 

A: Have a Snickers. You’re not yourself when you’re hungry, boom, it turns into just ultimate consumption. You’ve referenced book number two a couple of times, I’d like to ask what you’re allowed to say about book number two. 

Ally: That’s the sort of thing that I really should have checked before coming on this podcast. [Laughter] What I think I can say is that it set in the 1800s Arctic, it does involve a massive hefty dollop of survival cannibalism. It’s very queer. It’s very spooky. And it’s playing with sort of my lifelong fascinations with both the Franklin Expedition and lesser known to many, but obviously well known to you guys the Greeley lady Franklin Bay expedition

A: Ah, he of the beautiful eyes and the threatening to shoot someone for not doing his laundry.

Ally: He of the bedraggled dressing gown. Yes, that’s him. Adolphus Greely he ya guy.

A: He is a gift to the survival cannibalism like genre just because you wouldn’t believe he really existed if we didn’t have all of this written down.

Ally: I know. It’s just that entire expedition. Everything about it just beggars belief. It almost descends into comedy fast, doesn’t it with what happens to all the rescue ships, and then the newspaper cutting they find in the cairn which is like, I’m so glad I left the expedition because they’re obviously all going to die up there. Like, yes, what a hopeful thing to be reading by the light of your single candle under your whaleboat as the winter [Laughter] as the winter comes in, one of your former mates saying I fear they will perish. Right? Thanks, guys.

A: They’re almost certainly dead. Oops. What a hell of a story is the Greeley expedition.

Ally: It’s fabulous. It’s absolutely fabulous. And I came across it through the slightly whitewashed version that prevails still in some books, I think in Ranulph Fiennes’ Cold, he still puts forward the story that they survived on sea lice bred on the corpses of their comrades, which let’s face it, that would be a tonne of sea lice to sustain the number of eventual survivors for that long. And no one who was actually on the expedition ever really, I think put that forward. That was a sort of whitewash wasn’t it afterwards by the American Navy. In fact, when they had all the exhumations, and the autopsies of people like Kislingbury-

[?]: Kislingbury.

A: Ah, Kislingbury.

Ally: It was fairly obvious that there was more than just sea lice farming going on.

C: As anyone who has listened to episode on Greely, will remember, we have done the maths on the sea lice, it just doesn’t add up to enough calories.

Ally: They’re very small and not very palatable surely?

A: I will add the link in the show notes to the wonderful JSTOR article, I found all about the calorific intake of sea lice and how that compares to an emaciated body and how one of these things is not like the other.

Ally: Excellent, excellent. I think back when I used to have a blog, which is now defunct, the only angry letter from readers I ever got was because I replicated one of the quotes from that book, which talked about sea lice. And people did actually write in to tell me, nope, they ate them. And I was like, I know, man, but it’s like, a 6000 word article, just keep reading. I’m sorry, if it’s too long.

A: Now, I don’t know if any of our listeners will be able to pick up on the site shuffling noise that we have going on but our intern Darcy here is having a little sleep on some of our equipment. And I’ll cover her ears up here. But dogs don’t have the best fates in a) history b) the sort of stories we tell generally, and c) your story specifically. So why do we do this to ourselves? I think that’s the question.

Ally: Hmm, I think it is an important part of exploration history. You can’t really get around sometimes the fact that they did take dogs or In Scott’s ill-fated case ponies, what the actual, but animals did tend to be taken to the Arctic and the Antarctic. And most expeditions had a very pragmatic plan to eat the animals as they went or eat the animals in case of extremists. So, I think the sort of stories we tell certainly if you’re talking about fictionalised accounts like my novel is, I didn’t want to do away with what was such for me a massive glaring sharing feature in all the stories told about Antarctic exploration to date, but it is, you know, for animal lovers, it is extremely upsetting. They never have a good time. And the story I find particularly most poignant myself is, of course, the horrible, horrible fate of Mrs. Chippy, who was a ship’s cat on Shackleton’s Endurance expedition. Now, Mrs. Chippy was in fact a male cat belonging to Chippy McNish the carpenter, and he shipped out very happily with the expedition got all the way into the expedition, was beset by the ice in the Weddell Sea, made it off the sinking and falling apart ship, made it onto the ice until the point at which Shackleton had to make a judgement call about how much weight could be taken, and how much food could be taken for the dogs and indeed for Mrs. Chippy, and that’s the point at which the story gets truly sad. If anyone wants to torture themselves, there is a book by Caroline Alexander called Mrs Chippy’s Final Expedition, which is told from the point of view of Mrs. Chippy-

C: No!

Ally: And it will reach straight into your chest and take your heart out. It’s terrible. Spoiler alert, it ends with Mrs. Chippy being delighted to have been given a really good meal on the ice of sardines and receive lots of cuddles and pets from all the men and getting really ready for his duties on board ship are on both the ice the next day and then being taken off behind the hammock.

C: Oh, poor Mrs. Chippy.

Ally: It’s an absolute tear jerker. It’s horrible, but it’s all true. That’s the thing. Animals traditionally never having a good time on these sorts of expeditions.

A: And it’s not just up in the ice either. I was remembering for the unfortunate- unfortunate [Laughter] They all are, sort of, sort of the running theme here. The HMS Wager with Lord Byron’s grandfather, Midshipman Byron, who was only about 16, managing to sort of adopt a local dog after where they were wrecked and it guarding his home. And then as his food supplies were running out some of the rest of the crew coming over and demanding the dog. Byron putting up a fairly weak argument, but still trying. I know Darcy don’t listen, allowing the inevitable to happen. And then a few days later coming back and scavenging the paws.

All three: Ooh.

Ally: The paws. 

A: Yeah.

Ally: I mean, it’s all sorts of animals that have bad times. I mean, just thinking about the Franklin Expedition, you have the monkey called Jaco. [Laughs] A morale booster for the man until presumably one day he wasn’t. [Laughs]

C: I guess, one of the reasons that this, outside of real history, is also such a compelling feature of these narratives, from a story point of view is the fact that animals are companions. They’re often a part of the family. They really feel like your friends, especially in these, as you’re saying isolated situations where you’ve maybe not got anyone to turn to. And it’s that point of what’s the next step. What’s the next step, and they’re the logical connector between normal food and human meat?

Ally: Absolutely.

C: Darcy the dog.

Ally: I was I was thinking about this the other day, because I think one of my lifelong reasons for being interested in survival cannibalism, is that as a vegan, most people seem to think that I’m an imminent danger of crash landing on a desert island and having to make a grisly series of choices, because they come up to you at parties or wherever, and they ask you these really earnest series of questions designed to get to the root of your veganism or being a sham, based on the fact that you would eat animals on a desert island. And my position is always mate, I would eat you on a desert island. [Laughs] Like, let’s let’s not beat around the bush here. But why people think that conditions prevailing in southeast London in 2022 is anything like the Uruguayan flight disaster,  I have no idea though. There we are.

A: I mean, we’ve definitely discussed that survival cannibalism definitely can be vegan. It just depends whether you’ve had that Fireside Chat beforehand or not.

Ally: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yes, I think you’re very right Carmella in that it’s that progression. Because if people can see the animals having a bad time, and people having to make that horrible choice in relation to their companion animals, you can see that it’s going to go down a pretty well-worn path. I don’t know where boots come in the natural progression or hierarchy, but somewhere in the hierarchy is boots, and somewhere is companion animals and then it’s the bodies of your fallen comrades. 

C: And then it’s the not yet bodies of your-

Ally: Yes! And then it’s casting lots.

C: Wayhay.

A: Name drop. 

Ally: Yup.

A: I think it’s also quite relevant, maybe less so in fiction, but definitely for us, as we’re looking at these true stories is, we tend to divide our cases into two camps, the ones who can laugh at and the ones who can’t, [Ally: Yeah], the ones who can’t laugh at you can’t laugh at at all. But generally, it’s especially for the very hubristic cases. For right or wrong, sometimes I think that emotional connection comes in more to, ‘and then they have to consume the ship’s dog’ than it does to ‘and then the very rich white man who had not listened to a single piece of advice ever realised that he had voted for the leopards eating his own face party’.

C: Oh, they keep voting for that party. Franklin voted for it twice. Why? 

A: Why do they keep putting this man in charge?

C; I know. 

Ally: The only anecdote I have that is even the slightly lighter side of survival cannibalism, isn’t survival cannibalism at all because of course, it’s the story of Perce Blackborow, who was a young Welsh lad who stowed away on Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, making extremely poor choices as it turns out to be on this ship. But there we go. And that was the kernel of an idea which I eventually spun into my novel All The White Spaces, but purse snuck on board in Argentina, he was discovered in the roadblock that about three days sail towards the South Georgia and whaling stations, he was hauled out Shackleton was very mad. And there became a sort of argument about what to do with him. And eventually, Shackleton said, ‘Well, we’re going to keep you on. But on the other hand, you know what we do with stowaways, when we ran out of food, we’re going to eat you first.’ And he commanded that Blackborow to be taken off to the galley, so that the cook could get a good look at him. So, he could recognise who was the first on the chopping block. And the anecdote goes that without a beat, Perce, looked at Sir Earnest Shackleton, who was quite a stout man, no Franklin, but quite physically imposing man and said, immediately ‘get a lot more meat off you wouldn’t they boss?’ [Laughter] At which point, the laughter of the crew sort of embraced Blackborow. And I think that’s lovely that they could all laugh about their impending choices to eat each other. Although, of course, it never came to that. But damn close, I have to say damn close.

A: I think Shackleton is one of the stories that you were always quite impressed that didn’t end in survival camp. 

Ally: Oh, I know it’s it’s absolutely incredible. Meanwhile, of course, although again, no actual survival cannibalism, on the other side of the continent, his Ross Sea Party, which weren’t meant to be laying depots. The idea was the expedition was a two-pronged approach. He was coming in from the Weddell Sea, and it was gonna be a depo laying party going up from the Ross Sea. So from you know, north and south combined, and they were going to march of the continent, the Ross Sea Party, we’re having an arguably even worse time of it than the Endurance men, because they’re, three of them actually died on the expedition. And their dogs had possibly some of the worst dog times – Darcy, I’m so sorry-  of any expedition I’ve read about if you ever want to read The Lost Men: the harrowing story of Shackleton’s Ross Sea party, it tells very vividly about this, this trail of destruction that they called the dead dog trail, and it’s just brutal. 

A; Oh,

C: I’d say that that’s a trail that I don’t want to try as walking day out.

[Laughter]

Ally: It… It contains such gruesome morsels as leaving dead dogs behind or burying them and then coming back and dealing with the blood that had frozen on the snow to be used to make a sort of hoosh.

C: Hmm. 

Ally: Disgusting.

C: Delicious.

A: Like a slushy. 

C: A slush puppy!

A: Ooooh.

Ally: No.

C: I’ll see myself out.

Ally: Oh, now you’ve ruined the entire genre for me. Thanks.

Now, one of the things I did want to get your opinion on, especially related to your first book All The White Spaces is you have transgender protagonist and bless him he is isn’t he’s not the smartest cookie in the bunch. But I do love him-

Ally: In the words of Gordon Ramsay. He is an idiot sandwich.

[Laughter]

A: Bless Jonathan.

Ally: He’s always wrong but he’s so brave about it.

A: So, I wondered what your opinion was about the quote unquote, discoveries about the chromosomes of the body is of the Franklin Expedition. Do you think we could have had trans members of the Franklin Expedition? Could we have had female stowaways joining aboard? And then probably not having a very good time? Or is science just fallible?

C: I’d also like to point out that in our notes I’ve written this point is trans Franklin, which is a question I don’t think anyone’s ever asked in history. But Franklin?

Ally: Yeah, Franklin, what a bold would a bold question. 

C: We can’t prove either way. 

Ally: I think there are sort of two strands of it really the first being that we know that throughout history, trans people have existed and trans people have, in inverted commas ‘gone stealth’. And, in particular, trans men have taken part in traditionally masculine [unknown], like the American Civil War, or sailing. So, I think odds on it’s very easy to speculate that there were either female stowaways or trans men on expeditions like that simply because of the sheer balance of probability. And also what we know about, for example, the career of Dr. James Barry, who managed to evade detection of his being assigned female at birth throughout the entire have a long and very illustrious naval surgeons career. So I think we can almost I would say, take for granted that there will have been instances, although maybe lost time. What I think about those Franklin chromosomes is that I’m not entirely convinced, because I tend towards the idea that the deterioration of the DNA used, and then the amplification methods used to get a decent sample from these very old bits of tissue, might well have just lopped off the necessary sequencing. So, I don’t think I regard that as conclusive evidence but I think the argument from anecdotal evidence and common sense it is a lot stronger, frankly-

A: Frankly, nicely done.

Ally: Franklin. Yes. Although, yeah, Franklin, what if? We don’t know. I find it very fascinating that no one’s ever found the point at which Franklin was buried, because some of the Inuit testimony talks about seeing something like a concrete vault being created on King William Island stone that then hardened and became part of the other stone, and so on, so forth. So, if it’s possible that key personages were buried, and we just haven’t found them yet, who knows? Maybe one day we will dig them up and find out.

A: See, I think this is where I’m getting very back into like the good old days of debating what on earth happened up there? 

Ally: Yes.

A: There was an Inuit source of some of the emaciated men carrying a box. [Ally/C: Ooh.] And the argument being they had nothing what could have been so important that they’re still carrying it? And it was thought, is that the remains of Franklin?

Ally: Oh, for God’s sake, like they are dying, they are marching down King William Island, they’re not going to make it to Back’s Great Fish River that they’re going to die as they walk. And yet they’re still carrying a coffin with them with the body of a not entirely svelte middle-aged man in it. 

A: Have you met the British Navy? 

Ally: Actually, yeah, I was gonna say like, how I met the British Navy several times. Yes. Unfortunately, it’s probably in its own way as crucial as all the curtains and curtain rods and other random bits and bobs that they hauled as far as the boat place.

A: He’s out there somewhere. We just don’t know where.

C: Well, he got eaten by the Tuunbaq. Guys. So…

Ally: I always feel very bad about my work being compared to The Terror because although I have read and loved the novel, I mean, it’s exactly written for people like me, who would like to read an eight page Socratic dialogue on the capacity of whaleboats, I mean, sign me up. That’s my jam. But I haven’t watched the TV show because I don’t know. I’m worried that it [Franklin voice] might interfere with my creative process, to use a Franklin voice there for a moment.

A: Yes, some of my opinions on The Terror have been a little bit wacky, shall we say? The Terror and In the Heart of the Sea have similarities. 

C: Hmm.

A: They might not cover accurate historical instances of survival. cannibalism, but my god, do they look pretty.

Ally: Oh batten down the hatches, we’re going to talk about Whaleship Essex.

[Laughs]

A: I am wearing my team Pollard t-shirt.

C: Ayyy.

A: Unfairly maligned, definitely was not having sex with his aunt.

[Laughter]

C: You’ve brought this up in several of these interviews. 

A: I can’t help it. I can’t help it. It’s just weird. 

Ally: I’ve got a question I want to ask you guys, if I may, if I’m allowed to turn it on its head a little bit. 

A+C in tandem like the sisters from The Shining: Please do.

Ally: Well, I was recently asked this in an interview and I couldn’t come up with a decent answer. Why is it that we think that there are so many Arctic expedition stories that end in survival cannibalism, and (leaving Mawson aside for a second) none in Antarctica?

A: It’s easier for the British to get to the Arctic than the Antarctic. 

Ally: A solid answer. It’s the British.

C: A curse, there’s a there’s a curse on the North Pole. And not on the South Pole.

Ally: Quite possibly, the answer that I came up with after a little bit of soul searching was, I think it might be to do with the periods of time in which the… the British were mostly exploring the Arctic, and the time periods in which they were mostly exploring the Antarctic. Because Antarctic comes later, you would hope people would have learned some basic and essential lessons by then. But then on the other hand, you’ve got Scott’s blokes refusing to learn how to ski and taking ponies. So you know, all bets are off when it comes to things like that.

A: I reckon that’s what you’ve got. You’ve got earlier time periods in which it is the race for the North Pole and the race for the South Pole does come later. And you’ve also got better preservation of food, maybe not much better, and you know, pemmican’s pemmican. I think that’s where you’ll get your answer from there.

C: I do think that you’re both onto something with this being able to learn from the past, but I will remind us of our earlier conversation that Franklin, literally the same person, managed it twice, easier to learn from other people’s past mistakes than from your own. Perhaps?

Ally: He was nowhere near that survival cannibalism. That was Richardson and Back and Michel Terohaute back in there sort of like a little fun party at the back of the supply line. So you know, he probably didn’t think it could ever happen to actually him.

A: It’s just not something the British do is it?

Ally: Absolutely not, hi Charles Dickens.

[Laughter]

A: This is like just doing the ‘Best Of’ really.

[Laughter]

Ally: This is the problem. I’m, as you both know, a massive fan of the podcast and a massive fan of the topic. So yes, it’s great to listen to you when you’re cleaning on a Sunday afternoon. I will also say that, you know, scrubbing out out damn spot, etcetera, whilst you know, reading about people being picked apart with flechette and things. It’s great. It’s great. Can’t beat it.

A: We are happy to help. 

Ally: Yeah, that’s my unconventional domestic goddess tip there.

C: Well, to bring things back and to a wrap? Charles Dickens, to bring it back to the subject of books and authors. Thank you very much for joining us today Ally to tell us about All The White Spaces and Book Two, which we’re very excited about. Can’t wait to read. Apart from book two is there anything else that you’d like to plug to our audience or suggests the checkout in the meantime?

Ally: Well, I suggest everyone check out All The White Spaces for a rollicking good time for all apart from the dogs and twenty something of the humans.

C: It’s a rollicking good time for the reader and I can add to that recommendation, Casting Lots are very big fans of the book. So-

Ally: Thank you very much.

A: We very much are, I think we’re like ‘friend of the podcast, it’s Ally!’ 

Ally: It’s me. 

A: Friend of the podcast! I think that is a wrap so, thank you very much for joining us Ally.

Ally: Thank you.

A: It has been a wild ride, as it always is when we end up talking survival cannibalism. For once we’re doing it in an appropriate setting.

[Laughter]

Ally: Yes, and not outside at a cafe.

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

C: Welcome back to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast. And our guest today is Linnea. Linnea would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and your personal connection to cannibalism?

Linnea: Sure. My name is Linnea Hartsuyker. I’m an author of historical fiction. I have a trilogy out from HarperCollins in the US and Little Brown in the UK and some other countries as well. The first book is The Half Drowned King and it’s about Viking Age, Norway. And while there is not cannibalism in it, I have long been a fan of either maybe fans the wrong word? I have been fascinated with stories of survival and people freezing to death, especially. And oftentimes, cannibalism comes into that. So especially when I discovered the literature of Arctic exploration, I became even more into this wonderful grisly subject. And I’ve been a huge fan of Casting Lots Podcast for a long time, and I’m thrilled to be able to be a guest here.

A: We’re very happy to have you here while you said that in your trilogy, you do not have any cannibalism. 

L: I’m afraid not.

A: It is, it is a tragedy. But there’s always next time.

L: Exactly.

C: We’ll forgive you.

A: Cannibalism is something that is becoming more and more prevalent- there was a wonderful New York Time– that sounded wrong. But it’s become more and more prevalent in popular culture. There was a New York Times article a few weeks ago, which for our listeners, considering this podcast will come out at some point in end of October/November, was around mid-August, early August, mid-August, The New York Times came out with this article about how cannibalism is on the rise, and was talking about cannibalism and media, in television and pop culture and in historical fiction. Sadly, we didn’t get a shout out although I do appreciate everyone who tweeted us and said that we should have got a shout out by the New York Times, which is a very long winded way of coming around to talk about survival cannibalism in historical fiction.

L: Yes, and I am working on a project that does involve some survival cannibalism. Hopefully, someday it will see the light of day but I’ve been thinking I should just write about the things that fascinate me and that is one of them. But it’s something I’ve thought a lot about. Because oftentimes, in fiction, when you have something like really terrible happen to people, it’s really hard not to kind of see the hand of the author in it very much. And that’s why two of my favourite books of fiction that have instances of survival cannibalism in them are historical or semi historical, and based on a real subject. So, one of those is The Terror by Dan Simmons. It’s, it’s a classic of the genre for a reason. I read the entire 700 pages in one sitting. 

C: Wow. 

L: Yeah, it was I was kind of stuck in a hotel room in a city I didn’t particularly want to be in. So that’s why but it was, it was like it was quite a day. And by the end like it gets, it gets real gruesome, more gruesome than the TV show gets. And I was reading quite fast to get through some of the instances of people being forced to cannibalise themselves and things like that that happened. And it it gets real gruesome. A lot of the stuff in it that happens is sort of has been attested to. And so or at least there’s there’s some idea that, that it happened and did get extremely gruesome from Inuit testimony. And so you can’t really necessarily say like, ‘Oh, it’s just the author making things as gross as possible’, being sensational. And then another book that I really enjoyed that had cannibalism, survival cannibalism, and it is Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson. And that’s kind of a slice of life of prehistoric shaman, I think living in maybe northern Canada and that’s sort of just like, there’s some superstition associated with it. But at one point, the main character and the people he is travelling with, it’s a difficult journey, one of their companions dies, and they take the body with them, and consuming the body helps them finish the journey. 

And in that case, it also made sense from a perspective of that would have been a way that they needed to survive at the end of winter. Their community was near starvation, and at the end of every winter, there was always like, what are we going to have to do to make it until spring and plants start growing again, and animals come out of hibernation, so it made sense from that perspective. Otherwise, I It’s like, we’re trying to write it myself. I’ve kind of felt like, like it needs to have a really good, good reason for it to happen and be foreshadowed and be not just something that I’m doing because I find survival cannibalism fascinating. I was thinking about sort of what my favourite stories have been from the podcast and from the history of survival cannibalism, and I’m just a sucker for Victorian men going to places they shouldn’t be [C: Yep] dying horribly from being there.

[Laughter]

A: Now that is a classic of the genre.

L: It really is. It really is. And I think it’s partially because like they’re getting, there’s, there’s a lot of symmetry to that story whenever it happens, because they’re suffering from their own hubris. That’s yeah, it’s awful, but in some ways, a little bit satisfying when they’re forced to resort to cannibalism.

C: I think those are always the episodes that are the most enjoyable for us to do. Are these sort of, oh no, did the colonisers starve to death and have to eat each other? Boo-hoo.

A: Again?

L: Again. Yeah, and I mean, it’s I think it’s important to talk about the the, you know, more horrible instances of politically motivated starvation that have led to mass cannibalism, like the famines in Ukraine that Stalin caused, but those are just like, they’re, they’re depressing and horrible, and people did awful things.

A: I do have to give the warnings to my friends. ‘I’m really sorry. I’ve not started the podcast yet. I really want to but…’ Right, okay, you want to listen to the Medusa, the Andes, you want to avoid Russia, China, and North Korea, you want to avoid these ones. These are the funny light hearted ones that will work as your sort of entry into the concept. If it’s something that you struggle with, the more modern and the ones that have been enforced, rather than self-inflicted, they really are the ones that can be quite heavy when we’ve come out of recording sometimes.

L: Yeah, that makes sense. And I always appreciated that you’ve taken those subjects kind of more seriously, and dealt with them with respect. I mean, I think you’ve done that for all your subjects. But yeah, it’s I think it’s important to take those ones more seriously. I really the- the Raft of the Medusa episode is one that I really like, and also not an instance that I was familiar with before. So it made me so happy. I think I reached out to you when I was finally watching The Terror on AMC. And, and Captain crosier makes a joke about the Raft of the Medusa, before anything terrible happens. And I was like, I get it, I get the joke.

A: And that, my friends is the beauty of foreshadowing.

[Laughs]

C: Do you think then that the appeal of these ones where it’s because of their own hubris, and there’s this sort of tale of downfall, that this is what appeals as an author, when there’s this clear sort of story, and it’s almost like you’re saying, it’s like real life foreshadowing it feels like a plot coming to a satisfying resolution for the characters, in quotes, because they’re real people who sort of behaved and existed in the world. It feels like a novel in itself. A lot of these ones I find.

L I think so too. And that’s, that’s kind of why I like my favourite books that have survival cannibalism in them are either about fictionalised accounts of real things that happened, or just journalism or historical writing about things that really happened. As an author, you can kill a character at any time in any horrible way you want to, but it’s much more satisfying for a reader if it feels like it’s happened for a reason that there’s been a chain of cause and effect leading to it, rather than just something awful happening. 

C: Yeah, definitely. 

L So one of the things that I’ve also always been really interested in is mythology and folklore. And I have some wonderfully grisly collections of folklore from all over the world. And something that was really fascinating around stories of cannibalism is that they often really speak to the anxieties of the culture. 

C: Hmm.

L: And in certain ways, I feel like even in real stories, cannibalism is never just cannibalism, it has like a meaning. It’s an incredibly potent symbol. And it doesn’t happen unless a lot of other things have gone horribly wrong. So, like there’s Inuit stories about cannibalism, where someone who’s tasted who’s even who’s done cannibalism for – done a cannibalism – for purposes of survival will then be kind of have an insatiable desire for human flesh thereafter. And I think there’s kind of a, an implied lesson in that where if you’re willing to use a human for that once, what are you capable of doing in the future? I’m not an expert and it’s just one story from one tradition, there’s a wide range of Inuit traditions and from the historical record and or the archaeological record, there have been plenty of instances of survival cannibalism in those cultures. So but then, so then I was comparing that to, like in Greek tragedy, there’s in the House of Atreus there’s a lot of cannibalism, not survival, cannibalism, the Greeks weren’t generally starving to death. But in that case, it’s a lot more to do with kind of breaking that taboos of family obligations and angering the gods. And so, it just the way it shows up in different folklore, I think, speaks to the preoccupations of the culture, and probably the way I enjoy Victorian men dying horribly has a little bit to do with some, you know, guilt and being descended from them and, and benefiting from colonisers but then also just liking to see them get there comeuppance that you can’t just try to take over the world without having something bad happened to you.

C: There’s definitely this common theme isn’t there in like in the ones that you reference and in some of the real life cases that we’ve had, where there’s this idea that once you, as you said earlier, ‘done a cannibalism’ you become a cannibal. And it’s seen as something that inherently changes you. And I’m sure that, obviously, any experience with survival, cannibalism will inherently change a person because of the trauma, but it’s not the actual eating of human flesh. In real life, cannibalism is something that you do not something that you are, but there’s a cultural preoccupation with it. It’s something that transforms your, I guess, into a cannibal. And that’s who you are now?

L: Yeah, definitely. And I think also part of the fascination with it for people and for me, and with all survival stories is like, what if I were in that circumstance? Would I be able to do that? Or would I would I choose to, to perish instead? And then what is looking at that? How does looking at that changed my opinion of myself?

A: I think there’s also something about the morality because I know that we’ve been talking and Linnea the way you were saying about how well maybe these Victorian men getting their comeuppance flew cannibalism is some sort of bitter irony. But we do have this focus, I know that we try in the podcast that anthropophagy isn’t something that has its own moral weight. And I don’t know how much this comes through in literature and fictitious representation of cannibalism, but there does always tend to be that very moralistic black or white, if you choose to eat you’re bad if you choose to die pure, you’re good. And, I mean, I also have my big thing about how, you know, there’s no moral value to surviving via cannibalism. Brackets, we’re not talking about if you murder people, close brackets, that’s a bit different. But there does seem to be an there’s a lot more of a relationship between morality and food when it comes to cannibalism, rather than maybe any other diet? So I do think in I don’t know where this thought is going, but it’s going somewhere. 

L: No, I think that’s really interesting, because I think there’s a lot of a morality around food, regardless of whether you’re cannibalising or not. And, and, and when you’re talking about cannibalism, you’re, you’re heightening all the ideas around morality of consuming food. But that also reminded me of I hadn’t, for whatever reason, I hadn’t really read much about the Andean disaster also, in some ways, I know that, you know, hopefully, I have many years ahead of me, and there’s only so many cannibalism stories in the world, and I’m saving them for when I really need to. 

[Laugher]

L: So I haven’t read that much about them yet. But I really appreciate it in your podcast episode about a talking about how everyone wrestled with and then found peace with the morality of it, and were absorbed by the Catholic Church. And, and I thought that was really interesting, because in a lot of other stories, you don’t hear too much about the aftermath or becomes a shameful thing. And I like that focus and that story.

A: That’s where I’m wondering with how in fiction, whether there’s this idea to subvert the traditional cannibalism equals bad person narrative, because I know, for example, especially in the TV version of the Terror, it does stick to those more traditional values, as it were.

C: With our Hickey, the bad guy, he’s the one who starts the cannibalism. Yeah. 

L: Right. Yeah, I agree. And I really, really liked the TV version of it. I mean, it has flaws, but I think it tries to improve on some of the flaws of the book. 

C: Yeah.

L: And a lot of the acting is really spectacular, but actually feel like the show runners were not that interested in cannibalism, except as to what it had to say about Hickey. And I feel like the whole project of that show was trying to show the different ways that people chose to approach their deaths or were forced to approach their deaths. And yeah, and so yeah, the cannibalism became a pretty strict morality play of you’re either good or bad for, for doing it. And that’s probably why it didn’t. I’m really glad it didn’t. But why it didn’t dwell on the the fate of a lot of the other members of the party who probably did and engaged in all kinds of just purely survival based cannibalism near the at the end of their lives.

A: Because obviously, from my perspective, I’d have wanted to see more of it everywhere. But I, I can see that there may have been a few issues with the narrative that it was telling.

L: Well, and I love to read about this stuff, but I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to seeing it on my screen. So that’s I’m just selfishly blind I bet they kind of cut the horror a little a little short for that. I have not seen Yellow Jackets yet, although I should watch it at some point. Have you seen it? 

C: Yes, I, you know, it starts strong with some scenes of cannibalism, but then that isn’t really the focus. It’s the mystery of how they get to that point. I really enjoy it. Yeah, could do with more cannibalism.

[Laughs]

A: We say that about most media were engaging with.

C: We do.

L: Actually I was fascinated to learn recently about biblical cannibalism. In the Book of Kings, there’s a siege of Samaria by the Arameans. And there is a very frank discussion of two women who I think have have traded their sons to cannibalise them. And it’s one of those interesting things in the Bible where it’s like, I mean, it’s predicted as a horror but not moral, not that they’ve committed that much of a moral sin it is they were forced to a really, really awful circumstance. And it’s an illustration of how just how awful the circumstance they were in was, so that that one reminded me more of the Chinese cannibalism and the Ukrainian cannibalism where it’s just people in awful circumstances.

A: Siege warfare, almost always results in survival cannibalism.

L: Leah, that actually reminds me of another book that we’re cannibalism is not a main feature. But it’s a book set during the siege of Leningrad, City of Thieves by David Benioff, who went on to be one of the writers of the Game of Thrones series for HBO- 

A: I thought I recognised the name.

L: Which I’ve mixed opinions about but the book is, I taught it when I taught a creative writing class, it’s pretty gruesome. Nowadays, I would have given a trigger warning for some of the stuff that happens in it but there is cannibalism happening in kind of in the background of the city because it’s under siege by the Nazis, and everyone’s starving to death. But it’s also a extremely well-constructed novel in terms of everything that’s set up in the beginning of it coming back at the end, almost to a point where it’s a little it’s like too much, but it’s I taught it because I felt like it did such a good job of being a novel, and that anyone as a creative writer could take a lot of lessons from it in terms of setting the scene and in terms of the characters and their journeys. And the way that events had happened in the beginning of the book are connected to the end, how it all wraps up in the end. Yeah, that’s City of Thieves by David Benioff, but if there’s only some like cannibalism off screen, and you didn’t want to go wandering around alone, if you didn’t want to end up in someone’s stewpot. And you probably shouldn’t buy meat at the market these days.

A: But it’s, it’s nice to have a bit of scene setting cannibalism, because I know, we’re coming back to me on my morality, black and white. But if it’s something that’s happening out of necessity, and something that is part of a background character’s life, that grounds what is quite often difficult to envisage a situation into something that is just very ordinary. 

L: Yeah, yeah. It reminds me a little bit about what you had to say about I think one of the mediaeval famines where people kept on looking for it to be some sort of Christian metaphor or something like that. How you also see that in discussions of homosexuality in the past, how people look for any sort of metaphor, rather than No, no, they were sleeping together and kissing each other a lot. No, no, people were starving and eating each other and out of necessity. It’s not a metaphor for Christianity and Christ’s body, it’s just what happens.

C: But what does it really mean?

A: And this is where we’ll drop the reference to one of our favourite articles, Lovers of human flesh, homosexuality, and cannibalism and Melville’s works.

L: Oh, my goodness, yes. Now I remember you mentioning it.

A: Brings everything beautifully full circle.

L: And they were on a ship and Victorian era men doing well. Maybe not quite Victorian era but nineteenth century men being where they shouldn’t. That was reminding me about how you introduce me to the term ‘gastronomic incest’, which I do not get a chance to use very often, but well, I guess those women in the siege of Samaria swapped their sons so that they would not have to commit gastronomic incest.

A: Once you start looking for it [Laughs] there’s an excuse to say gastronomic incest everywhere. We did decide against putting gastronomical incest on any of our merch.

[Laughs]

L: That would be a tough t-shirt slash mug to explain to people. I think they also might have come to your attention because I was very upset about the Raft of the Medusa and how quickly they went to cannibalism. 

C: Yes. 

L: And so one of the interesting things about all these stories, I think, is who gets there faster or not and in The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown, which is about the Donner party, which is is one of my favourite recent books I’ve read about an incident of survival cannibalism, he really goes into how they resorted to cannibalism rather quickly on their journey, like five days after leaving their camp or something like that. But there’s good reasons because they not only felt like they wanted to survive for themselves, but they were a rescue party. 

C: Hmm.

L: And so other people’s lives were depending on them. So they went to cannibalism rather quickly in order to give themselves the energy they needed to bring help to others. I thought that was interesting the Raft of the Medusa. It’s longer ago. We have less sources about it, but it seems like they were just real drunk. 

C: Yeah.

[Laughs]

Well, I mean, the best one is the 99.9%. Not true, but still reported. Elizabeth Rashleigh where they still have potatoes on board, but immediately just go straight for the member of the crew. It is almost certainly not the case. But everyone just loves it as an account so much that it becomes the Elizabeth Rashleigh, the potato boat. 

L: Well, as someone who’s given the subject quite a bit of thought, I think I would think of cannibalism early and be prepared. But I’ve also put myself forward as a cannibalism etiquette opinion haver and three days is too soon. If you have potatoes, it’s too soon. And granted on Yom Kippur war, I fast for like 23 hours and would eat anything at the end of 23 hours. [Laughter] I haven’t yet you know, I like to think that I would have a little more restraints.

C: I mean, it’s easy to judge from the safety of our own homes…

[Laughs]

L: And they were really drunk on the Raft of the Medusa, just so drunk.

[Laughs]

A: The average is 10 days. So, starvation rations all the way that’s fine. After the end of starvation rations, it’s normally about 10 days of eating nothing by the time the decision is made, whether that decision is vocalised, or acted on, it’s 10 days of starvation, when you’re malnourished, and then, then you’ll know.

L: And I also I wonder how much it has to do with whether you have a body sitting around also, because if you have to decide to murder someone to feed yourself, that’s a different calculus than if there’s already a dead body there.

C: Eyeing them up, is it? Is it time?

L: I can safely say it would take me less than 10 days, there was just a dead body. I will I will admit to that I’m get hungry very easily. And they’re just going bad.

C: I mean, there’s always the one that frustrates Alix, if you’re on a boat, why don’t you just fish with them?

L: This is true. Yeah. 

A: Or at least go halfsies, you’re not going to eat the hands, you’re not going to eat the head, you’re not going to eat the feet. You know what will sharks.

L: Yeah, you may as well try. 

A: If you’ve got the ability to cut up a body, you have the ability to at least attempt to stab a shark.

[Laughs]

A: As the common saying goes. 

[Laughs]

A: So God bless the Peggy who actually fished for their survival. {L: Indeed] She tried.

C: I think perhaps bringing it back to stories and fiction, it might be a slightly less exciting narrative to then just have months of people fishing on a boats? But maybe not. That not what Moby Dick is?

[Laughs]

A: And that’s a classic. 

L: You could always not be able to catch enough fish. 

C: That’s true. 

A: Or you’re at first successful and then someone does the classic drink seawater goes mad and throws fishing rod the board. 

C: Yeah that does happen.

L: Yes, indeed. In fact, I say as a reader of fiction, I think I would be disappointed if they didn’t try even though we have many examples of people not trying. But then I think I always like to make my characters a little more rational than people are in real life. 

C: Yeah, the reader is going to be asking, why aren’t they fishing first?

A: The reader just being Alix screaming the book, ‘Don’t you know about the Peggy?’ 

[Laughter]

A: Although that sorry, it’s just sort of occurred to me. Thinking- Especially with the examples that you’ve been bringing up Linnea and the ones that I know of, they will tend to be land based the historical retellings of true survival cannibalism cases, I’m struggling to think of a maritime one. 

C: I mean, The Terror-

A: That’s ice.

C: Yeah, there on a ship, but it’s not. They’re walking-

L: And they’re on Prince William Island. By the time the worst of the cannibalism was going down. But I guess that I appreciate how you divided up things between land, water and ice being the different places that you can be forced into survival cannibalism.

C: There’s one that I can recommend at sea, which I don’t think is based on a real story, but I need to look up the author…

L: I was just thinking of the Life of Pi.

A: Life of Pi is famously a cannibalism allegory. 

L: Yeah. So I feel like it goes in for some more criticism than it deserves and or at least criticism I don’t that comes from the perspective I don’t understand like people consider it in the same breath with like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which like they’re both allegories, but one’s an allegory for survival cannibalism and surviving against someone who really plans to eat you and the other one is an allegory for like, being your truest, best self. This [laughs] is somewhat different than focus.

C: The one that I was going to recommend is Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. So I don’t think this is based on a true example, but informed by them. And that is a boat-based survival cannibalism case. But that’s a waiting for your friend to die so you can eat him situation. 

L: Hmm. I have not even heard of that. I’ll have to add that to my TBR list.

C: I don’t think they tried to fish though. It was a while ago that I read it, so, disappointing.

L: So much of the- these disasters, like there’s hubris involved, but there’s also quite bad luck, like the Franklin Expedition encountered the, you know, a few of the worst winters that had happened in that part of the world in decades. 

C: Yeah. 

L: And, and so that’s, I think part of the problem for the fiction writer is, if the things that are happening, and I think I keep coming back to this, but if the things that are happening, that that get them to that situation are just bad luck, it can be not that satisfying for a reader, it has to be their fault for it to be satisfying for the reader.

C: They sort of deserved the bad luck because of something they’ve done or because of the choices they’ve made. 

L: Or at least there’s like a cause and effect. And not just that, like, as happens all the time in real life stories that like a bear carried off their food or whatever. Do you at least have to see them being-

A: ‘We don’t need to have a watch for bears.’ 

L: Right, right.

A: ‘We know the area, we know that there are no bears around here.’ ‘But haven’t there been records of bears by the indigenous population?’ [Laughs] ‘No. What do they know? There are no bears?’

L: Right, right. 

A: The only one that I have on my TBR pile I am notoriously not a big fiction reader. I’m a big nonfiction reader. But the only cannibalism book that I have on my TBR in terms of fiction is Tender Is The Flesh. 

C: Ah, yes. 

A: Is it survival cannibalism, or is it just heavy?

C: I don’t know whether you’re familiar with this one. Linnea. 

L: I’ve heard of it. But I haven’t read it. 

C: So speculative fiction in a future where I can’t remember why. But for some reason, all meat is inedible. Apart from human meat so there’s got to be human meat farms. But I mean, my point I hope the author isn’t listening, but I couldn’t get through it, because I kept going ‘well, I know that there’s a lot of other options for things to eat that aren’t meat based’. No. I just don’t think that the first the first thought would be human farms, human farms, it would be better up our peanut production.

A: Like Beyond Burgers are quite good these days.

L: Yeah, I’m not a vegetarian, but if the option we’re only human flesh or being a vegetarian, like I like portobello mushrooms, it would be fine. 

A: Yeah, yeah, I’m like, as long as we can manufacture some form of cheese. I’m happy. 

L: It’d be hard to do without cheese.

C: I didn’t think it was the old animals with dead I think it was just that we couldn’t eat them. 

L: And to any question about whether that survival cannibalism, I wrote a very weird theory that the reason there was so much human sacrifice in the Aztec culture is because there weren’t any large animals to eat in the area. And so people were getting their nutrients from eating human flesh. But that seems very specious reasoning they had they had capybaras and alpacas and things like that and-

C: Yeah, is there much basis for that one?

L: No and well, I think that there would and also, there’s one of the interesting things about the historical cases of cannibalism is there’s pretty strong signs when a when a body has been cannibalised. There, it leaves very distinctive markings on the bones. 

C: Definitely. 

L: As I think as you pointed out, in your episode on prehistoric cannibalism.

C: There’s a lot of ways to tell whether a body has been eaten.

A: By today, I would say that if we’re coming across human remains that have signs of cannibalism we’re more inclined to talk about it, especially the more historical they are. 

L: Yeah.

A: I think it’s that distance that comes into how willing we are to say, yeah, these people definitely did some cannibalism.

L: That’s probably true. 

C: Yeah. 

L: I have one more book I wanted to mention, which is Ice Ghosts by Paul Watson, which is nonfiction book about the search for the Franklin Expedition. 

C: Hmm.

L: And well, it’s kind of only mentions cannibalism in terms of the stories that the Inuit were telling and the histories they were telling about what happened to the Franklin Expedition, I have to imagine that the overlap of people interested in the Franklin Expedition, and people who listened to the podcast is a circle. 

C: Yes!

L: I have to recommend it, because it’s so fascinating how they did eventually find it and how vital the Inuit testimony was to finding both ships and it really kind of puts a button on that story in an interesting way. So I really recommend it.

A: I think Franklin is just so fascinating, because it does have this true beginning, middle and end. And so it would be been a mystery for so long, that has actually finally been uncovered and wrapped up. But there’s still just enough that we don’t know.

L: And it’s so recent that I’m really hoping for some beautiful coffee table book of photographs from the from the the diving that they will have done around the ships and things like that. I’m sure if something like that hasn’t come out already something like that is in the offing. Those of us who, like polar exploration and people dying horribly in the Northern waste, pay handsomely for beautiful books about it.

A: Take a look, and Google for the museum exhibition images of Erebus’s bell. Beautiful.

L: Yeah .And the cold waters preserve everything so well, too. Yeah. So I think I’ve covered the things that I wanted to mention. And again, I really appreciate you letting me come on as more of a fan than a an expert in any way, except for hopefully an expert in making my eventual novel about cannibalism be satisfying for readers who are interested in cannibalism, and those for whom there it might not be the reason they pick up the book.

A: It might not be to their taste?

L: Ahh.

[Laughs]

C: Before Alix makes any more puns. I’m going to bring us to a close there. Thank you so much for joining us on Linnea and for sharing those recommendations which I’m sure our audience will love delivering further into. Did you have anything that you’d like to plug obviously there’s your trilogy starting with the Half-Drowned King. Was there anything else that you’d like to point our audience towards, though, whilst we have you here?

L: I think the only thing I plug is is my trilogy of um of Viking novels there. There’s no cannibalism in them, as I said, but they’re pretty violent, and-

[Laughs]

A: We’ll take that!

L: And yeah, I think the Vikings probably, whenever they just like every other human in the history of the world when they were in a survival situation, would have practiced cannibalism but I did not put them in that situation so…

A: It’s happening off-screen.

L: Yes.

C: Go read some books. That’s the message of this episode.

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for listening to today’s episode, featuring Ally Wilkes and Linnea Hartsuyker. Next time, we’ll be speaking to an author of speculative fiction, and a podcast duo who love a disaster.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Ally: One of my author friends who I introduced to the podcast – like, in my sort of circle of people who’ve already been published, were all very sort of like sanguine about ‘oh yeah, your book is out, blah blah blah’ – the one thing that I’m doing that she is, like, continually really excited by is ‘so you’re going on Casting Lots?’ Like, that’s–

[Carmella and Alix laugh]

Ally: That’s like her sort of ‘Oh my God, you rockstar!’ moment.

[Carmella cackles]

Ally: And I’m like ‘yep! Yep!’

A: You’ve made your debt, you’ve made your Casting Lots debut.

Ally: I know! Who amongst the horror writing community can say the same?

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

One historian and six podcasters walk into a bar… This week, we’re chatting corpse medicine, recipe recommendations and penny dreadfuls with academic Richard Sugg, Ric and Anton of the Curiosity of a Child podcast, and Teddy and Catriona of the Grave History podcast.

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CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Richard Sugg, Curiosity of a Child’s Ric and Anton, and Grave History’s Teddy and Catriona.

Richard Sugg can be found on Twitter as @DrSugg and on Instagram as @drrichardsugg. Read more about corpse medicine in his book Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires, third edition (self published, 2020): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mummies-Cannibals-Vampires-History-Medicine/dp/B08DSZ2ZXX/. Or try Richard’s books for children, Our Week with the Juffle Hunters (self published, 2019): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Week-Juffle-Hunters-Richard-Sugg/dp/1086958969/ and Ride Your Horse Through the Chocolate Sauce (self published, 2020): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ride-Horse-Through-Chocolate-Sauce/dp/B08QRB3DKY/.

The Curiosity of a Child podcast can be found online at curiosityofachild.com, or on Twitter and Instagram as @curichildpod. Not sure where to start? Try their episode on ‘Corpse Medicine: From mummies to brains to mellified man’ (31 October 2020): https://curiosityofachild.com/episodes/halloween-special-corpse-medicine.

The Grave History Podcast can be found on Twitter as @GraveHistoryPod and Instagram as @gravehistorypodcast. For more on penny dreadfuls, try their episode ‘Dreadful and Nasty’ (5 April 2020): https://soundcloud.com/gravehistorypodcast/10-dreadful-and-nasty, or get your gross on with ‘You Know Cholera, John Snow’ (5 September 2020): https://soundcloud.com/gravehistorypodcast/15-you-know-cholera-john-snow. 

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Welcome to Episode Three. This time, we are joined by historian Richard Sugg, Ric and Anton from The Curiosity of a Child podcast, and Teddy and Catriona from the Grave History podcast.

[Intro music continues]

C: Thanks for joining us today, Richard.

Richard: Yeah, thanks for the invitation, it’s great to be talking about this disgusting and appalling subject again.

C: Would you like to tell us a little bit about who you are to get us started, please?

R: I’m Richard Sugg. I’ve lectured in English literature and Cultural History at the Universities of Cardiff and Durham between 2001 and 2017. I’ve written 13 books and the most popular, perhaps, are Fairies: A Dangerous History and Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires. I’m also working on a fairly marginal and taboo subject again for a new book, which is perhaps going to be the first of three on disgust. The first one coming up is disgusting entertainment, with everything from people in bars betting they can eat a live rat, through to the the Bullingdon Club and – after the people who made their own disgusting entertainment – consuming disgusting entertainment on television and film, going right up to Fleabag, Succession and anything disgusting that comes out in the next few months.

C: I think ‘disgusting entertainment’ perfectly describes this podcast as well, so amazing. We’d love to start by hearing about some of the incidents of cannibalism that you’ve come across in your work. I know that you specialise in medical cannibalism, and there’s also famine cannibalism. Did you have any good stories that you’d like to start us off with?

A: You don’t really want to say ‘any particular favourites’, given the topic, but considering it’s us… any particular favourites?

R: Yes, I have got hardened to this topic, and I am capable of talking about my favourite instances of famine cannibalism. I was in a car with a parent and a child the other day on a trip away, and had to be reminded that the little one of age eight in the back perhaps didn’t want to listen to the story of the shipwreck in 1826–

[Carmella giggles]

R: When people started eating and drinking each other, so you can get rather over-familiar with your subject. But I’ll start by sketching out the big picture here really, which is Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires I felt had to be written for various reasons, and one was that the cannibals we’d forgotten about, the Christians in Europe were busy eating, drinking, processing, selling, shipping one another for medicine, just as they were denouncing the cannibals of the New World as the scum of the Earth, slaughtering them in the process in many cases, and taking over their land in North and South America.

So what was going on in terms of medicinal cannibalism in the 17th century was going on from the Middle Ages to some degree until the time of Dr Johnson, but it hit its peak probably, late 17th century, Charles II, Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, and into the 18th century. And this is important, because people seem to get the idea that it’s Medieval, in the sense perhaps of Quentin Tarantino that it’s so disgusting it must be Medieval – they’d really only barely got started in the Medieval period! So the 17th century, something we’re not usually taught about the first three Stuart kings is this: James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine at his execution.

So, with this going on, the instances of famine cannibalism that are definitely not my favourite, but ones that are notable: 1316, fairly standard English famine perhaps caused by bad weather, insecurity of some kind, saw people in a jail being thrown into the jail with starving inmates, and the newcomers being eaten half alive by those within the prison. We get down then to the wars of religion in Europe, and 1594 is an interesting one with Paris besieged. Things get so desperate that there’s actually a kind of official famine cannibalism, when the authorities give permission for bread to be made from bones in, I think, it’s the charnel house of the Innocentes. And this is available by some point in the summer, and allegedly people die of eating it.

C: Doesn’t sound like it would make nice bread…

R: It’s surprising what they made bread out of, as we’ll see in a few moments in another context, when we brandish the phrase ‘worse things happen at sea’.

[Carmella snorts]

R: But yeah, in Germany in 1636, one of countless stories we hear of a woman abducting two children, luring them into her house during a famine, caused of course by the wars of religion raging across the continent. And the two children, both quite young, between about six and eleven, are eaten by her and her neighbour after they’ve been killed. The most memorable incident in the catalogue of famine cannibalism that I detailed was a character called Jean de Léry, an interesting anthropologist, I suppose you’d call him, who spent some time out in the New World with the Tupinamba, who were a cannibal tribe, and it seems that, fortunately for de Léry, the cannibals, like academics and the Mafia, only kill their own.

[Alix and Carmella snort]

R: And he survived his time, came back to France, and perhaps started wishing quite quickly that he was back with the cannibals of the New World, because he returned to the devastation after the siege of Siege of Sancerre. It’s referenced in quite a lot of literature from the period as being particularly severe. And there was a case where a couple of parents and the grandparent of a child were now looking at their dead child, who’d simply died of famine dehydration, and the grandmother persuaded the parents to cook the child and eat them. De Léry was actually confronted with this visually, not just the news of it, and his own body made a kind of spontaneous, memorable decision on European ‘civilisation’ and he vomited at the sight, having I think kept his stomach contents in throughout his time with the cannibals in the New World.

So this really sums up, I think, the hypocrisy of European Christians who are in a routine way producing cannibal medicine for over 200 years, making a good deal of money out of it and doing it in a ‘scientific’ way, and of course arguing, explicitly or implicitly, that it’s okay. They don’t bother to defend it many times, actually, but when you kind of dig a little bit against the grain of what they’re saying, the idea seems to be that there’s raw cannibalism, which is for nasty cannibals who don’t wear many clothes, don’t have books and cities etc., and then there’s the cooked version, and the cooked version is it’s cooked by science so that it’s got this kind of shield of technology if you like, and processing around it, which somehow makes it better. But of course there’s nothing rawer than famine cannibalism. It’s the result of total societal breakdown and utter blinding hatred – the degree of hatred between the Protestants and Catholics probably familiar to any historian of religion of the period, but just to bring it home, we’ve got people who are actually eating each other in actually slightly ritualised ways in one case in Sancerre, or in just horrible spontaneous ways. Roasting someone on a spit during slaughters.

C: Do you think there’s a sense there of, not self-projection, but a self-defence of rationalising your own form of cannibalism by saying ‘oh, our cannibalism is scientific, or we do it in a state of famine. It’s not like those cannibals who are real cannibals and evil because theirs is religious or ritualistic.’ A sort of–

R: A sort of misdirection, I guess?

C: Yeah, exactly.

R: Yeah. Yeah, I think there is. Of course, it’s different for the Protestants and the Catholics. The Catholics are always getting fired up at the charge that they are cannibals.

C: [In agreement] Mmm.

R: Because they eat and drink their God, and it’s pretty hard to avoid that if you insist and keep saying ‘no it’s not a metaphor, we really do it.’ Well, yep, you’re cannibals and vampires. But it’s different for the two of them, but I think both are doing it, and there’s layers and layers really of irrational incredulity, if you like, and irrational hostility toward the New World. One of them being that it simply should not exist, because it’s apparently not in the Bible! This is something very basic and that’s really been forgotten a lot of the time: they spent a tremendous amount of time trying to explain how Noah got all his guys and the animals over there, and all sort of animals that, you know, you don’t have in Europe. So this bothered them to a surprising degree.

But yeah, the hypocrisy is titanic really, and if anything points it up as well – or better than – the case of De Léry, in Sancerre there was another noteworthy moment in Rouen, where they brought back in a sort of well-meaning way, I think, some Tupinamba from the New World, to see [laughing] ‘civilisation’, and the Tupinamba were quickly wishing they were back home, were absolutely thunderstruck at the fact that the place was absolutely devastated again by a recent burst of the wars of religion. The reigning monarch was, I think, only twelve years old. And they also simply couldn’t get their heads around the absolutely radical, habitual social injustice that prevailed there, and stated to their hosts, ‘why do these poor, hungry people not take the rich by their throats and set fire to their houses?’ So this meeting of East and West didn’t go too well.

A: The phrase ‘eat the rich’ has been around a lot longer than we thought!

R: There’s one other, actually, in terms of social injustice again, and it’s not the typical war and famine cannibalism that we’ve been discussing. But it was Hungary in 1514. Hungary seems to have been a particularly oppressive society in Europe, even by the standards of elsewhere in the continent, or Britain, and there’d been an uprising against the nobles and the injustice in the country, in 1514. It was put down savagely, to say the least, and the leader, György Dózsa was executed in this manner: he had his followers jailed near him, they were kept starving, I think without any food, perhaps without any water whatsoever, for maybe two weeks, but a considerable period of time. And Dózsa was then put on a white-hot iron throne with a white-hot iron crown. And after this, with him roasted, his followers fell on him and ate him in desperation.

A: See, this almost ties very nicely in a segue to a question that I’ve had quite a bit when we’ve been focusing not only on survival cannibalism, but the crossover between different types of cannibalism, as in where do the boundaries lie? Thinking that the argument can be made that medical cannibalism is in and of itself a form of survival cannibalism. Social cannibalism, in that instance, while it’s definitely got political and ritualistic leanings, I think it’s fair to say there is an argument that at its heart, a lot of these instances are about survival, even if they’re not all exclusively on the life and death situations that we tend to cover on the podcast.

R: Yeah, well that’s an interesting point which triggers a lot of interesting angles for looking at these questions. I suppose one thing it brings up is that your endo-cannibalism, funerary cannibalism, which survived perhaps into the 1960s in Brazil, is very emotional, very ritualistic, powerful, religious essentially. Important to those who participate in it; important to the person dying who knows they’re gonna be eaten, they want to be eaten when they die. And then you’ve got exo-cannibalism, which is ferocious but is passionate, is emotional, is about identity, and is honourable in a lot of cases. And then you’ve got medicinal cannibalism, which is kind of proto-capitalistic, I suppose really. It’s extremely impersonable, I’d say pretty dishonourable, eating execution victims, and, yeah, it’s hard-headed, it’s pragmatic, it’s profitable, so when you look at it that way, the European Christians don’t come out of it terribly well again.

C: They sort of create a commodity of body parts, with the import of mummies, or, like you said, the creation of mummy out of executed criminals.

R: Absolutely. I mean, that ‘commodity’ is the perfect word for it, because they didn’t talk about ‘mummies’ – which would imply people, or even artefacts – they talked about ‘mummy’. You almost always heard it in the phrase ‘mummy’, in the way you’d hear ‘cheese’ or ‘milk’, you know, it’s some of a commodity, and that was all that mattered to them. The most unforgettable to me, I suppose, moment in a pretty roller-coaster research ride was the question of Ireland and all of the skulls with moss on them from an unburied body, these were rolling into England by ship for a long time, from perhaps the 1560s, but they were still doing so, it seems, around the 1750s, and until about 1780 – so into the era of George III – there was a tax. There was an important tax on human skulls.

C: Wow.

R: You don’t get much more commodified than that.

C: ‘Nothing is certain apart from death and taxes’. And taxes upon dead bodies.

R: [Laughs] Yeah, that’s a new way of looking at the old phrase, yeah.

A: That’s one of the things that comes up quite a lot in all of our research, there’s a lot of focus on what is being consumed isn’t ‘human’ – you have the disregarding of head, hands, fingers, particularly human organs and elements. And then you have, in contrast, these recipes for medicinal cannibalism, that is– It is like you’re ordering something from a shop, because you need some powdered skull, and I don’t know whether that separation between physically handling a body to survive and, one would assume, being able to order. That difference there between how immediate the body is.

R: No fellow Britons, as it were, were more radically dehumanised than the Irish. It’s absolutely extraordinary and really they certainly treated the tribes of the New World sometimes with much more respect and humanity, actually, than they did the Irish. You have Humphrey Gilbert in the field in the 1560s knighted for his pains in war crimes, slaughtering everybody on the basis that no women or children could shelter or feed the supposed rebels, whose country Gilbert was actually in, and anyone who dared supplicate to him in the field, coming up to his tent, would have to walk through a strange kind of rockery path which was made out in parallel two rows of human heads cut off that day. And it goes on and on, I mean it runs down right to the famine, where you’ve simply got a million or more people dying in a country from which England are forcing exports of grain. You have people dying in a condition of just unimaginable suffering and famine.

A: It was actually something that we ended up cutting out of our episode on the Irish famine, because we didn’t actually believe our own research until we double-checked it, but it was only last year that the Irish population returned to pre-famine levels.

R: That’s fascinating, I didn’t know that. Yeah, of course, with a huge amount of emigration as well as the deaths, yeah.

A: It just seems so unbelievable that we’ve got to have got something wrong, but no those are the genuine numbers. And I think the impact of the English in Ireland is often very understated. This has turned away from cannibalism a little!

R: Enough cannibalism, I think, let’s talk about famine vampirism instead, perhaps?

C: Yes please! We’ve done the mummies, we’ve done the cannibals; onto the vampires, please.

R: Okay, so throughout the 19th century, I don’t know if anyone’s seen or read the drama by Golding, To the Ends of the Earth – it’s a terrific thing if not – and it’s about sailing to Australia, and it really does ram into your skull the actual meaning of what now seems a very loose, idle phrase: ‘worse things happen at sea’. So an immense number of people, of course, were at the mercy of the seas in the 19th century. And a ship called the HMS Blonde, people surviving in desperate conditions in 1826, I think it was the Sandwich Islands or thereabouts, and presently they start to butcher those who die naturally – they’re not killing them as far as we know – and they butcher them, drink the blood, and the vampire ethics of the ship get interesting. At one point, a woman called Anne Saunders is particularly adept at butchering up corpses, particularly fearless, and she has a knife with her all the time. And she gets – a touch of romance here, you’ll be relieved to hear – she gets affianced to a chap called Games Friar during the voyage. I suppose there’s not much to do at sea for all those weeks. And he dies unfortunately, and there is a tussle over his (let’s hope) dead body, between Saunders and I think a mate of the ship called Clarke. And Saunders overcomes Clarke, ceases the cup for the blood as the throat is cut, and drinks two cups of Friar’s blood, to the one allowed to Clarke, on the basis that he was her fiancé, so she has got the greater right to the goods.

C: She gets dibs. So this vampirism at sea, which sounds like – I think is – a YA book series actually, of Vampirates – I was also, when I was reading your book earlier, the Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires, really struck by the case of Pope Innocent VIII.

R: [In recognition] Mmm.

C: Because you don’t think of Popes as being vampires! I wondered if you could quickly go over that story as well, because I don’t think Alix has heard it.

A: I wasn’t allowed to read it.

R: No, with pleasure. So Innocent VIII was dying in 1492, and the story goes – it’s not the securest story in terms of authenticity in the book – but it goes that he had his physician bleed three healthy youths with the promise of a ducat a piece. Presumably they thought they were going to lose a couple of pints of blood, which in the period wouldn’t be such a big deal. And they were bled until they died. Innocent was given this blood to drink. From what we know actually of blood toxicity, iron toxicity, in smaller quantities than that, it could have just finished him off. Whether he should have lived on this vampire diet, of course, only God – and probably a Catholic God – can say. But yeah, some people attributed the story to his detractors, of whom he perhaps rightly had quite a few. But it would not be really the bottom of the league table for papal ethics, if you know anything about the Renaissance papacy; it was far from the worst thing they’d ever done.

A: But the fact that that is coming from the head of the Catholic Church honestly, potentially, allegedly, believing that to drink the blood of children–

R: Yeah. What can you say? I think really there seems to be an unofficial competition to be the biggest bastard in history between various of the Renaissance popes, you know. Alexander is supposed to have committed his first murder before he was twelve. At least one of them was supposed to have caught syphilis, which doesn’t quite go with your strict Catholic ethics. And so on; you could go on all night, really.

C: So in the grand scheme of things, drinking the blood of three people isn’t actually the worst?

R: No, I suppose it shows you how desperate the physician was to try and rescue the Pope. Quite important to do it for your career. But as far as we know, the problem with being a Renaissance pope is if you did anything too decent and too humane, you usually ended up getting murdered.

[Carmella snorts]

R: For your pains. Adrian IV was the ‘accidental Pope’. A kind of comical business where two factions of cardinals got get up with a stalemate and both voted for this guy who no one had ever heard of, who wakes up one morning and finds he’s the damn Pope, and decides to clean up shop and allegedly is poisoned in a matter of a few months from interfering with business.

A: Now that one sounds like a rather strange YA novel.

[Carmella chuckles]

R: [Agreeing] Hmm it’d be a good one, actually. I mean, depends if parents think that twelve-year-olds should read this sort of stuff…

C: Well, thank you so much for joining us, and for that horrific tour through the history of various forms of cannibalism. Did you have any upcoming projects or work that you’d like our audience to know about, before we let you go?

R: One is just that do buy the new edition of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires if you want it. Don’t buy the old one, because they’re much more expensive and this is up to date, so the black cover, white lettering: you get much more horror for much less money. I have actually also written fiction. It’s probably not the best thing to advertise in this context, but I’ve written two children’s books, which I think are terrific fun, and both are kind of eco parables, so they are timely, I suppose. Our Week with the Juffle Hunters is one, and Ride Your Horse Through the Chocolate Sauce is the more recent one. Lots of adventure, lots of fun, some thrills, but no cannibalism, no vampires. Unless you count the evil Tory that is involved in the second book…

C: I think we do! Wonderful, we’ll put links to those in the show notes for people who want to investigate further.

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

A: When you listen to a podcast, you start to develop a bit of a parasocial relationship with people. You, like, think the people in your podcast recording are actually your friends.

C: And we are obviously the friends of everyone who listens to Casting Lots, that’s true.

A: I mean, that is how it works. And that’s definitely how it works with our next guests, who I just decided one day were my friends, and now they are my friends! So I’d like to welcome, from Curiosity of a Child, Ric and Anton. So if you’d like to tell us a little about yourselves and your feelings on cannibalism?

Ric: Hello! Yes, I’m Ric, and I’m with my son–

Anton: Anton.

R: Who is eleven. Are you eleven?

Anton: No.

R: No, you’re twelve now! That’s embarrassing.

[Carmella laughs]

R: Yeah, so we’re from the Curiosity of a Child podcast, which is a history and science podcast, but we also like to do some recreations and things. And we’re big Casting Lots fans, too. Now, cannibalism’s an interesting one, isn’t it, Anton? Because we did an episode on corpse medicine where we actually recreated some of the traditional recipes, like where they would do a tincture from bone and blood and moss from skulls and things, and human brain and mellified man. So I think that’s probably why we’ve never been invited along today. We’re no experts in cannibalism; I’m sure you’ve had guests on who know more than we do.

C: From the sounds of it… not as many with this kind of practical, scientific level of experience!

R: Well, I think with history, you’ve got to live it. I mean, we may not have used real humans… But I’m gonna leave that for you to decide.

[Laughter]

C: That was gonna be my next question, actually: presumably not with human remains?

R: No. [Laughs unconvincingly]

A: There’s an area of doubt there, you know, any legal concerns – can neither confirm nor deny.

R: Exactly. It’s a grey area. We’re based in Guernsey, and I don’t know what the cannibalism laws are here, because I know in Japan, there are no cannibalism laws. Because I’ve got an interesting story, actually, about a Japanese man–

A: I think I know what this might be…

R: Yes, so he’s a Japanese illustrator, Mao Sugiyama, and he’s an illustrator and artist. And in 2012, he put out a Tweet saying that – he’s asexual – so he was claiming that he’d had his genitalia removed, and he put out a Tweet asking people if they would like to come to a banquet where they would get to eat said pieces of removed anatomy. So, six people signed up and they paid about $250 each.

A: Not very much!

C: That’s cheap…

R: Yeah, but I don’t think you’re getting much meat there.

[Alix laughs]

R: Between six people.

C: That’s true!

R: Only five people turned up, though; there was one no-show.

[Carmella scoffs in disgust]

R: And then he cooked his testicles and his penis. But some of the diners, they described it as rather ‘rubbery’ – the texture – and very bland. And there was another guy, he said that, “The chef didn’t cook it right. What a waste of a perfectly good penis.”

Anton: [Quietly] Disgusting.

R: “Penis is pretty tough, and needs to be slow-cooked.” [Giggles]

A: How does he know?!

R: I don’t know. I’m guessing maybe from other animals.

A: It’s a bit different from the Redditor who had his leg amputated after a motorbike crash, and then had tacos.

R: Yeah, we saw that one as well. I’m not quite sure of if I’d like to do that myself. There’s something about eating people which, I don’t know, it’s a bit of a line to cross.

A: We tend not to be interested when people are just doing it for fun.

C: Yeah, we take a stance here at Casting Lots that wait until it’s your only option. [Laughs]

R: I think that’s probably sensible.

A: And then suddenly it will be much more a banquet than you could ever anticipate.

C: On the subject of ways to cook human flesh, and recipes, I believe Alix has thrown out a challenge to you two?

A: Inspired by your corpse medicine episode–

R: [Following along] Mmhmm.

A: I did want to see what culinary delights you could come up with when it came to the various descriptions of survival cannibalism.

R: Well, we’ve actually gone and cooked a full banquet which we have here with us to recreate this.

[Carmella and Alix laugh]

R: Hopefully you can see the axe, because we need to start with an arm.

Anton: Yep.

R: So Anton, can you do the honours please?

Anton: Ow! That’s my arm.

[Ric laughs]

C: Great sound effects!

R: Yeah, so we’ve got an arm here. It’s difficult to get reliable descriptions actually, I think, of what people taste like, because there’s so many different things. Pork seems to be the most common.

A: Long pig, the classic.

R: Yes. But then some people also say veal. I think with humans, there’s a lot of myoglobin in there, and then that’s what kind of binds the– or helps the blood and the oxygen go into the blood. That’s what gives meat its red colour. And it’s about 2% in human flesh, so beef is only about 0.8%, and then pork is 0.2%. So that’s what’s gonna give the colour. So human is gonna be a really, really red meat, even though people call it ‘the other white meat’ – because I think when you cook it, it goes a little bit greyer. And then maybe if you’ve got a survival cannibalism situation, you’re not gonna be butchering the meat properly, so you’re not gonna be draining the meat out of it either, so it’s going to be even redder and you’re going to get all that blood flavour there. Do you want to try some arm, Anton?

Anton: Yep. It feels weird eating my own arm hair.

[Laughter]

A: So what is our human arm made of slash taste like?

Anton: Tastes okay. Like pig. What’s it made of?

R: Made of pancetta. So William Seabrook, he was a journalist for the New York Times, and he gave one of the best accounts, supposedly, of how human flesh tastes. He said: “It was so nearly like good, fully-developed veal, that I think no person with a palette of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal. Mild, good meat, with no other sharply defined or highly characteristic taste, such as for instance goat, high game and pork. The steak was slightly tougher than prime veal, a little stringy, but not too tough and stringy, and agreeably edible. The roast from which I cut and ate a central slice was tender in colour and texture, as well as taste.” But there are doubts over whether this is a valid quote or not, because apparently the people who he was with, they didn’t really trust him. So it’s probably that he made it up, and, as I said, most things seem to be pork where the taste is coming from.

C: They just fed him some veal and were like ‘yeah that’s human’.

R: Yeah, exactly, yeah.

A: Though it does seem to be that human can be quite a good base meat, if it has these properties. You know, it can be anything from chicken to veal to– I think my favourite is ‘cream milk’.

[Ric laughs]

A: Which I think we decided was just him being absolutely sick of being asked what human tasted like.

R: [Agreeing] Mmhmm.

A: You’re like, ‘Yeah, it tasted like milk.’

R: I’m not sure about that myself.

C: I think we’ve heard rotten cheese?

A: That’s for brains.

C: That’s brains… Okay.

A: Brains taste like rotten cheese. Like sort of cottage cheese, apparently.

C: Oh, the texture!

A: I don’t like the idea of the texture. For some reason, the texture of brains is more viscerally unpleasant than just the idea of having, like, a human burger.

[Ric and Anton laugh]

R: Yeah.

Anton: What does rotten flesh taste like?

A: Quite sweet.

C: I think that in most of the accounts of survival cannibalism we’ve had – not all of them – but in a large proportion, the flesh has not been at prime freshness by the time it’s been consumed. [Laughs]

R: No. That’s one thing I’ve wondered, as well, is does people’s diet influence how people taste? Because if you think, you go to the supermarket and there’ll be chicken and it’ll be ‘Oh, it’s fed on corn’ or it’s a free-range chicken, and they’re trying to do that as obviously the well-being of the chicken, and also it’s going to be more succulent and tasty. So is that the same with people and our diets? Particularly if people are malnourished before they are cannibalised, then that’s got to influence the flavour too.

Anton: Also in the corpse medicine episode, we had mellified man, which is where they were fed with honey, so that changed the taste of them, apparently.

R: Yeah, so this was– I don’t know if it’s true or not, but this was one of the old Chinese medical books, and one of the recipes, the author, he said it came from Arabia, and he wanted actually any readers to validate whether this was a true recipe or not. So they’d take an old man, coming into, like, the later years of his life, and they would just feed him honey. That’s all he would eat until he died. And then they would seal him up in a stone coffin with more honey, so he’d be infused, and then they would leave him in there for I think it was up to several years, and I guess the honey would crystallise a bit as well, and then they would slice his body. So it’s not exactly survival cannibalism, it’s more of a tasty little snack for the afternoon or something, or the evening.

Anton: You said the honey would crystallise as well there, does that mean you’d have a crunchy snack as well?

C: Candied human…

R: Yeah, it could be quite nice.

[Anton laughs uncomfortable]

A: I mean, I don’t remember Mary Berry doing that one in her latest Christmas recipe book… But surely it was a question of needing someone to confirm if the recipe was real? I’m like, the recipe’s real… Whether or not it was ever, you know, cooked is another matter. But we can make any recipe within, you know–

R: [Agreeing] Mmhmm.

A: The constraints of our imagination. It’s just whether we have the confidence–

[Carmella laughs]

A: And legal defence to put it together and trial it out.

C: When you cook snails to eat, you’re meant to feed them on just garlic milk for a few days to clean out their systems and make them all garlicy, and so I wonder if that might, you know, help with the issue of the meat not being very flavourful, if you fed your victim a lot of garlic beforehand…

R: ‘Your victim’!

[Ric and Anton laugh]

A: See, we are just slowly walking away from the survival aspect here!

R: Yeah, we’ve gotta be careful what ground we go onto here.

C: Yes, I think maybe you don’t care so much what it tastes like when it’s your only option [Laughs].

R: No. But then you’d also have– if you’re doing your survival cannibalism, you’re also gonna try and find some things to flavour it. So this was a little bit inspired some of your stories, so maybe we’d have, like, dandelions or something that people had picked, because you kind of want to maybe, if you’re eating people, you wanna–

Anton: Season them.

R: You want to add something else to it.

A: Salad.

C: Balanced meal.

R: Salad, exactly.

Anton: Diverse diet.

R: Looking more at maybe how we could recreate some of these in a modern way, so one of my favourite episodes, and I think yours as well, is the Medusa.

C: [Agreeing] Mmhmm.

R: It is fantastic– I mean, what is it? Three days or something, and they start?

A: [Exasperated] Three days!

C: Three.

R: I mean, that’s incredible. How people get into that kind of state of mess, I don’t know. Because you think about a lot of them, and they’re at least 100 years ago most of them, or longer ago, so back then you’re gonna have very poor communication or very slow communication, navigation is much more basic. And particularly some of the expeditions like the polar ones where, I mean they are going into the unknown, and they are away for years and they know that. So some of it’s expected that they’re going to have difficulties, I mean with the Medusa, for them to go in three days from a working ship to eating each other is insane. So I’ve made a second meal here, where I’ve got just some pork chipolatas, and I’ve done a red wine jus.

A: [Impressed] Oh!

C: [Delighted] Aaah!

A: Perfect.

R: Because they were all drunk.

[Carmella and Alix laugh]

R: And we’ve got some ship’s biscuits. And I thought they might have managed to scrounge some vegetables somewhere, so I’ve got some dandelions from the garden, and I’ve cooked their roots. So maybe going slightly from the Medusa on there, but for general survival cannibalism, you’re finding the local roots. Some carrot – which we’ll call wild carrot – and also just some greens from the garden, which I think may be a way to make an authentic kind of modern recipe.

A: To bring together all those flavours of cannibalism.

R: And also with the ship’s biscuits, I remember they said that they got soggy, didn’t they, when they took them onto the Medusa?

C: Yeah.

R: So I’ve got the ship’s biscuits here, and some seaweed. This is some local seaweed, which is really, really healthy and good for you, but have a smell, Anton…

Anton: That’s disgusting.

[Alix laughs]

R: It smells of the sea. If you could take the sea and condense it down into just its pure essence of smell, this is what it is. So do you want a go, Anton?

Anton: Not really, but…

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

C: Imagine you’re starving.

A: The thing with this podcast is it could always be worse. You could always be eating something worse.

C: What’s the verdict on that one then, guys?

R: [Strained] Oh my word.

Anton: Taste the water, it’s disgusting.

R: That’s not very pleasant. I mean, I apologise to the people who make this seaweed…

[Carmella laughs]

A: Neptune himself.

Anton: [With disgust] Ugh! No.

R: Yes that’s… pretty unpleasant. But when you’re in that survival situation.

A: Our listeners can’t see Ric and Anton’s faces, but we can confirm that they do not look like they’re having a fun time.

[Carmella laughs]

R: No, it’s not that nice. But I think if you haven’t eaten anything, then it’s gonna be– Probably gonna be delicious. Or you’re going to force yourself to eat it.

A: Well, I mean it’s the rule of three, isn’t it, for how long you can survive without? A human can survive without oxygen for three minutes; without shelter for three hours; without water for three days; and without food for three weeks.

C: [Pause] I’ve survived longer than three hours outdoors…

A: No–

[All laugh]

R: I was thinking the same!

A: Shelter from bad conditions.

C: Okay, like if I was in a blizzard.

A: Yeah, not just waiting at a bus stop.

[Carmella laughs]

Anton: Three hours?!

C: I mean, bus stops are quite bad conditions, to be fair.

A: So was that seaweed and ship’s biscuit?

R: That was, yeah. So that’s a nice little side for the main dish.

C: Well, that was you’re starter, because that’s what you eat before you get desperate enough to eat the bodies, and then when that’s out the way…

R: [Laughs] Yes.

Anton: It’s a palette cleanser, I’d say.

R: I do have a palette cleanser of the last course, don’t worry.

Anton: [Nervously] Oh no…

R: Would you like some dandelion root, Anton?

Anton: Not really.

R: You need to add to your diet.

Anton: Also disgusting.

R: Well…

Anton: That’s crunchy as well.

R: That’s roasted. [Pause] I hope it is a dandelion and not something poisonous.

Anton: [Laughing] That just tastes of burnt stuff.

A: Just something from out the garden.

C: [Laughs] Eat the mystery root, find out what happens!

R: This could be our last ever recording.

[Carmella laughs]

A: A lot of explorers did tend to do that, ‘This is definitely a foodstuff.’

C: What’s next on the menu card?

R: Well, just before we go onto our next menu course, have you heard of BiteLabs?

C: No…

R: Now, this is an interesting idea. Well, actually it’s a horrible idea, I think.

[Alix laughs]

R: Where you get to eat celebrity meat.

A: Oh, that was not what I was expecting that to be!

R: I think they’ve struggled to get any celebrities to sign up for it.

A: Can’t think why!

R: And I’m not quite sure why you would want to actually eat somebody, but what they want to do is they’ll take a sample, some cells, from a celebrity, and then they’ll make salami from them.

C: [Unconvinced] Mmmmm….

Anton: I think what they should call it is sala-me, because it’s like them. [Laughs] Really bad name.

R: And they give a couple of examples here, so they’ve got Kanye West. For Kanye West – and you can Tweet him from their website to try and encourage him to sign up: “The Kanye Salami will pull no punches: heavy, and boldly flavoured, pure Kanye West meat will blend with rich, coarse-ground pork. Hungarian paprika and worcestershire give Kanye an underlying smokiness, spiced up with hints of jalapeno. The Kanye Salami is best paired with strong straight bourbon.”

C: This begs the question… which celebrity would you most like to eat salami of?

R: I’m not really a celebrity fan, so I’d struggle there to think who I’d want to…

[Carmella laughs]

R: Nobody comes to mind. I don’t want to eat meat that tastes of somebody.

Anton: [Without hesitation] Dwayne Johnson.

R: [Laughing] Dwayne Johnson? The Rock?

Anton: Yep.

A: [Snorts] Be quite solid.

[Ric giggles]

C: You know it’d be healthy. Lots of protein in there.

R: [Agreeing] Uh huh.

A: That’s the way of finding out whether people fed different diets taste in different ways. You just get a range of celebrity salamis: get a famous vegan, get a famous pescatarian, get a famous bodybuilder, and then you’ll be able to taste the difference.

R: I think this could really work. I don’t know why it hasn’t actually been taken up, because I think they tried to start it in about 2014, and they’re still struggling to find I think their first celebrity, and it’s a mystery why.

C: [Laughing] Well, for all the celebrities listening to Casting Lots podcast, reach out!

A: Does that mean that we have to volunteer? [Laughs] As cannibalism enthusiasts?

[Carmella laughs]

R: They should be sponsoring you.

C: Honestly, let’s get in touch!

R: Continuing with our menu, so maybe going off to the polar regions now, and I think this is a bit more of a palette cleanser really. So I’m thinking I’d imagine if you had been eating someone, you’d probably want to attempt to wash your mouth out after in some way.

A: Bits stuck in your teeth.

R: And obviously lemons were really important.

Anton: Scurvy, yeah.

R: To stop it. So I’ve got some lemon sorbet here, which has actually melted, unfortunately. But of course it’s still got a little bit of meat in there, so it’s got some salami in there.

[Alix and Carmella laugh in horror]

R: Good combination.

Anton: I’m not eating that one.

[Carmella and Ric laugh]

Anton: No, I’m not having that one, I’m sorry.

R: Well try the yellow stuff, mate.

Anton: The yellow… okay.

R: It’s yellow ice.

C: [Concerned] Hmm!

A: ‘Never eat yellow snow’.

R: [Agreeing] Mmhmm. So the saltiness there…

[Alix laughs]

R: Um, really does not work at all.

[All laugh]

R: In my opinion.

A: That’s why you’re not meant to drink the salt water, because it just dehydrates you. And yet really, you’re embodying more of the survival cannibalism experience by having salty ice lemon mush with salami in it.

R: [Unconvincingly] It’s delicious! I mean, this is fine dining at its best, I don’t know why it hasn’t caught on.

A: Immersive experiences are becoming more and more popular, so I feel like if we could rent out a warehouse, we could combine your menu and our background knowledge, and could have a very bespoke tasting menu.

R: Actually there’s a Swedish vegan meat substitute manufacturer called Oumph!, and for Halloween last year, they made a special human meat burger. Which I did email them the other day asking if there was any still available, because I’d like to get hold of some please, because I’m coming on Casting Lots, and I never heard back from them! For some reason…

A: Oh, that is a marketing opportunity that they are fools not to have taken! We’ll bleep out the name so they don’t get any sponsorship out of not giving you free human burgers.

C: I want to be on the customer services team who receives an email like, ‘For personal reasons, I really need a human meat burger. Do you have any left? It is urgent.’

R: Yeah, ‘Please, please, please, I must know what it tastes of!’

A: I think a lot of places and organisations do start to get a little bit nervous when you start talking about cannibalism. We have some merch. It took a little bit of effort to find somewhere that would in fact print our merch, and I did get a few rather formal emails being like, ‘We will not print something that condones extreme violence and cannibalism’. And I had to write a very professional and polite email including all of our stats and all of our links, like ‘No, we’re an educational podcast. We’re not endorsing murder!’

[Carmella laughs]

A: ‘Please can we have some pens?’

C: We’re not recommending it…

R: [Laughs] No, exactly! Do you worry that some of your listeners are maybe more inclined on the cannibalism side and they may be listening because they’ve got a bit of a fetish?

A: Yes.

C: I hadn’t worried about it until now! [Laughs]

R: Don’t– We’re not, don’t worry!

C: I think that’s more of a them problem than an us problem, to be honest.

A: Oh, it’s definitely a them problem.

R: That’s actually the end of our menu, but we’ve done a few episodes on spices, and one we did was on pepper, so there were so many shipments of pepper going around, and turmeric and cumin, and all sorts, so there could be loads of amazing flavours that you could be adding if you get shipwrecked on a nice, like, spice-carrying ship. Then, I mean you could make some fine meals I think, actually.

A: The opportunities are endless. And, of course, we have to remember that these are just the sort of food-based things that are consumed. We also have leather and coins and that guy who sucked on his pocket watch. So pretty much anything that can fit in a human mouth, at some point, someone will have tried to eat. Whether or not it had any nutritional value or flavour is neither here nor there.

R: Yeah, no, the desperation, you’re gonna go to the extremes first. You’re gonna be, ‘Okay, what can I put in my mouth before I put this person’s arm in my mouth?’

[Carmella laughs]

A: Just chewing on bits of sail, bits of rope, turtleduck.

R: I did try and avoid those on the menu. I was trying to think what I could use for leather, and I don’t think Anton wanted me to use his football boots.

Anton: Nope.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Shoes are always one of the first things to go…

Anton: Too late now!

A: At least you know you’ve saved them, just in case.

C: So what was your favourite on that tasting menu, Ric and Anton: did you have any that were edible?

R: Uh… For me, the dandelion wasn’t particularly tasty. I love dandelion and burdock. And the ship’s biscuit with the seaweed were very unpleasant. My polar salami was very unpleasant. And the human arm wasn’t very tasty either. What about you, Anton?

Anton: I actually enjoyed my own arm.

[Carmella laughs]

Anton: I’m glad that I didn’t try the dessert. And the dandelion wasn’t very nice. So probably just my arm.

C: So you’re gonna stick straight to the cannibalism? No extra flavourings, just meat?

Anton: Probably. Just the fresh, clean stuff.

A: We do do some weird things on this podcast. I suspected that you would be game to have a little play at ‘how can we make cannibalism in the 21st century kitchen?’, and you have more than supplied and entertained. Even if it was through having to eat some rather unpleasant things, which may or may not – for legal purposes – have actually contained any human flesh, but were inspired by Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

R: It’s a pity that you couldn’t actually join us at the banquet here, which, I’m sure, you’d have really enjoyed it as well.

Anton: For our menu, we didn’t actually think of anything nice-tasting, which was a bit of a shame.

R: I was trying to be slightly authentic to how it would have really been.

C: Thank you so much for sharing your recipe recommendations with us today–

A: Inviting us to dinner!

C: And for the live reactions.

[Ric and Anton laugh]

A: Is there anything that you would like to plug before you go?

R: Yeah, so we’re the Curiosity of a Child podcast. So you can go to curiosityofachild.com, or CuriChildPod on Twitter, to find out all about us. We’ve recorded not just on corpse medicine, but also the history of flight, the first man to photograph the sun.

Anton: We’ve done spices, some Guernsey Greats – which is, like, we look at great people from Guernsey – we’ve done fairies as well.

A: One of my personal favourites was conkers.

R: Yeah, so that’s us, so yeah please listen. And thank you so much for having us.

A: Thank you very much, that looked absolutely disgusting!

[All laugh]

R: [Pained] It was!

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

A: And now to welcome two of our next guests, who you may probably recognise from a certain affiliated podcast. We have Teddy and Catriona from Grave History. If you would like to introduce yourselves?

Catriona: Hi, my name’s Catriona, and I’m one of the co-hosts of Grave History. We do the podcast because we both are interested in, like, dark history, so to speak. I’m actually doing a PhD in dark tourism at the moment, so, you know, this is very academically relevant, and therefore everything I do is technically work. So there we have it. I don’t know loads about survival cannibalism, I kind of know bits and pieces. I did just read The Indifferent Stars Above, which is about the Donner Party, and it’s probably the best, like, non-fiction book I’ve ever read.

Teddy: And I’m Teddy. I am also, you know, a host of Grave History, as we’ve established. I’m currently doing a history degree, but my kind of interest in, you know, macabre history and particularly survival cannibalism kind of comes mostly from getting introduced to the Franklin Expedition, and really just going into the exhibition that they held many, many times. And I really like it as a narrative thing in fiction, as well. It comes up in a podcast I like called The Magnus Archives, which is a lot of fun.

A: Catriona, one of the things I did want to ask was we are on a bit of a mission here at Casting Lots to try and get ourselves cited as some sort of expert text. So we were just wondering, if cannibalism does come up in the PhD, would we be your first port of call?

Catriona: Oh yeah, totally! So my PhD focuses specifically on, like, gender and dark tourism. Specifically, like, murder, gender and dark tourism. So, you know, if there’s like– I don’t know, are there any cases that you think have an interesting, like, gender angle to them?

A: My head immediately goes to raising up and talking about the Donner Party picnic site. I feel if you’re after dark tourism…

Catriona: Yeah! You know, that’s actually a place I really want to visit.

A: Morbid Audio holiday, I’m hearing here?

T: Yeah!

Catriona: Oh yeah!

T: I’m down.

A: Probably not a cruise. I think our overall luck…

C: You know, if it’s how we go, re-tracing the route of the Donner Party as a group of under-prepared Brits…

[Teddy laughs]

Catriona: This time it’s gonna work out, I can feel it.

T: We won’t take the advice of a random guy.

A: You can feel it in your bones, can you?

[Teddy groans in disgust]

Catriona: That story though is, like, way more harrowing than I thought it was going to be, if that makes sense? Like, because I knew it from pop culture, but then actually read the book and I was like ‘Oh this is awful! This is really, really grim.’

C: There are children.

Catriona: Lots of children, yeah! And just the idea of, like, not just the cannibalism, but you know the being trapped in the snow is just awful, and obviously in those times it was all those people had, you know, to just pack their entire lives into a wagon and just– [Makes a whooshing noise] across the country. So [shudders].

A: And also how long it took.

T: [Agreeing] Mmmm!

A: We’re quite used to, with the funny fun on boats ones, it being a case of you go, you sink, everything’s over within a couple of months.

C: Sometimes less.

A: [Agreeing] Sometimes less. But standard is ten days between you’re emaciated, you’re running out of food, and you start cannibalising or you die. The Donner Party, I’m like, they are going on and on and on for months, just trying to, you know, see through to the next day. It is an odd topic to make a comedy podcast about, but hey, we’ve done alright.

[Teddy laughs]

Catriona: And they really got to know each other as well, you know, within that time.

A: That’s just an opening for me to say ‘gastronomic incest’.

T: [Appreciative] Aw!

A: And I don’t want to rise to it.

T: My life is complete, I’ve been in an episode where I heard Alix say ‘gastronomic incest’.

C: You can hear Alix say that literally any time [Laughs].

A: I wonder if anyone has spliced all of the times I’ve said ‘gastronomic incest’ together into a ringtone.

T: I mean, I’m going to now!

[Laughter]

A: Now, I know it was mentioned that in Grave History, while you’ve had a couple of survival cannibal-esque episodes – I’m thinking most obviously of Franklin.

T: Yes.

A: But also – this is stretching the definition of survival, but we do like to do that – you have talked about penny dreadfuls before.

T: That was one of your favourites, wasn’t it?

Catriona: That was a passion project of mine.

A: So I’m sort of thinking, if we’re stretching ‘survival cannibalism’– If we’re taking ‘survival’ to ‘the means to survive and live a normal-ish life’…

Catriona: [Laughing] Sure?

A: Sweeney Todd?

T: [Uncertain] Yeah?

Catriona: Yeah! Well, I mean, Sweeney Todd’s fascinating to me because a lot of people think it’s a real story. If you go to the London dungeon, they’ve got a Sweeney Todd bit, obviously, but they’ve also got, you know, their Jack the Ripper bit, and there’s like basically no effort to show one of these is fictional, and one of these is not.

C: What has been interesting in some of the cases we’ve looked at is, in real life, there have been Sweeney Todd-esque things happening–

A: People 100% have been baked into food products. Not necessarily pies, but human meat has been sold in food markets.

Catriona: I think I remember reading about a kebab…

T: [Horrified] Oh God…

C: So this is one of my childhood fears, which presumably came about from hearing about Sweeney Todd, is that one day I will eat human meat without realising it’s human meat. And that’s the bit that bothers me. Like, if you’re in a survival situation, it’s on your own terms and you’re conscious that you’re doing it. But I really hate the idea of being tricked into eating human meat, and only afterwards it being revealed – ‘Ha ha!’

Catriona: What if you never found out?

T: Yeah!

C: This is the other thing that bothers me! What if I’ve already eaten human meat?!

[Teddy laughs]

Catriona: If you’ve ever eaten a cinema hot dog, then you’ve definitely eaten something that you probably shouldn’t have.

A: That was always my take on the horse meat scandal. Because – full disclosure – the uni supermarket was a horse meat one, so I’m like, the timings add up: I was a student, I will have got through a lot of dodgy pasta and lasagne. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I probably got caught up in the horse meat somewhere. And it’s like, do you know what, I don’t actually object to having eaten horse? It’s the not knowing and not having the right to choose what you consume.

Catriona: Yeah, a lot of people were like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe I ate horse’ and I’m like, ‘well you eat a lot of other meat, man, what’s the difference really?’ I kind of feel the same way about offal. It’s just– meat’s meat. That’s just my personal opinion, that it’s a bit weird to be really precious about what type of meat you eat, unless you just don’t like the flavour or whatever. You’re absolutely right, though: not knowing… You should consent to what you eat.

C: And preferably what you eat – when it’s a human – will consent to being eaten. [Laughs] To bring it back to the subject of cannibalism.

Catriona: Do you have a hot take on that? You know, like, remember 20 years ago there was a whole thing about the German guy who wanted to be eaten. Do you have a hot take on that?

C: I mean, that one wasn’t a survival situation… [Laughs]

Catriona: No, sorry, I know I’m kind of springing it on you a bit there!

A: No kink-shaming here at Casting Lots.

Catriona: Of course not.

C: I suppose that we have, as a society, collectively agreed that legally a person can’t consent to GBH or being murdered.

Catriona: Right, yeah.

C: On that logic alone… still wrong, even with consent?

A: I think it will change if and when the laws about organ donation changes, because currently you have to opt in to organ donation, because currently your body – even after death – is viewed as some sort of connection to personhood. If they ever change those laws…

Catriona: They have changed them in Scotland!

A: So basically what we’re saying is in Scotland, cannibalism is fine…

[Carmella laughs]

Catriona: Yep!

A: But currently under this goddamn Tory government…

[Laughter]

A: They’re not letting us engage in our consensual cannibalism practices!

Catriona: And that’s the worst thing they’ve done!

A: Indie Ref 2: this time it’s cannibalism.

Catriona: I’m gonna create a new party and that’s the platform I’m gonna run on.

T: I’d vote for you.

C: As well as Sweeney Todd, another one that’s come up in your podcast. Isn’t really by any stretch of the imagination survival cannibalism, but maybe of interest to our listeners, is Sawney Bean.

Catriona: Yes, now that’s an interesting story, because it’s probably fake, but it’s probably got basis in something. It’s kind of a bit like an exaggerated story, because I don’t think there’s any compelling historical evidence that literally thousands of people were murdered by this guy.

T: Seems like a big task.

Catriona: But if you come to the Edinburgh dungeon, there is a Sawney Bean pit.

T: Ah, so similar approach to London dungeons going ‘here’s real historical stuff, and here’s fake?’

Catriona: Yep. It’s right next to the Burke & Hare thing, which absolutely was a real story.

A: I’ve taken a quick look at Sawney Bean, and there’s just a wonderful little section – full disclosure, Wikipedia – which is the broadside from 1750, being “the Scottish traditional story of Sandy Bane”, who was a murderer who had been eating live cats.

C: [Mock outrage] How dare he!

T: Not the cats!

Catriona: Live!

A: So it’s almost like we start with cats, then we build up to children, and then maybe horses, and then a thousand people consumed by one man.

T: Ah, so this guy is Renfield, I see.

Catriona: It would be insanely difficult to eat a live cat.

C: Yeah, why not deal with that problem first?

[Teddy laughs]

A: It’s like it’s some sort of bastardised Pied Piper of Hamlin situation.

[Carmella laughs]

T: You use the cats to round up the children, who round up the adults, and now you’re great.

Catriona: It’s a great story, but you said it first appeared in a broadside? Broadsides are kind of the precursor to the penny dreadful in some ways.

A: Is one of those ways the perhaps lack of authenticity of some of those stories?

Catriona: Yeah, I mean, a broadside is kind of the information that would be given out to the public around like, you know, a hanging or another execution, and they normally like have some song lyrics and then some lurid descriptions of the crime in them. So a lot of it they did just make stuff up, just to, you know, because it made it more interesting. Because you could just do that back then.

A: And it rhymed better in the song. ‘Oh he ate 28 men doesn’t sound as good as he ate a thousand men.’

Catriona: Yeah.

A: I’m sure everyone, including us, wants to know what the future coming up for Grave History is?

T: So I’m currently working on my dissertation, which is to do with Victorian burial reform and garden cemeteries, so most likely we will see probably several episodes, or at least a couple, on that, so that it counts as, you know, academic work. And I know that you have several part twos planned?

Catriona: Yes, I have a few part twos sort of in the pipeline. I did, like, a part one about water and sea related mysteries incidents. So we did, like, the Flannan Isles mystery, which is fascinating, and I was working on a part two that looked at unusual kinds of ghosts that lived near water, as well as I was also looking at sunken villages, because that’s also a topic that I find fascinating. So hopefully that will pop up. I also want to do a part two on the Cold War, that looks a bit more at, like, some of the stories of espionage and assassination that happened, because I mean it’s a huge topic, and I was originally going to make it all one episode, but then I was like ‘no, I’ve got too much.’ And that episode will hopefully be less of a bummer than the first one.

T: I’ve just remembered a topic that I want to cover, which is appropriate for the podcast we’re currently on. I would at some point like to do an episode on Egyptomania, particularly the use of putting, you know, mummies in paint and also consuming them, thus leading to the deficit in mummies.

A: Which, in looking at alternative ways of ‘survival cannibalism’, can be considered survival cannibalism. 

C: Medical cannibalism is a form of surviving through cannibalism…

Catriona: I’ve never heard of medical cannibalism.

C: I would recommend to you the book Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires by Richard Sugg, who has previously appeared on this podcast. And that’s all about medical cannibalism and the use of mummy in that sort of context.

Catriona: I just looked it up and it said ‘medical cannibalism’ also means cannibalism in, like, the sense of exploitation, illegal organ transplants, and like organ trafficking. Which is something I know a little bit about.

A: Ah, because the laws are different in Scotland?

[Teddy laughs]

Catriona: I partake in it frequently. We actually hit on that a bit in our body snatching episode, right? We were talking about the sort of modern body snatching, which is, you know, illegal organ trading and trafficking of human remains. Which doesn’t involve eating, I will say, or rather the cases we looked at didn’t, but you know.

C: You’re still metaphorically cannibalising the bodies. Just because the organs aren’t being taken in via the mouth, doesn’t mean they’re not being incorporated into someone else’s body… [Laughing] I was really trying not to say ‘being taken in orally’ there.

[Laughter]

T: Steady!

Catriona: Steady now!

[Carmella laughs]

A: Before we let both of you go, I think it’s time for the obvious question: would you eat a dead body if you had to?

C: Would you eat each other’s dead bodies if you had to?

T: Yeah, I would have to be a slow-cooking option, because I feel like I would render down very nicely.

Catriona: No, I mean I’m fine with that, I’m just– What’s the situation? You know, because I’m gonna say yes if I need it to survive, because–

T: Yeah, I’m not just gonna do it for fun.

A: It’s us: it’s a survival situation.

C: You’re both on a lifeboat in the sea, it’s been months, there’s no hope of rescue, you’ve run out of your rations.

T: Why not.

Catriona: I’m fine with being eaten. I’d rather, like, die naturally. But if you have to kill me then so be it.

A: Can I point out that this is in fact the wrong answer.

Catriona: Oh no!

A: The correct answer is please use each other’s dead bodies to fish with.

C: [Laughs] Trick question!

Catriona: Oh!

T: Here I am, gnawing on Catriona’s leg.

Catriona: Oh, goddammit. I wish I’d known that.

T: I could have been fishing!

Catriona: I don’t want to put extra work in, I can’t be bothered at this point. Come on!

[Alix laughs]

Catriona: I would like to be eaten by octopuses. 

[Teddy laughs]

Catriona: I think that would be nice.

A: If I can’t be cannibalised to save someone else, I sort of feel like I would like to be fed to sharks.

T: I am here for death positive advocacy, okay? If you tell me that’s what you want done with your remains, that is what I will do for you.

Catriona: But also the situation you brought up is very dependent on there being fish. What if it was a different scenario, like a kind of Andes?

A: Oh, in which case, going straight to the cannibalism is the sensible option.

Catriona: I’d last about 45 minutes, I think, before I would go for the cannibalism.

C: Well, I think on that note– [Laughs]

Catriona: Yeah! [Laughs]

C: Thank you so much, Teddy and Catriona, for joining us today.

T: It’s been lovely to be here.

Catriona: No problem!

A: Before you go, is there anything that either of you two want to plug, any upcoming projects, or even just a favourite episode of Grave History you want everyone to go back to and listen to now?

Catriona: So favourite episode, I’d say the moral panic episode, so penny dreadfuls and video nasties, is my baby and I love her. And bits of it are increasingly relevant still, unfortunately.

T: I would have to go for the one that’s prescient to my dissertation, which is ‘You Know Cholera, John Snow’. It’s a very weak pun, and I apologise for it daily, but it had to be done and I really enjoyed making it.

Catriona: It’s a great episode.

C: Amazing, we’ll pop a link in the show notes to go and check out the Grave History podcast, if you haven’t already, dear listeners.

A: Hint hint. You should have already. And with that, we will let you go!

Catriona: Byeee!

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Thank you for listening to today’s episode, featuring Richard Sugg, the Curiosity of a Child podcast, and the Grave History podcast. Join us next time to sit down with two authors of historical fiction.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

What’s so scary about cannibalism? We talk to horror experts Neil McRobert, host of Talking Scared Podcast, and Nicasio Andres Reed, editor at the Deadlands, to find out.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Neil McRobert and Nicasio Andres Reed.

You can find Neil McRobert on Twitter as @NakMac. Hear more from Neil on the Talking Scared Podcast: https://talkingscaredpod.com/. You can read his short story, ‘A Well-Fed Man’, in The Fiends in the Furrows II, published by Nosetouch Press (2020): https://www.nosetouchpress.com/project/the-fiends-in-the-furrows-ii-more-tales-of-folk-horror/. Or check out Neil’s recommendations of ‘The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time Will Scare You Sh*tless’ in Esquire, 9 May 2022: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g37676766/scary-horror-books/.

You can find Nicasio Andres Reed on Twitter as @nicasioreed, and the Deadlands online: https://thedeadlands.com/. Looking for something to read? Try Katie Gill’s ‘The Custom of the Sea’ in Deadlands 13 (May 2022): https://thedeadlands.com/issue-13/the-custom-of-the-sea/.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Episode Two, where we’ll be speaking to podcaster Neil McRobert and writer and editor Nicasio Reed.

[Intro music continues]

C: Welcome back to Casting Lots podcast. Today we’re joined by Neil McRobert. Neil, would you like to introduce yourself and tell our listeners a bit about you and your connection to survival cannibalism?

A: Every time you ask that, it sounds like you’re asking who our guest has eaten.

Neil: I was gonna say, I haven’t devoured anyone that I know of. Although I did shop at Iceland for a while in the 2010s…

[Carmella laughs]

N: So who knows? I have a kind of tangential link to cannibalism – thankfully – I’m the host of a podcast called Talking Scared, which I describe, hopefully pithily, as a podcast for horror readers who want to know where their favourite stories come from, and what frightens the people who wrote them. Basically, it means I talk to a different famous horror author every week. I say ‘horror’: it’s a very broad church. As long as their books have an element of the macabre in them, I’ll talk to them, and we get into their work, their lives, their inspirations, and quite often the things that terrify them. And a few of those authors, I think, will come up in this conversation.

C: I am sure that we’ve probably read some of them ourselves! To get us started, I would love to hear your thoughts on what is it that makes cannibalism horrific? Obviously we here at Casting Lots have a very positive attitude towards cannibalism.

A: Pro-cannibalism, if you will.

[Neil chuckles]

C: But some people find it scary! So what are your thoughts on that?

N: Weirdos, right? Weirdos. So I’ve been listening to your show now on my daily dog walks, and I am quite delighted by how humanistic you are in your approach to cannibalism. Because I listen to a lot of true crime, horrible, you know, relishing-the-details type podcasts, where it’s all about how awful this stuff is. And you talk about how it’s necessary and, in the case, for example, of the Uruguayan flight disaster, how it’s a very human, almost respectful thing to do. That’s fine. But I think– Right, this is a weird thing to say in public, right?

[Carmella laughs]

A: Can’t wait.

N: For me, there isn’t really a stigma attached to cannibalism – for me. And I’ve never quite understood why people are so horrified by it, why it is this universal taboo. Above and beyond, you know, prion disease and the fact that you will possibly get very ill. I always think if I was in a real disaster where I had to eat somebody – who was hopefully already dead – to stay alive, I wouldn’t wait ‘til I was starving. I’d start early on, whilst they were still fresh, whilst they were the most use to me. Keep myself fit and healthy so I can get out of the situation. Don’t wait ‘til you’re emaciated… But that’s just me.

A: You’d have done very well on the Elizabeth Rashleigh: they still had food.

N: [Laughs] Well, I look forward to getting to that one! But yeah, so there is nothing – for me – particularly frightening about the act of consuming meat. I mean, I’ve just gone vegetarian, so that’s added complexity.

[Carmella laughs]

N: For me, it’s more being in a situation that is bad enough that you have to resort to that. Because very few reasonable people are munching down on their friends if stuff hasn’t really gone wrong. That, to me, is the terrifying thing. But again, this is only with survival cannibalism; it’s not so much with the Jeffrey Dahmers of this world, which is a whole different topic and different podcast.

C: I always call things like Hannibal Lecter and Jeffrey Dahmer– It’s the gentrification of cannibalism, right?

[Neil laughs]

C: Like, the survival cannibalism is the true, authentic cannibalism. And then the hobbyist–

N: Hipster cannibals!

C: Exactly.

A: But I think one of the things, when you look into cannibalism as part of fiction– Well, it’s polarising anyway. Most people have very strong opinions.

N: [Agreeing] Hmm.

A: And most of them are ‘this is wrong’. But from a fictitious perspective, it does always either seem to be something that’s absolutely horrifying, or I’m thinking of how Alive–

N: [In recognition] Mmhmm.

A: Which did quite a good job of doing the Uruguayan story – but you have horror, or you have tragedy. There doesn’t seem to be any other route that cannibalism takes in fiction that I’m aware of. I would love to be proven incorrect… Well, there’s Cannibal! The Musical, of course. That’s a little bit different, but…

N: Yeah, it’s interesting. So horror and tragedy – I deal much more in the horror world than the tragedy world. But even within horror, when I was kind of coming up with a list of books to talk to you guys about, it struck me that there are three strands to the horror. You get the survival cannibalism, in books like Alma Katsu’s The Hunger or Dan Simmons’ The Terror. And to an extent something like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road – that is more violent, that is more abhorrent in how it’s depicted. I mean, they’re eating babies, you can’t really make it nice.

[Carmella laughs]

N: So you get the survival cannibalism, which weirdly tends to be kind of historical retellings. Then you get hillbilly cannibal stuff. So to name some books, things like Off Season by Jack Ketchum, who was one of the absolute kings of a genre called Splatterpunk, which is kind of like just the most horrible stuff you can imagine.

C: I love that as a genre name. That’s so evocative!

N: Yeah.

A: It’s sort of seared itself into my brain as a term.

N: Jack Ketchum does it well, with absolute reckless abandon, and Off Season is very much that. And then there’s a book called Kin by a guy called Kealan Patrick Burke. A book called Brother by Ania Ahlborn, which I haven’t read. Everyone says I’ve gotta read it; I need to catch up with it. But they are very much in the tradition of sort of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes, which were in turn inspired by Sawney Bean, the 17th century Scottish cannibal who lived in a cave and used to, you know, he had like 40 incestuous children and he was eating passersby. So both universal taboos: incest and cannibalism. But there’s that strand, there’s the hillbilly horror, and then the other strand, which I think is the one that is most distressing, is this industrialised cannibalism, I suppose. And this is a thing I’ve only seen in fiction and not so much in film. There’s a book that came out recently – and Argentinian book – by an author called Agustina Bazterrica, called Tender is the Flesh.

C: I am familiar with that one.

N: One of the most distressing things I’ve ever read in my life about just that– It’s like, we can no longer get these animals for some reason, so we’re now farming people on the same kind of scale that we farm animals currently. It’s horrendous. The one that most people won’t know about is a short story by Neil Gaiman, of all people, called ‘Baby Cakes’, which is exactly the same premise. It’s a one page short story and it basically says all the animals ran out, then there’s this line that just says, ‘Didn’t matter. We had babies.’ And it goes on from there, as you can imagine. And that industrialised thing for me is the one that is the true horror, perhaps because it reveals the hypocrisy of our carnivorous ways.

C: In real life, as well, the ones that we look at in Casting Lots, the most distressing ones are the cases where it’s a sort of socially engineered mass cannibalism due to created famine, and it’s a similar concept there, isn’t it? That it’s almost created as a necessity by humans, rather than just by random disaster.

N: You know something? Something’s just dawned on me. I’ve spent all day listing stories and books about survival cannibalism… and just– I’d forgotten that I wrote one [Laughs].

C: [Delighted] Ah!

A: Please do tell us more.

N: I– [Laughs] I wrote a short story called ‘A Well-fed Man’, and it’s in a collection called Fiends in the Furrows II. It’s a collection of folk horror stories by Nosetouch Press. And my story is about a little boy. I don’t really clarify where it’s set, but it’s clearly obviously Ukraine, if you know your history, and it’s set in the Holodomor, and it’s about a young boy who is warned by his mother never to talk to well-fed men. Because they’re all starving. And then he starts being pursued by a well-fed man through the village. Yeah. I forgot that I wrote the very thing we’re talking about.

C: That sounds amazing! Is that book still available?

N: Yeah I believe so, you can get it on Amazon I think, if you want to go to the enemy, or just go to Nosetouch Press’ homepage. It’s Fiends in the Furrows II is the name of the book. Mine is the only one with cannibalism in it as far as I know, so don’t go buying it expecting an omnibus of cannibal stories.

C: We’ll pop a link in the show notes and our listeners can go and make an informed decision about whether the book is for them.

[Neil laughs]

A: Where you were talking about industrial cannibalism–

N: [Following] Mmhmm.

A: I think one of the most iconic phrases in cannibalism media, if we ignore Hannibal Lecter–

N: “Fava beans and a nice Chianti”?

A: That’s the one. I would say underneath that, surely it’s “Soylent Green is people”.

N: Yeah.

A: I think it definitely comes under that industrial process, and sort of the human body is being broken down to composite parts and being made into–

N: [Agreeing] Mmhmm.

A: Soylent Green. There was actually one of those protein drinks that was called Soylent, and I was like ‘that’s a bad choice’. I don’t think someone did their marketing research there.

N: [Laughs] Yeah, someone do a Google search, please!

C: You’ve mentioned several books already that deal with survival cannibalism, but I wondered if you had any particular favourites, or particular recommendations that you’d like to dig into a bit more?

A: Other than your own, of course.

N: Well, The Hunger is a neo-classic, really. For people who don’t know, The Hunger is a supernaturally-informed retelling of the Donner Party, which delves into Native American lore. It’s fantastic. The two books that– Well, one’s a book and one’s a short story. A short story that I think is one of the most famous ever cases of survival cannibalism amongst people in the know is a short story by Stephen King called ‘Survivor Type’. Are you familiar with this?

C: I haven’t read that. I wasn’t aware King had written a cannibalism story…

N: So it’s in his collection Skeleton Crew from the 80s, and it– Basically, it’s about a man whose boat sinks or he crashes on a desert island. Very much Tom Hanks in Castaway, okay?

C: Classic set-up.

N: He’s a surgeon, happily, and all he has with him is his tools. And the food runs out. So he sets about eating himself.

A: Oh, a nice bit of auto-cannibalism.

N: Exactly that, yeah. And I’m gonna spoil this now for people, but it’s got I think one of the best last lines ever in a story. Because he’s basically eaten everything but the one limb he needs to do the cutting, and he knows there’s no hope left. And the final line is: “People say you are what you eat, and if that’s true, I guess I haven’t changed.”

C: That’s brilliant! [Laughs]

N: A lot of people talk about it being really horrifying; I think it’s a black comedy. I think it’s laugh-out-loud funny, you know. But then again, we are people who have quite a bit of time for pro-cannibalism. The other one, just to mention briefly, because it’s a kind of askance take on survival cannibalism, is a book called Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin. Gretchen Felker-Martin is a trans writer, and they are provocative in their fiction, shall we say? And it’s a story– it’s one of these gender dystopia things that are kind of all the rage at the minute, but pushed to the absolute max. It’s in a world in which this disease affects anybody over a certain threshold of testosterone. And if you become infected, you become basically a murderous, insane rape zombie, to put it nicely. And you get these different camps where men are monstrous things, and a lot of women have become kind of militant in their defence against men. And in the middle you have these sort of trans protagonists who have to keep their testosterone levels low enough to not be infected, while fighting off this army of militant– what the book calls “militant terfs”. And the only way they can keep their T levels low enough is by killing the men and devouring their testicles.

C: [Delighted] This sounds like it comes from a brilliant mind [Laughs].

N: It comes from a very brilliant mind and it comes from a very, as I say, provocative mind. And the book is intentionally abrasive, it sets out to upset you. I interviewed Gretchen for the podcast; it was a great interview. But yeah, it’s not for the faint-hearted by any means. But, apart from being a great story about survival and cannibalism, it also really works the fantastic metaphor for, you know, gender issues in the current climate. But yes, that’s my askance sort of shoe-horned-in recommendation to read Manhunt.

A: I’ve just remembered that I learnt the phrase ‘Splatterpunk’ was about Gretchen’s book.

N: Well there you go. It’s a phenomenal book. Someone needs to have – no pun intended – the balls to make an adaptation of it, ‘cause it would kill.

[Alix and Carmella chuckle]

A: That was two in one there. Now one of the things that comes up in adaptations of historical instances of cannibalism – thinking The Hunger and The Terror – is there does seem to be this need to mythologise the cannibalism. It can’t simply be a stand-alone horrifying action; there’s always an extra element that’s added in. Do you think that cannibalism by itself sometimes is almost too tame for the horror genre, and whether people want to add something else to it to add that extra dimension?

N: That’s a very good question, because you’re right: The Hunger features Native American demons, and The Terror has got this – what I thought was real – Inuit lore, but actually it isn’t, it’s created. I think there’s something about cannibalism when it isn’t done for purely murderous reasons that perhaps we are actually all deep down, despite this taboo, perhaps we are all sympathetic enough to understand that we probably would resort to that, and therefore yeah, perhaps it’s not enough in a historical survival context to constitute villainy.

A: That’s what I like to hear, because obviously we think it makes a lot of sense.

N: Because we know we’d need to do it. Of course, in The Terror you have Hickey, who is a villanous character, and he’s a driving force behind it. But even then, he’s a very human character, and you can kind of see why he’s become the person he is. He’s gotta survive. So yeah, I think it’s not enough to just benchmark a villain, and then we need this metaphysical threat to really drive home the horror.

C: Certainly in real-life cases of survival cannibalism, we’ve often found that in mostly newspaper reports – and we have been pretty damning of journalists of the past on this podcast before – but they’ve often historically liked to pinpoint one person as the instigator of cannibalism, and to treat them as this sort of– a supervillain, yep. There’s always this one character who’s found with a man’s beating heart in his mouth–

[Neil laughs]

C: Laughing maniacally when the rescuers arrive, and that sort of speaks to what we’ve been saying in fiction – it’s also true in journalistic non-fiction. To make a good story, you have to have that element of villainy on top of the cannibalism which, as we’ve said, is perhaps understandable.

N: I’m thinking about the film Ravenous, the Antonia Bird film with Robert Carlyle and Guy Pearce. It’s one of those films that is a true cult classic, I think. And that is, for those who don’t know the premise, is there’s a frontier fort manned by Guy Pearce and a motley crew of soldiers, and then one winter, Colqhoun – played by Robert Carlyle – maniacally turns up, saying that he’s survived a very kind of Donner Party-esque scenario, and it’s interesting that to make that film work, they had to make a singular person. They couldn’t have, like, this crew of people turn up who show the human face of desperation. It had to be one person who didn’t just eat his party, but actually – well, you get the implication – killed a lot of them to eat them.

A: Revelled in it.

N: Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. It’s the revelling; it’s the joy; it’s the glee and the transgression, I suppose.

C: And the interesting extension of that is, of course, that in these newspaper reports or fictional stories, the reader – we – are revelling in that character. So it’s almost a reflection of what the reading audience is feeling towards cannibalism, in a way.

N: Well yeah, we are all fascinated. And, I mean, this is no criticism, but you guys provide that same opportunity, you know, for us to kind of dip a toe into what it would be like. And obviously you do it in a very, as I say, human and very kind of responsible way. There isn’t much revelling on your part on the actual, you know, on the viscera, shall we say. Or it doesn’t come across that way, anyway – what you get up to in your personal lives, I don’t need to know…

[Alix and Carmella both laugh]

N: But I listen to your show because I’m fascinated by people who eat people. I mean, that says a lot about me… But I think we’re all fascinated by serial killers, you know, and the more transgressive the better, I suppose. As awful as that sounds. And I think what’s often forgotten in real life cases is that, with so much focus being put on the cannibal, we forget about the people who they’re eating a lot of the time.

C: Sort of lose the human tragedy in the gleeful horror.

N: Exactly that.

A: And it’s a human tragedy for the ‘cannibal’ as well. For the person who has had to resort to the final resource to stay alive.

N: [Agreeing] Mmm.

A: I know that we all– we all, definitely, everyone has had the conversation about ‘would you or wouldn’t you eat a person?’ But I know that, from having thought about it, I would; it would mess me up in the head. And I think when you have this very black and white– You have three characters, don’t you? You have the supervillain cannibal, you have the innocent victim, and you have the conflicted hero. All three are human.

N: Yeah. And I’m now feeling a bit uncomfortable about the fact that I quite quickly told you I’d eat people if I was just a little bit peckish.

[Carmella laughs]

N: To bring it back to horror for a second, because I know far more about that than I do real-world cannibalism: something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We think of that film as just good versus evil, these teenagers against this horrendous crew of inbred cannibals. That film is actually meant as a kind of metaphor for people who are forgotten. They work for generations in a slaughterhouse and then when the slaughterhouse shut down – literally because the highway took all industry away from the town where they live – and they’re just kind of left to rot. That in itself is a form of survival cannibalism, and a very bleak one. It turns survival cannibalism into a metaphor for desperation, that I think is more and more relevant today, with inequality. And you look at America today, I mean Britain’s bad enough, but you look at America and you’ve got whole swathes of that country that is just cut off, it’s just left behind. And then that’s when you get the hillbilly, which in its way is a form of cultural prejudice. And there’s a reason these cannibalistic metaphors are always imposed on these people who have been left behind by society, and by progressiveness. And I think, yes, I was talking about the humanity of it all: when you look at something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes or stuff of that ilk, it’s important to look at them as a metaphor for people in economic straits, as well as just ‘oh aren’t they awful because they’re eating grandpa’.

A: Because I know we joked about it a little earlier on, about the gentrification of cannibalism, but when you put it like that, I can’t think of any urban cannibalism stories; they do all tend to be for that sort of hillbilly genre out in the ‘sticks’. And I have to be honest, my main experience is that episode of Torchwood where it happens, so that may show where my cultural line is…

[Neil chuckles]

A: I can very easily imagine a sort of urban dystopia with these same narratives coming up, but I can only think of the real life examples of sieges; I can’t really think of cities being used as that landscape. At least not yet…

N: I’m sure the minute we hang up I’ll think of like four films or books that have done exactly that, but I can’t think of– The only times they happen is in things like American Psycho, in which he eats somebody, or, again in real life, you know, Dahmer. Or recently that film Fresh– have you watched that on the Disney Channel?

[Alix laughs]

C: I have been recommended it by so many people and I’m always like [in a bratty voice], ‘Ugh, it’s survival cannibalism, not all cannibalism’. But you know.

A: I’m still slightly thrown that there’s cannibalism in American Psycho, to be honest. 

N: No, as I always warn people, the book is a very different beast to everything that came from that. But again, as you say, it’s not survival cannibalism. So no I can’t think of a case of urban survival cannibalism in fiction. I think perhaps the zombie performs that metaphor more ably.

C: That’s true, I don’t normally think of zombie media as cannibalism media, but of course that’s what it is really.

A: I have to be honest, there is one thing that has been in my head since we started talking about cannibalism as a form of othering and about how sometimes survival cannibalism isn’t enough. Carmella knows exactly what I’m gonna say here. My rather obsessive mind when it comes to the Whaleship Essex. There’s a fictionalisation of one of the stories of the ilk of The Hunger and The Terror, however the thing that is worse than the cannibalism is a completely ahistorical accusation of incest against one of the cannibals. And it’s almost as though that is the thing that has to take place so that the cannibalism itself isn’t as ‘justified’. That book has stayed with me for far longer than it should have done.

N: [Laughs] Is that In the Heart of the Sea?

A: No. In the Heart of the Sea is– The book is non-fiction. The film is beautiful but it’s not accurate. It’s a book called The Jonah Man. It’s only horror in as much as cannibalism is considered to be a horrific act; it’s quite a neutral bildungsroman of the main character. One of the characters. Sorry, I’ve just had that in my head for so long about The Jonah Man, I just had to say it out loud. Okay.

N: I’ve had something in my head that’s got no segue either, so let me just dump this on you, because I’m trying to work out whether this qualifies as survival cannibalism. And as a dog lover – an obsessive dog lover – in my mind it does. Have you ever heard of the story A Boy and His Dog?

A: No… But I’ve got an idea of where it might be going.

[Carmella laughs]

N: Well, it’s by Harlan Ellison, the famous very misanthropic science fiction writer. It’s the typical post-apocalyptic thing, it’s Mad Max. It’s about this boy and his dog, who are just navigating this fallen world of marauding clans and et cetera. And it’s a weird book because it reads like kind of YA, Lord of the Flies-type stuff, but goes into some really quite odd sexual directions. But what basically happens is this boy and his dog are the best of friends and they work together to overcome adversity. And then half of the book, the boy, Vic, meets this girl and he falls in love. And it’s this kind of Garden of Eden, you know, forbidden knowledge type parable almost. And then adventures ensue and Blood, the dog, who you’re rooting for all the way through, ‘cause it’s a dog, gets very ill and is at death’s door. And you are led to believe– You assume, because they’re all starving, that they’re gonna eat the dog. And then in the very final passages, you find out he kills the girl and feeds her to the dog so that the dog can survive.

C: That’s… brilliant. And so relatable. 

[Alix laughs]

N: I’ve always felt really conflicted about it, because it’s an incredibly misogynistic story – like, problematically so… but I love dogs so much that I was just delighted that he did it. It was like this is really bad, but I’m so– I don’t think I’m supposed to be on board with this decision, but I was completely on board with it.

C: [Laughs] In our episode on Douglas Mawson, there’s a point where they’ve been eating the dogs gradually, and there’s two men left alive after their party have died horrific deaths. And they get down to the final dog. And then past the final dog. And one of the men is very ill, at death’s door, in the tent, and allegedly in his delirium asks Douglas Mawson: ‘Am I man or a dog?’ And it’s that, yeah, blurring of human life with animal meat, and which you give the priority. Yeah…

A: And I suppose you also have, in that story, you’ve got the concept of sort of personhood, where you have that priority being not necessarily a member of your own species, but a member of your own in-group.

N: [Agreeing] Mmhmm.

A: My dog’s my family, I will say that. We do like to blur the lines of what counts as cannibalism, and I think that is a really interesting one.

N: I couldn’t eat my dog.

A: My dog could eat me, though. I know that. She definitely would.

C: [Laughing] Well, I think that’s a beautiful place to end this.

[Neil laughs]

C: Thank you so much for joining us, Neil. Before we let you go, do you have any recent or upcoming projects, aside from the amazing Talking Scared podcast, that you’d like to promote to our listeners whilst you’re here?

N: You know what, it’s all podcast all the time really. I have a few articles coming out in Esquire, I’ve started writing for them. If you wanna get a sense of my sort of tastes and sensibilities, I wrote a thing called ‘The 50 Greatest Horror Novels Will Scare You Shitless’ [sic.] for Esquire – it’s a run down of exactly that, and The Hunger and The Terror feature on it. I think there are probably some other cannibal adjacent books on there too, so that’s a good read to give you a sense of who I am. But yeah, just please, if you want a bit of a insight into the minds of some macabre people, come over and listen to the podcast.

A: If you want a fright…

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

C: Welcome back to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast. We’re joined by Nico, who is a writer and who I first met on a Worldbuilders panel about cannibalism. Nico, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and your connection or interest in cannibalism, please?

Nicasio: Yeah, hi. I’m Nicasio Andres Reed. I’m a Filipino-American writer and editor, and in my day job I edit novels and translation, and in my night and weekend job I am the poetry editor at the Deadlands, which is an online Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine about death [Laughs].

C: Perfectly fitted to this podcast!

N: Yeah, yeah! So that’s what I do. I think like a lot of people of my generation – I’m in my late 30s – I kind of just encountered the movie Alive on TV at a very impressionable time [Laughs].

A: It was a very formative experience.

N: It was! I don’t know, like, if we’re roughly the same age, but I was left to like just watch television, I think as a babysitter, in the early 90s, and it was just on. And little diddy Nico was just riveted [Laughs]. And I don’t even think I have seen it since, at least certainly not, you know, the whole thing, but it left such an impression that it’s one of my references that for some reason I come back to quite a lot. So I think that was what struck the spark of cannibalism in my life. And you know, I have a terrible memory, and I had forgotten that we initially connected over that cannibalism panel– [Laughs] Because I was a listener of this podcast before that, and Worldbuilders, you know, just kind of gave me a blank cheque to be like ‘hey what would you want to do a panel about?’ And I immediately for, you know, obviously, was like ‘oh cannibalism, for sure.’

C: [Laughs] Obviously, it’s the only answer.

A: What else would you even talk about?

N: Yeah, what else would you even do if you wanted to do a fundraiser and attract a big audience?

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

A: ‘If you don’t donate, this is what will happen.’

N: [Laughs] Exactly! Whoa dark…

A: Now, I actually have a confession to make: I’ve never watched the film Alive.

N: [Pause] What?!

A: I’ve read the book, I’ve watched all the documentaries.

N: Y’all did a whole episode!

A: I know, but I’ve never watched the film!

N: This is freaking– You gotta do like an extra special episode that’s just like a live watch.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Oh, but can you imagine how obnoxious I’d be about it?

N: Oh no, you’d be horrible.

 [Alix laughs]

N: That’s the fun of it, yeah [Laughs]. Like, ‘Oh, that’s the wrong seat number.’

A: Maybe if our audience demand…

[Carmella laughs]

N: ‘If you don’t donate to Casting Lots, we’ll force you to watch me watch this movie.’

[All laugh]

N: And correct them like a pedant. ‘First it was that one and then that one. She was sitting in a different seat number. It was A24!’

[Carmella laughs]

A: I mean, yeah, the problem is that’s exactly how it would go down.

N: [In agreement] Mmm.

C: There’s been this show recently that I don’t know whether you’ve encountered, Nico, called Yellowjackets. Fiction, but a girl’s soccer team, they crash in Canada on an aeroplane, and that is exactly how I was watching the show. I was like, ‘Well, when the Miracle in the Andes happened, they actually did this, so these girls aren’t making realistic choices’ [Laughs].

N: You know, that is a television show that I’ve encountered purely through gifs on Tumblr, and through that medium I had no idea that was the premise of the show! [Laughs]

C: It is really good fun, but–

N: [Struggling to speak through giggles] I thought they were at camp!

[All laugh]

N: It’s just all these– these gifs of these girls sitting around bonfires, and then later they’re older. I’m like ‘oh they’re reminiscing about their days in camp.’

[Nico and Carmella laugh]

N: Now I gotta watch it, though, that sounds great.

C: It’s really good, but there are times when they are not making the most sensible survival choices in my professional opinion.

A: I haven’t seen it yet, but all the things I’ve encountered from it, I’m like, ‘And where’s the cannibalism? I was told that this is a “normal survival cannibalism”. Are they gonna go and make it weird? Are they gonna do some weird ritual shit, or are they just gonna cut an arm off a dead body and roast it?’

C: It is one of those… Spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the full season, but they haven’t yet resolved this issue, but it’s this question of is there some kind of vengeful power in the forest that’s causing them to behave like this, or are they behaving like this because they’re teenage girls?

[Alix snorts]

C: And it’s currently leaving that as a mystery, which I like. I don’t know if it will resolve on either side of whether there’s supernatural intervention, or if it’s just ‘you know how it is when girls get together.’ [Laughs] They hunt each other for sport and eat each other!

[All laugh]

N: You know what, I found that was true when I was young.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Why can’t we just have a nice normal survival cannibalism story? Why does it always have to be some external force? Why can’t hunger be enough?

N: You know, I think that’s a good question, and that kind of segues into our supposed topic.

C: Yes!

N: On account of, that does seem to be something that fiction wants to do – is have some external, supernatural reason for people to do what’s deemed ‘unnatural’, right? So that you kind of– It’s almost a forgiveness technique, I suppose. That does seem to be something that happens. I had such an important question about Yellowjackets, because I haven’t seen it. So have they eaten anyone yet?

C: It has a really strong opening to Episode One, where they are eating a body.

N: Oh, excellent!

C: And that’s a flash forward, then it flashes back and we don’t know who’s being eaten or under what circumstances, but definitely a human body gets eaten.

N: Excellent, okay. See, I want to know that up front, you know? I don’t want my heart broken by the promised cannibalism, and then–

C: Yeah. It won’t mess around with you.

N: I remember when Lost first came out, and I was ready. I was primed. I even– Every season they would show that dog. They had a dog. They had a whole, like, fat labrador.

[Carmella laughs]

N: Never. Never even discussed it. Like, what are you doing? You know, there’s a bunch of, like, city folk on this island. They don’t know– They don’t know how to feed themselves, and they’ve got a chubby, adult labrador. I mean, I have four dogs, but come on!

A: Yeah, but Lost also had a polar bear.

N: They did have a polar bear. But you couldn’t eat the polar bear. I mean, the polar bear was gonna eat them. A lot of stuff happened on that show. Or possibly didn’t happen. I didn’t… follow– [Laughs]

[Carmella laughs]

N: Really where that went. I mean, it’s not like I want to eat dogs. You know, it’s not something I seek out.

C: But if it came to it you would eat the fat labrador? I mean, that’s fair.

N: Certainly someone else’s. [Laughs]

C: On the topic of pop culture and media, am I correct in thinking that there has been a Mindy Project survival cannibalism fanfiction in your history? And I– [Spoken with intense sincerity] I would love to hear more about the thinking behind that, the set up… Do tell me more, please!

N: [Sighs] Oh, jeez. You know, I didn’t know that this is what I would become known for, but–

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

N: But in hindsight, it does make some sort of sense [Laughs]. So– Alright. So I’ve written fanfiction for years and years, since probably high school, you know, for various things. I was never really tied to one particular thing I was writing it for, it was just whatever I was into at the time. Sometimes such a thing would happen. And I, for whatever reason, I got really into watching The Mindy Project. Like, when it first came out. I really liked Mindy Kaling. Chris Messina is just a smoke show. He’s just, like, gorgeous. And it was just a really funny show. But my wheelhouse as a writer is far darker!

[Carmella laughs]

N: And usually is speculative fiction and, you know, like, horror, and body horror specifically, and somehow in my brain they just mashed up.

A: The true embodiment of ‘inside of you, there are two wolves.’

N: [Laughs] Exactly! One is Chris Messina and Mindy Kaling, and one wants to… eat… Mindy Kaling.

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

N: So anyway, yeah, so the story is called… ‘Bootylicious’.

[All laugh]

N: It’s not very long. It has an author’s note at the beginning that says, like, ‘I did no research on this story.’ Like, the research is literally like I saw Alive once.

[More laughter]

N: That’s it. And it’s entirely that set up. It’s just like they’re crashed on a snowy mountain. Nobody’s coming. And it was them – Mindy and her fellow doctor Danny Castellano – and sometime before the action of this, their third… For some reason there are only three people on this plane. Or maybe– Let’s say the pilot and them got thrown, okay, they’re on some other peak, you know. Yeah, exactly, they got thrown off. Or he was eaten by wolves. I don’t know. But yeah, they had this other guy, Jeremy, their friend, who was pre-dead when the story began. [Breaks off into laughter]

A: Ah, so in media res?

N: Yes! Yes, that makes it much– [Laughs] Much more formal. And so, I mean, for me the thing of it is that I love rom-coms–

[Carmella and Alix laugh in surprise]

N: I really, I honestly do! And I love survival stories. And I love, like, survival cannibalism stories. And I think– This is gonna sound wacky, but I do think they have some of the same bones. Because you– Just stick with me on this! You have– [Bursts into laughter]

C: [Through laughter] I am so ready to hear this!

A: It’s about the human condition!

N: Exactly! The human condition! So the idea that you have these characters that kind of start out usually with a fundamental miscommunication, in a rom-com, right? And people who don’t quite know each other. And the action of the rom-com usually throws them in a situation in which neither of them is expert, right? So their kind of, like, natural powers are taken away, and they’re stripped down to their most frustrated selves.

C: [Waiting for the punchline] Okay?!

N: And then through that – having to endure that together – they come to understand each other in a more fundamental way. 

A: And what could be more fundamental?

N: [In excited agreement] And what could be more fundamental than sitting down together and eating your mutual friend?

[All laugh]

N: So for me, anyway, that’s one way I like to look at rom-coms. I kind of look at rom-coms in the same way I look at speculative fiction: they exist in not quite this universe, right? The rules are a little different in a rom-com.

C: [In agreement] Mmm.

N: You know? Things are a little skewed in a rom-com, so you have a bit of narrative wiggle-room to make things extreme. So I wrote this little story, and the very small, you know, 20-person Mindy Project fandom… Uh…

[All laugh]

N: Were very, very sweet about it. I got a lot of comments that were like, ‘I am not sure what just happened, like, I’m– I feel bad for having read this.’ But in, like, a positive way.

C: Hey!

N: For me, the fun of it is the genre mashing. The fun of it was doing that extreme situation. So yeah, my, like, rom-com survival cannibalism story grand theory of the universe is that I guess these – in fiction I would say, obviously, rather than reality – in fiction, these survival cannibalism stories often premise themselves on revealing character through whittling away power and whittling away agency and, in fact, whittling away civilisation, until you come to a place that’s kind of beyond those things. In The Terror Season One, James Fitzjames says “We’re beyond vanity now”, so I think that’s where these things exist, in a place beyond vanity.

C: I have a very bad pun to make… meat cute.

[Moment of stunned silence]

N: Oh my God!

A: That’s the title!

[Carmella laughs]

N: Oh my God. Oh my God.

A: I am picturing– You know the type of illustration you get on a rom-com? I just want Meat Cute the book cover. They’re probably sitting around a fire, there are stars, it’s very romantic.

C: [Laughs] There’s a leg on a spit.

N: Yeah, I was like, ‘Well, what’s turning on the fire?’

[Carmella laughs]

A: There’ll be a perfectly-fed dog next to them.

[Carmella still laughing]

A: Like they’re just camping, just to bring it all full circle.

C: I mean, we do have a running joke on the podcast about Bills & Boon which is, you know, cannibalism erotica. And I think that, yeah, there’s room to branch out into the more romantic fiction side of things.

N: Absolutely. Thank you for justifying that. [Laughs] I am literally writing down ‘meat cute’.

C: You’re welcome to use it, please do.

N: When I need a sideline, that’s gonna– That’s gonna be my breakaway hit. Who doesn’t love that?

A: Now you see, what I’m really tempted to do right now is just go on AO3 and see what’s been tagged as ‘survival cannibalism’.

N: It’s a term that I didn’t really use before I started listening to your podcast, you know? Because, like, it was all just cannibalism to me. But the differentiation is important. You know, at the Deadlands, before my time there, we had a non-fiction piece by Katie Gill called ‘The Custom of the Sea’, which is sort of like a lightning-fast run down of a million different survival cannibalism scenarios. She organised it very cleverly as a ‘how to’.

A: Oh nice!

N: Yeah, ‘So you’ve accidentally had to partake in the custom of the sea? How do you go about this?’ It’s a really cute little article, and has so many instances that I hadn’t heard of, and that– I don’t think you’ve covered all of them yet. There’s a couple in there you might want to take a look at, you know.

C: There’s definitely a lot of custom of the sea ones where it’s just tragically lacking information. So we know that people were on this boat and they ate each other, but where’s the juicy details, you know?

A: Like, man cannot live on ‘they subsisted off the body for three weeks’. I’m like, ‘Come on!’

C: But what were they feeling?

N: Which part of the body?

C: These are the important questions that we ask.

A: What did it taste like?

N: [Agreeing] MmHmm. How did it haunt them?

C: What have we got on AO3?

A: So on AO3, I have just searched ‘survival cannibalism’. I’m just gonna give a quick run down of the fandoms where survival cannibalism has been tagged, just so that we can see the diversity…

N: Wait, I want to guess! I want to guess the number one.

C: I feel like Supernatural has gotta be up there?

N: Gotta be up there.

C: But is that too obvious?

N: It’s a little obvious. I feel like there’s gotta be some RPF in there. Like, there’s gotta be, like, some Harry Styles kind of–

C: Yes!

N: One Direction, you know.

C: One Direction. They’re on a plane flying to their next concert. 

N: [Snorts] They’re often on a plane, aren’t they?

C: They obviously eat Niall first.

N: There’s a Niall?

A: Well there was…!

C: Not anymore!

N: [Sad trombone noise] Alright, what have we got?

A: Okay, so these are the most popular on AO3 fanfiction featuring survival cannibalism… Mad Max.

N: [Disappointed] Oh.

C: Ehh. Yeah.

N: Like, does that even count? That looks like a place where that just happens.

A: Oh, don’t worry, the next one will take us back to those wild heights. Among Us the video game.

N: I love it.

C: I see it.

N: I see it! Because, like, sometimes when you get killed in that you just become a little hambone.

A: Yep! My Hero Academia. There are also some very… alternative tags on that. That I will not be reading out loud. Naruto.

N: [Delighted] Naruto?! Wow! [Laughs]

A: Outlast the video game. Undertale the video game.

N: Whoa. Okay.

A: Teen Wolf.

C: [Very excited] Yes!

N: You were waiting for that one?

A: And shockingly low down on the list… Hannibal.

[Carmella cackles]

N: Well because it’s not for survival, right? Yeah.

C: That’s true.

N: Star Trek and Star Wars are battling it out for next place.

C: Cannibalism in space. It’s gotta happen.

A: Little Nightmares video game. A lot of video game cannibalisms.

N: Interesting.

A: The Dragon Prince cartoon.

N: What? Isn’t that, like, a kid’s cartoon?

C: I’m surprised there’s not a My Little Pony one, actually.

N: Horse cannibalism is very under-represented in the media, I think.

A: It might make you like horses more.

C: [Laughing] Yeah.

N: Are you a horse detractor?

C: I don’t trust them.

N: Oh, that’s fair.

A: Dead by Daylight, and then The Untamed.

N: Oh there’s, like, there’s canonical cannibalism going on there, so… Yeah. 

A: IT.

C: Well, that’s too easy.

N: [Agreeing] Mmm.

A: Snowpiercer – also canonical sort-of-survival cannibalism. Captain America.

N: [Unsurprised] Hm.

A: The Avengers, and to wrap it up, The Hobbit.

[Nico gasps in delight. Carmella giggles]

N: Oh my lord! I need to know what species. [Laughs]

C: Yeah, is it cannibalism, like, if a hobbit eats a dwarf? Or if an elf eats a human?

N: I think elves could eat whoever, you know. From their point of view.

C: Yeah.

N: Because they’re– They’ve got the whole immortal thing going on.

A: I think it appears to be dwarf cannibalism.

N: Just dwarf on dwarf?

A: Yes. I’m not repeating that.

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

N: Alright coward!

A: So the survival cannibalism genre is thriving in fandom spaces, and I am very surprised that The Terror wasn’t on the first page.

N: I am as well. You know, I think a lot of The Terror fanfiction is sweeter than you would think.

C: Coffee shop AU, yeah.

N: Yeah, because– I mean, I know because I go looking for the horrible stuff, and it’s all just, you know, like, [in a mocking voice] ‘everyone’s alive’. That’s not why I watch the show.

C: [Laughs] I don’t want them to be alive!

N: No, it’s not the point. The point is they’re all dead. [Laughs] I think for me, you know, The Terror, I loved that season, and I think it really epitomised what I love about that genre of fiction. Not just, like, the trek across the ice genre of fiction, but the survival and the survival cannibalism… Can we call them tropes? I guess. Yeah, it’s really that it does strip away things. When I start to pitch the show to people, they think that it’s very dark and that it’s very sad – and it is those things, but more and more as it goes on, it’s about finding the most loving way to let someone’s life end, and to witness the end of their life. In that one, the cannibalism is– I mean, it’s complicated, obviously. But the moment it becomes an act of love is when, you know, the doctor poisons himself in order to die so the other guys eat him and they can’t hurt anyone else. Yeah, that’s what I love about cannibalism, is how sweet and loving it is. [Bursts into laughter] I say that jokingly, but I am serious!

A: You say that laughing but, like, there’s Alix about to get into it, because they didn’t do it in The Terror, because they were focusing a lot more on, not quite black and white, but your cannibals were the bad guys.

N: Yep.

A: In real situations, in normal life – you have this with the Andes; you have this with the Skyhawk; you have this in a lot of situations – that people will sit down and talk about it. They will say ‘eat my body if I die’. It’s that moment when Nando is about to walk off as one of the expeditionaries, and he takes one of the leaders aside, and his mother and his sister’s bodies have basically been…

C: Off limits?

A: Off limits. And he just says, ‘When we’re gone, if you need to, you have my permission.’ Cannibalism isn’t this evil thing done by evil people for evil reasons, it’s how much can people want to survive? And ultimately, in almost all of these situations, people want to survive for each other… And then you get the absolute, you know, mad cases, where only one person walks out and they’re waving human hands off the ship, and it’s just like what the hell is going on on that boat?

[Carmella laughs]

A: But for the most part, it’s emotional. Okay, I’ve had my ‘cannibalism is all about the human condition’ moment.

N: It is, though, it’s true! No, no, I’m with you. For me that is why I inserted it in a rom-com, and, like, why I think it is actually a really interesting pairing, is that, you know, you have a very serious thing that is about being human, and that is about loving each other in an extreme situation. That’s also the moment in the account of Alive that always gets me. That and just the fact that his sister and his mother were set aside voluntarily by everybody, that they wouldn’t do that for so long. It just speaks immediate volumes as soon as you know that.

A: Cannibalism is beautiful.

N: Isn’t it? Aww, nothing brings us together like cannibalism.

A: Literally.

[Carmella and Alix chuckle]

C: Well, on that note… Thank you so much for joining us today, Nico. That has been fascinating!

N: Hasn’t it?!

A: I think we’ve all learnt a lot.

N: About each other, about ourselves. Yeah.

A: About the AO3 algorithm…

C: Before we let you go, do you have any upcoming projects or current projects that you would like to plug to our audience, or encourage them to check out?

N: I just want to plug the Deadlands again, because it does seem like a good fit for the same audience. So if you’re ever looking for short fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and we have an on-going ‘ask a necromancer’ feature that is coming up. It’s a really, really cool magazine. I edit poetry; it’s my domain, I get to absolutely everything, so if you send me a poem, it is me, I will read it, not some intern schlub, you know? So you get this genius brain looking over– [Laughs] Looking over your words. And I would love more cannibalism content in my slush pile.

A: You heard it here first, folks. If you don’t get a whole load of cannibalism poems, I’m going to be very disappointed.

N: I will, in fact, be very disappointed. [Laughs]

C: Well, the challenge is out there. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

A: The hand is still inside the gauntlet.

C: Lots of food for thought from this episode. Pun intended.

A: I’m normally the bad one with puns.

N: You just, like, you threw out ‘meat cute’ and now you’re just drunk with power.

C: Thank you so much for joining us, it’s been wonderful.

A: Wonderful to talk to you, Nico.

N: It was wonderful, thank you so much for thinking of me and having me here. And I look forward to seeing how you make us sound like we were not just cracking up for the past half hour. [Laughs]

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Thank you for listening to today’s episode featuring Neil McRobert and Nicasio Reed. Next time, we’ll be speaking to a historian of corpse medicine, a curious father-son duo, and a pair of fellow Morbid Audio podcast network members.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

Are you ready for an extra bite? In this bonus mini-season, Alix and Carmella invite some special dinner guests to the table.

Today, bioarchaeologist Stacy Hackner and folklorist Paul Cowdell join us to talk cannibal ballads, coprolites and the custom of the sea.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. With guest appearances from Stacy Hackner and Paul Cowdell, and special thanks to Chris Wilson of the London Sea Shanty Collective for vocals.

Stacy Hackner can be found on Twitter as @stacytg, or check out her drag projects on Instagram as @professor_q_cumber.

Paul Cowdell can be found on Twitter as @PaulCowdell, and on his blog: http://humphreywithhisflail.blogspot.com/. ‘Cannibal Ballads: not just a question of taste’ was first published in 2010 in the Folk Music Journal 9(5), pp. 723-747. Read it online here: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cannibal+ballads%3a+not+just+a+question+of+taste+…-a0213983185.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: Welcome to our bite-sized Season 4. We’re expanding the menu for this mini-season by having some old friends for dinner. This episode, we’ll be speaking to bioarchaeologist Stacy Hackner and folklorist Paul Cowdell.

[Intro music continues]

C: Welcome back to Casting Lots, and today we have Stacy Hackner joining us. Stacy, would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, your connection to survival cannibalism, why you’re here today?

A: Asking for someone’s connection to survival cannibalism does sound a bit like we’ve gone very far in an interview direction I didn’t think we’d land.

Stacy: I don’t think it’s an unusual question. I am Stacy Hackner. I am a bioarchaeologist; I study dead people in archaeological contexts. Mostly I dig up bones or look at mummies, and I have always been interested in the idea of eating people, because people in my profession tend to be really weird anyway and spend a lot of time thinking about our own deaths and burials, and when I was about 15 I started asking people, ‘Would you eat your own limbs if they were chopped off in a clean industrial accident?’, and I don’t know why. And from then I kind of realised that most of the people who said ‘Yes, I would definitely do that – also I would eat yours’ were my good friends. And from then I just became more interested in it.

C: I think that those are the kind of conversations that test a friendship and prove a friendship.

A: Like, if you’ve not been wandering around on sort of a hike with friends and gone ‘Oh, yeah no we’d eat you first,’ then is it a real friendship?

S: Yes, exactly. I would happily, you know, give my limbs to someone who was starving.

A: See, I’m not sure if I’d give my limbs… But I would definitely consent for them to be eaten if I was no longer using them.

[Stacy laughs]

C: Not just, ‘here you go, get started.’

S: I also do a lot of wilderness first aid and I was doing some training with mountain rescue and it’s always kind of in the forefront of my mind, you know: if I’m trapped somewhere, first, how do we get everyone one? But second, if we have to stay here for a number of days or weeks, who do we eat first?

A: And surely if you’re off on a mountain rescue, what might you walk into?

S: Exactly. Unfortunately, I was hiking with my partner a few months ago and we became encased in fog, and I’m not sure if they were particularly scared that I was going to eat them, but we were both quite frightened in general and I know that without a doubt I would eat them.

A: It’s been, what, five minutes? Ten minutes? I’m like ‘definitely time enough to start.’

S: [Laughs] We had been lost for an hour.

A: Now, you said that you were a bioarchaeologist. Now, I’ve got a couple of friends who are archaeologists and it is, as professions go, one that I’ve encountered a little bit of people-eating in. Apparently the best way to test whether a substance is bone or rock involves eating it. Is that true?

S: That– It is a way. It is, however, the amateur way. At the professional standard, you shouldn’t be putting anything in your mouth because it could be contaminated with things like anthrax or tetanus or other soil bacteria. The way that you do tell is actually bone tends to be very spongy and light, and it will stick to your tongue, but pottery also sticks to your tongue – just in a slightly different way. Rock never sticks to your tongue. This is something that I did do in the past, but now I have been trained to recognise them by sight instead, which is the healthier way.

A: Been trained not to eat the artefacts.

S: Yes, yes.

A: I work in a museum, so that is quite a common thing that we have to deal with as well.

S: Yeah. It’s a conservation nightmare, you shouldn’t be putting your own saliva onto things that may be valuable for historical reasons. There is a wonderful poem that’s: “My name is Jane / and when I dig / I find the rocks / both small and big / I put my tongue / upon the stone / for science, yes / I lick the bone.”

[Carmella laughs]

A: So there is a little bit of, shall we say, cultural crossover between the archaeology sphere and the cannibalism sphere – even if yours is more amateur and not necessarily involving consumption, more just sort of a flavour test.

S: Yes. Although, what I became particularly interested in was researching cannibalism in the ancient world and archaeologically. 

C: And yes that’s one of the reasons we were so excited to have you on the podcast. We did, as our listeners will know, do an episode on prehistoric survival cannibalism, reading up on how archaeologists can predict when cannibalism may have happened, and when it’s for survival.

S: [Following along] Uh-huh.

C: But, you know, that was a couple of weeks of research rather than a career. So we would love to hear an expert opinion and, yeah, what your experience is with how one might come across cannibalism in your field, and how you would determine that.

S: There are a couple of interesting incidents that everyone likes to talk about within the cannibalism research sector, I would say, and all of them are extremely contentious because of the place that cannibalism has in our society as very taboo. Nobody likes to admit when they’ve found something that’s cannibalism, and in archaeology we can never prove anything with 100% certainty, and so that makes it even more challenging. Because if you say ‘This seems like it could possibly be evidence of cannibalism,’ someone else will come back and say, ‘No, this is hyena scavenging behaviour!’

C: Oh, those hyenas.

A: We have enough difficulty authenticating when we have first-hand accounts.

S: Yes.

A: Let alone if we are several thousands to millions years old.

S: Indeed, it is– it’s so contentious, and it’s just because of the difficulty of proving anything. Which is why – I thought I probably cannot name names in the juicy gossip – but I did witness first hand a near fist fight at a conference, a true academic conference, where the speaker was trying to prove that they had evidence of cannibalism from parasites in fossilised faeces, and an audience member who was another researcher who had also done research on the same site, stood up and, you know, shaking his fist in the air and pointing finger, said, ‘No, you’ve completely misinterpreted the evidence!’ And they got into a screaming match. So it was… I may already have said too much with the topic; people might be able to identify [laughs] who the individuals are, but both prominent members of their field. And I’ve never seen that happen before in academic settings.

A: What can we say? Cannibalism really is a hot topic that everyone has an opinion on.

S: Yes, yes. Would you like to hear about the ways that we can identify potential cannibalism? 

C: Yes please!

S: It’s always potential, even if we 100% know something. There is, in fact, in archaeology only one time, I think, when all the evidence has been corroborated, and that’s about a particular skeleton on the Mary Rose. He died of sinking, obviously, but– 

[Alix and Carmella both laugh]

S: So a lot of what I do is trying to figure out what activities people did during their lifetime, based on musculature, and so he was found with all the musculature of an archer, and he was also found holding his bows and arrows, and that is the only 100% certainty ‘this person was an archer’ that we’ve ever had.

[Carmella chuckles]

A: I think I’ve seen that skeleton, I think– Is it on display at the Mary Rose exhibition?

S: Yeah, he’s very cool.

A: Sorry, I’m going off on a Mary Rose tangent here. 

S: I love the Mary Rose. 

A: They found a dog.

[Carmella gasps in delight]

A: They called him Hatch.

C: Aww.

S: Yeah, how cute is that?

A: He’s called Hatch because he drowned to death underneath the hatch. So it’s less cheerful there.

S: The hatch that kept everyone from swimming to safety. 

C: That’s less cute. [Laughs]

A: It’s not an episode of Casting Lots unless there’s a dead dog.

S: [Laughs] Never. Okay, so the ways that we attempt to distinguish cannibalism from animal scavenging or different burial practices – because sometimes different cultures will deflesh the bodies or dig them up years later and rebury them in some way, and so they get scratched. So we look for butchery marks, which is treating human bones as if they are animals and cutting off the meaty bits; particularly taking out the brain, chopping bones in half so that they expose the marrow cavities, and, in at least the one at Jamestown, there’s a lot of butchery around the face as well to get to the tongue and the meaty cheeks. I’ve never really thought about cheeks being meaty, but…

A: Poor Jane.

S: We look for gnawing, and particularly using a microscopy to see that the gnaw marks are from human teeth and not from other scavenging animals.

C: Those hyenas.

S: Yes, hyenas definitely. Wolves. Even human pets – cats will eat humans. We also look for something called pot polishing, which is when the ends of the bones get kind of shiny because they’ve been stirred around in a boiling pot.

C: I always love that. That’s a proper witch’s cauldron image.

S: Yeah, like you just have a big thigh bone and you’re just holding it, like, stirring it around.

A: Quite cartoonish. That’s sort of what people envision when you say ‘cannibalism’. Is it quite self-evident when it’s human teeth marks compared to other creatures, or is that quite a difficult science, as it were?

S: Yes. We have quite a rounded dental arch, and most of the scavenging creatures have a more elongated jaw. Also all the scavengers have really pointy teeth, and we do not. Then other ways that I think it is possible to tell whether it’s particularly survival cannibalism, that I don’t think anyone has really looked into, is nitrogen isotopes. So this is the amount of nitrogen that builds up in your bones and in other soft tissues as you go up the trophic chain. So prey animals will have lower nitrogen and top-level predators will have very high levels of nitrogen, and this you can tell through various scientific analytic methods of the bones. And interestingly, we find much higher nitrogen isotope levels in infants, because they are exclusively eating breast milk.

[Alix and Carmella both make intrigued noises]

S: So they are top-level predators.

[Alix snorts]

C: Yeah, top of the food chain! 

S: And also in people who are starving, because they are effectively eating themselves. So I have a theory that has not yet been tested that, if we are looking for survival cannibalism rather than just ritual cannibalism, then we should look at nitrogen isotopes to see how far up we are on the chain.

C: Because then we’d know that either they were starving, or they’d been eating nothing but babies…

S: Yes. Only babies. Or only breast milk. Which also would be really interesting!

[Alix and Carmella both laugh]

C: Hmm…

A: See, we often get the question of, like, where does cannibalism begin? And it’s like, while having a diet exclusively of breast milk isn’t technically cannibalism, it is a little bit weird.

C: I’m looking askance at newborn babies. [Laughs]

S: Actually, the one site on which this was tested was on Jane from Jamestown, who– She is called Jane. It is quite contentious to name your skeletons in archaeology, so I’m not particularly pleased that they have named her that. But that’s what we’re rolling with. It’s also strange to give genders to your skeletons in archaeology. Particularly because all that they found of this individual was a leg and a skull, and a skull is not particularly good for sex estimation, and as a queer person who is very into looking at alternative gender representations… Yes, I was doing all the background research on Jane and thought it’s really kind of sketchy, they don’t know the gender of the skeleton and yet they’ve given her a name and a pronoun.

A: That became a story quite quickly with Jane and when they did the recreation.

C: This reminds me a bit of with the Franklin Expedition and how there were some skeletons that appeared to have XX chromosomes and be European in origin, and those conversations around is it degradation of DNA, or is it possible there were trans people or women aboard the Franklin Expedition. And yeah, it’s interesting that people would assume this about Jane, because it’s clearly something that gets considered in archaeology already.

S: Yeah.

C: And in survival cannibalism-related archaeology.

S: If we’re rolling with calling this individual Jane, as in the popular media, that individual had very high nitrogen isotope levels, which to me indicates that everyone there was eating a fully meat-based diet, because they were hunting and all of their crops had failed – or Jane was already a cannibal herself.

C: Or a mixture of the two?

S: Or a mixture of the two. But neither of those can ever be proven really.

A: Well, I’m not gonna look at her the same way.

S: [Laughs] You see that beautiful innocent face and say, ‘You’ve already eaten people.’

[Carmella laughs]

S: In addition to nitrogen isotopes, there has been another microscopy method established, which is looking at degradation of collagen, and collagen tends to degrade in different ways if someone is cooked versus being buried in the ground, and so that’s another way that someone could tell evidence of cannibalism. However, it could be argued that perhaps boiling people and cooking their bones down was part of another funerary practice. So it depends whether you fall on the ‘cannibalism is okay’ or ‘cannibalism is not okay’ side of the debate, putting a lot of moral assumptions on it.

C: And of course there are instances where people have to eat flesh raw, so–

S: Exactly.

A: It’s not gonna be a catch-all answer either way.

S: Exactly. The more evidence you bring up, the more evidence there is to disprove, and then someone will definitely disprove it. Because we love to argue.

A: Sometimes physically, I’ve heard! See, it’s definitely more scientific than our ‘do you think this is survival, ritual or just for fun’–

[Stacy laughs]

A: Quiz round that we did to try and answer these prehistoric questions.

S: Archaeology is really… I love it because it adds to the historical evidence. So it’s another way of looking at history, and another way of bolstering or disproving what we know from history.

A: There’s no such thing as too much information.

S: No, never! So I was looking through the literature of all of the sites that we have potential cannibalism at, and survival cannibalism tends to be proven extremely rarely. And so all the earliest evidence of cannibalism in general was from a site in Spain called Gran Dolina, which was about 780,000 years ago. The oldest in the UK is a site called Gough’s Cave. And another one called Herxheim in Germany from I guess we can say roughly the same time period – which is in the hundreds of thousands of years ago. But all of these show evidence of cannibalism that was practised in concert with a lot of animal bones, and so it was probably not survival because they could have also eaten those animals. But that’s not particularly proven, because they could have been going through a drought and those animal bones could be a thousand years from the time that the people were butchered and eaten.

C: Just because there were animals there at some point, doesn’t mean that there were at the specific point.

S: Yes. However, the evidence seems to point to ritual cannibalism. Oh, and in one of them I did learn a new word.

A: We love expanding our cannibalism vocab.

S: Yeah, so there’s endo-cannibalism (eating members of your own group) and exo-cannibalism (eating members of other groups), and one article referred to endo-cannibalism as ‘affectionate cannibalism’.

C: [Delighted] Aww!

S: In which you’re showing your love for the individuals by consuming them.

A: [Pretending to cough] Gastronomic incest.

S: [Laughs] Yes, exactly! 

C: Affectionate cannibalism, I love that. Adding that one to the dictionary right now.

S: Yeah, just– it’s very happy. I was saying about the site at Herxheim, which is from around 5,000 years ago. So there is a lot of evidence of very ritualistic butchery and the researchers do suggest that it kind of sprang up out of nowhere, that there wasn’t any evidence of ritual cannibalism before then, and perhaps there was some kind of social crisis. Usually when we talk about social crises in ancient times, it’s going to be water- or food-based, some kind of drought, some kind of famine, and everyone starts eating each other. However, these people were also found alongside animal bones, so to what extent was it ritual, or to what extent were they perhaps sacrificing and eating humans to control something in their environment.

A: Or just something to do.

S: Yeah. Which is actually not changing the idea of cannibalism, but changing the idea of survival.

A: I do quite like when we do that, when we sort of twist, and like okay we only talk about survival cannibalism, but what if they felt like they needed to do the cannibalism in order to survive? So it is a fun twisting of definitions there.

S: More of a spiritual survival. The site that I think is really interesting because of how contentious it is – and also the evidence is going to be really cool for this one – is a site called Cowboy Wash in Colorado.

C: [Intrigued] Ooh, cowboys…

S: And it belonged to the ancestral Puebloans in the 12th century. It’s a series of pit houses which are built into the ground underneath cliffs, and I’ve actually been to sites nearby and they’re really, really cool. There are the remains of 12 people, seven of which had evidence of dismembering, pot polishing and gnawing by human teeth. There was human blood residue found on stone tools nearby.

A: [Excited] Ooh!

S: And – the best – someone had done a poo in a room nearby! And they did an analysis of this piece of human faeces, which is called a coprolite. I almost did my PhD on this topic. The site was abandoned and it wasn’t packed up, like a grisly murder and cannibalism event had happened. They proved this by looking at the proteins within the poo and found that they were entirely human proteins.

C: Wow!

A: That sounds like a maybe 99% that someone definitely ate human at that site?

S: It is 99%, sure, that somebody ate humans. However, could this coprolite have come from a scavenging animal?

[Carmella laughs]

S: Who also went on a violent rampage!

C: With tools!

S: Yes. With tools.

A: Damn those hyenas!

S: Yes! Getting into whether this was survival cannibalism or not gets very complicated, because it does involve indigenous groups and white people’s expectations of the groups in the area. So the remains of the individuals have been reburied, as is protocol and as is respectful. The land is ancestral to the Ute people, who in their history have always been extremely peaceful. The ancestral Puebloans are known as a very peaceful people. And so whether this was some kind of outsider coming in during a drought and eating all of the ancestral Puebloans… Really there isn’t any more evidence showing who had done the eating. And a researcher called Karl Reinhard, whose special topic is coprolites – he is very cool and his research is very gross, if you’re not into such things…

C: I think you can assume that our listeners are into gross research.

S: Karl Reinhard has said that he studied hundreds of ancestral Puebloan coprolites and has found that all of them, except for this one individual, contains residues of a diverse mixture of plant material and also meat, particularly small game – things like lizards, insects – because the hunting around there, especially in times of drought, was not particularly good. In the 12th century, there had been a drought and people had started to move closer to the water sources because everything was drying up. There is evidence of eating more and more wild foods and less domesticated foods. But still no evidence of cannibalism. They seemed to be surviving. There had been evidence of droughts in centuries prior to this, and they did change their diet, but not significantly enough to eat humans. As he said (I have to read the entire quote because it’s very nice): “Cannibalism does not make sense for a people so exquisitely adapted to droughts by centuries of hunting-gathering traditions and agricultural innovation.” So he strongly believes that this is not an act of cannibalism by the ancestral Puebloan people. However, there has been proven evidence of cannibalism from Central America – well, proven in archaeological terms. If we think that the reports of the Spanish invaders can be trusted, which… Probably they can’t.

C: Yeah.

S: Yeah, they were trying to paint the Central American indigenous people in a pretty negative light.

A: There’s a little bit of bias there, we can acknowledge that.

S: Yeah, they are quite biased, since they were trying to kick them off their land at the time. However, many of the things that they did say about human sacrifice are attested from the Mixtecan and Aztec records. And what if our attempts to identify those people as non-cannibals is also unfair to their culture? What if they were really proud of their cannibalism traditions, and the Spanish came in and noted it accurately, and now we’re coming in and saying, ‘no, they’re not cannibals’, and that’s putting our own moral judgements back on the situation?

C: That’s a good question. It’s that ever-present anti-cannibalism bias. I say with humour, but it’s true.

S: So what if there was someone, or a group of people, who were moving northwards from Central America and introducing the idea of cannibalism to this famine and drought-ridden region? Or maybe just one person who went on kind of a terrible rampage.

A: The idea of introducing cannibalism as sort of a door-to-door salesman.

S: [Laughs] Yes. ‘Excuse me, have you heard about cannibalism today? It’s very good and will solve many of your problems.’

A: I mean, is that not this podcast?

[Carmella laughs]

S: Yes! [Laughs] So it’s possible that it was an outsider who potentially was also starving. Maybe they didn’t know about, you know, they didn’t know the right lizards to catch, they didn’t know the right wild grasses to pick. In which case, I think this is a really good example of survival cannibalism, perhaps not by the individuals who actually lived in the area, but by somebody else.

C: Thank you for sharing that! I think I’d vaguely heard of that case, but hadn’t read into it, so all of that was completely new and delightful. Thank you.

S: Yeah. It also– It goes really deep. There’s layers and layers of how the indigenous people look at themselves and their history, versus science and how scientists and archaeologists want to examine them, and changes in archaeological understanding in the 1960s, and then layered on top of that is new ways to analyse archaeological faeces. And all of these create this kind of wonderful melting pot of–

A: A cooking pot, if you will.

S: Everybody’s kind of wrong, but definitely cannibalism happened.

A: Before we let you go, a little birdy told me– the little birdy’s also you.

[Stacy laughs]

A: That you may have also spoken, or shall I say sung, about a topic that’s rather close to my heart?

S: Yes!

A: Such as the Whaleship Essex. So I would love to hear more about this.

S: Yes. I was very inspired one day. I was listening to a remix by an artist I quite like, Cosmo Sheldrake, and it’s a song about a storm, and I was kind of thinking about it, and I thought, ‘You know what, I’ve been meaning to write something about the Essex for a long time.’ I write a lot of songs because I’m also a drag king. And so I did. And I completely wrecked my voice over the past few weeks – I have to shout a lot at work.

A: It’s all those fights that I’ve heard about over cannibalism.

S: I am having a friend record it in a nice way with a good voice.

C: And here is the song now, performed by Chris ‘Chip’ Wilson of the London Sea Shanty Collective…

[Song plays. It is performed acapella, in the style of a mournful sea shanty]

I signed on board to go a-whaling /

To hunt that oil on southern seas /

A crew of men seeking their fortune /

I told my love to wait for me /

But round Cape Horn, a storm was brewing /

It wrecked a hole and tore our sail /

And when we cleared,the beast was near us /

That creature chased us, that white whale /

When the storm blows the sea /

In the wind, you’ll wait for me /

And we’ll meet by the quay /

Sad and sweet and fair and free /

I drift at sea, our numbers fading /

No food to eat, we wouldn’t last /

So we chose to eat our brothers /

So far at sea, our lots were cast /

So we ride by the tide /

To the fates that hide inside /

By the deep, by the die /

By the dark, I will survive /

What happens when your prayers aren’t answered? /

What happens when your time is near? /

They killed me there upon that ocean /

And sucked my bones, and dried their tears /

They sing the tale of whaler Essex /

And of the fate that came to me /

I drifted down to deepest waters / 

What’s left, they buried me at sea /

To the foam, to the spray / 

I shall meet the coming day /

Man the oars, beat the drums /

Hold tight, here it comes /

Of twenty men, so few were saved / 

One marooned, the rest like me /

You wouldn’t know unless you’d been there /

It’s called the custom of the sea /

So I go and it blows /

From a place where no man knows /

And it holds and it grips /

And it sings to sunken ships.

[Song ends]

[Alix and Carmella applaud]

A: It doesn’t translate very well for an audio medium, but the absolute beaming smiles! When you said ‘I’ve written a folk song about the Essex’, I was already – as you can imagine – absolutely delighted!

[Stacy laughs]

A: And that was absolutely fantastic.

C: Impeccable.

S: I thought from the point of view of someone being eaten, you know, it’s– I quite like the murder ballad tradition.

A: We actually have the author of ‘Cannibal Ballads: it’s not just a matter of taste’ as one of our up-coming interviewees, so we could always share it with him and get his opinion as well.

S: Ooh, that would be very exciting!

C: Thank you so much for joining us today Stacy, that was absolutely brilliant. Before you go, one final thing: do you have any upcoming projects that you’d like to plug to our audience? 

S: I don’t have any long-term projects, but if anyone would like to follow me on Instagram, they can see my other drag projects, which is more publicly accessible than my archaeological projects. So there you can see more things like the whaleship Essex ballad.

A: Fantastic, we will of course link that down below. It has been wonderful to meet someone who both personally and professionally ‘digs’ the survival cannibalism genre, as it were. 

S: Indeed!

A: That was terrible… I will see myself out.

[Casting Lots theme music plays]

A: Our next guest is someone who on Twitter I once genuinely described as a ‘cannibalism celebrity’, and who took that positively!

Paul: I genuinely couldn’t have been happier!

A: So, Paul, would you like to tell us a little bit about who you are and where cannibalism comes into your life? I do like phrasing this question as awkwardly as possible.

P: No, it’s fine. Thank you for having me on. I’m Dr Paul Cowdell. I’m a folklorist, currently serving on the council of the Folklore Society here in Britain. Like a lot of folklorists in England, where there isn’t an established academic route into studying– a secure academic route into studying the subject, I came to folklore through hobby, through an interest in folk song specifically, where, as we’ll talk about, there are a lot of songs touching on cannibalism at sea. And from this kind of first interest in song, I got more interested in how songs fit into people’s lives, which means you start to look at everything else in people’s lives, which means you start to look at folklore much more broadly. Folklore is a massive area of, if you like, informal culture. It’s the things that people say and do about their immediate lives that aren’t necessarily what you’ll find formally encoded in history. But they’re there, and they’re actually substantial. From folk song, I started to collect other folklore material. I ended up doing a PhD on contemporary belief in ghosts, focused in Britain particularly, which led to me being introduced at one talk at a museum as an ‘expert in morbid eschatology’.

[Carmella laughs]

P: Which, until you’d described me as a ‘cannibalism celebrity’, was the highest praise I’d ever received.

[Alix and Carmella both laugh]

P: So apart from cannibalism, which is just a hobby.

A: [Snorts] Not a professional!

P: No, no! One should only dabble. I have a lot of interest in what happens when people die, and when people die in unfortunate circumstances, and how this plays out. Which is how I came to survival cannibalism, through a traditional song which is a parody, but it seems a very sympathetic treatment, even though it’s parodic, of quite a serious subject.

C: I think ‘parodic by sympathetic’ is often our approach. Er, maybe sometimes less of the sympathetic and more of the parodic, in some cases.

P: I have, I think, probably rather lurid tastes.

[Carmella laughs]

P: That’s why I started to read around and look around and listen around to material on survival cannibalism.

A: Avid readers of our bibliography will definitely know your name. Your ‘not just a question [sic.] of taste’ cannibal ballads work has been cited in a lot of our episodes, and a personal thanks from me for the fact that you’ve done a wonderful little list of ‘here are all of the ships that I’ve managed to find some survival cannibalism on’, which you would be surprised at how rare those actual lists are. So that thanks has been about five years in the making.

P: And I guess I should kind of carry forward my thanks, then, to the person who really focused how I approached it, who was A.W. Brian Simpson, the legal historian who wrote on the Mignonette event and how that was used as a test case in British law. There is this chain of peculiar interest, if you like, that we are all part of. Which also interests me as a folklorist – the transmission of stories, and how stories change and how the narration changes, I think is really interesting. And it’s really important in survival cannibalism, precisely because you get that, when survival cannibalism is a resort, there is generally sympathy. You know, Brian Simpson used the phrase ‘the custom of the sea’ – nobody wants it to happen, nobody likes it, but it does happen, and so we have to accept it. Actually, shortly after the article was published, I gave a talk on it, and somebody who’d grown up in Hull was telling me in the late 60s, a Hull fishing vessel went missing for I think two weeks, and when it came back one of the crew had died. And this guy said to me, there was a lot of comment privately that they suspected that he may have had to have been eaten, and it wasn’t criticism of them if that had happened – it was more of ‘it’s a pity it was him and not the young, feckless one’. Which is interesting because that also comes up as a theme in the whole lot-drawing motif that kind of runs as a red thread through all survival cannibalism stories, too.

A: It’s very rarely the cook.

P: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s very often the youngster with the least experience and no dependents. But that sympathy survives, but as it becomes less common as a practice, you also get much more the emergent parody. And so the song that interested me was this song ‘Little Boy Billee’, which was written by William Makepeace Thackeray originally, and is a parody of a French traditional song. It does wear its parody lightly. It’s not insulting about its content at all. Boy Billee does escape, and actually the villains who are going to kill and eat him are hanged and Billee is elevated to the Admiralty.

C: That’s how you know it’s not based on reality…

P: [Laughs] Yes, I’d be interested to know if any of the major Admiralty figures were involved in any survival cannibalism vessels.

A: Closest I can think of is Byron, George Byron’s grandfather. He has a couple of brushes with survival cannibalism on the Grafton, I believe, then goes off and attempts to find the Northwest passage (and fails). But he’s about the highest member of the Admiralty that I can think of who has a direct connection.

P: Do they pre-date Don Juan? 

A: So there’s a little section where Byron actually is inspired by his grandfather’s narrative and makes direct reference to it in the poem.

P: For all Byron’s usual hilarious tone, what he describes is pretty much what everyone else describes about how survival cannibalism is conducted. At that point, there is no legal requirement to rescue shipwreck survivors. And, in fact, there is probably every incentive not to, because if you pick them out of the water, you’re responsible for feeding them before you can off-load them onto somewhere else. It’s much, much later – 1846, I think – you get the first legislation requiring the reporting of sinking of steam vessels. 1850 it comes in for sailing vessels. And that kind of cavalier attitude prevails for quite a long time. And all the time it’s in existence, the likelihood of survival cannibalism as a resort becomes higher. As vessels become safer, as legislation is increased, the likelihood diminishes, which makes the parody become much more likely, because it’s becoming more remote from daily experience.

C: Yep.

P: I mean, if you look at some of the American examples, there’s a certain sort of rugged frontier pork-and-beans over a campfire attitude to some of the American survival cannibalism stories. But in the 60s, with the emergence of a counter culture, you start to see a much more vigorous parody and finding of amusement in, well, Alfred Packer particularly.

A: Packer’s Bar and Grill.

P: Packer is irresistible. Phil Ochs writes this brilliant song about him, ‘The Ballad of Alfred Packer’, the best joke in which is actually from the court case, when the Judge said to Packer, ‘This county had six democrats and you ate five of them!’

[Carmella laughs]

P: But because it’s not going to happen now, it’s funny. You know, and then you end up with Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Cannibal! The Musical.

C: Yeah. A classic.

A: And I think it’s one of those things that I know we’ve encountered with doing episodes, because our episodes are factual but they are also stories. And it is much easier for us to have a more light-hearted approach to the historical episodes.

C: [In agreement] Mmm.

A: And our tone does intentionally shift once we get up to the, you know, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s and even the ones that have happened in the 2000s. I don’t think we’ve had one yet that’s hit the 2010s. But it is instances of survival cannibalism where they creep closer to our daily reality which are the ones that we find less humour in. We find more humour in the ones that have that significant delay between how we live now and how it was then.

P: We also see, I think, a return to that use of cannibalism as what Gerald Porter called ‘the representative other’. There was a Sun headline from 2006, ‘Cannibal Eats OAP Alive’, so not survival cannibalism stories, but actually just cannibalism as the monstrous, the barbaric, and specifically the uncivilised. Which is lurking in the background through the 19th century ballad material, but it’s not played out until you get the parodies. You get it with W.S. Gilbert’s ‘The Yarn of the Nancy Bell’, where he lists all the crew that he’s eaten.

A: Like a menu.

P: [Laughs] Well, yes. There is a certain inclination to see how these meals will play out in some of the texts. So there’s a Guernsey version of ‘La Courte Paille’ (‘The Short Straw’): “Il était un petit navire” – “There was a little ship / which had never sailed before”. And this is– It’s become an incredibly widespread kids’ song. So they eat him and they have the incredible good taste not to eat his share. They eat him with raw salsify, so if anyone wants any serving suggestions, raw salsify is the recommendation there. Because actually a lot of the songs feature miraculous escapes, it’s actually about staving off the resort to this terrible moments. You read in song texts how the victim, having drawn the lot, pleads for just a little extra time, so they give him one more hour, one more night, and you think, ‘Hmm, if you’ve got to drawing lots, I don’t think this is actually going to be how it played out.’ But then amazingly, there’s the ship that’s come to rescue them!

C: Why do you think that is, that in ballads and texts that there’s this temptation to have this happy ending. Is that just to strike a more cheerful tone so it’s more fun to sing about?

P: I don’t think it’s more fun to sing about; I think it’s more realistic about the likelihood of it happening in real life. So those texts tend to be the earlier texts from a period when it is being reported much more widely. I’d actually gone back to look again at the Swedish text ‘Georg Sjöman’, which just means ‘George the Sailor’. When the ship gets in trouble and they know they’re gonna have to resort to this and drawing lots, he goes berserk and it ends up being a big fight between him and the captain. The captain kills him and everybody’s shocked, but also hungry, so they eat him.

C: Like, not shocked enough to be put off their food!

P: [Laughs] No. No, the text says they’re burning with hunger, so they cut him up, take him down to the Galley where they make a meal of him. But they forget where this meal’s come from: a good shipmate, “en bra kamrat”. I mean, I have this feeling that one of things with the custom of the sea, the removal of the head, it’s because you don’t want the face looking at you.

A: The head, the hands and the feet do tend to be one of the first things that gets thrown overboard. Because those are the real articles of humanity on a body, I think.

P: With the hands and the feet also, they’re the least edible. I suspect. They’re the hardest to get the meat off. I mean, Francis Spaight, O’Brien’s hands and feet were being waved to try and attract the attention of passing ships.

C: But they weren’t eaten, so…

P: [Laughs] No.

A: And Captain Pollard of the Essex was found sucking what little nutrition was left in the knuckle bones of his cousin.

P: Gastronomic incest.

A: [With worrying pleasure] Oh yeah.

C: Alix’s favourite.

A: That makes it sound much worse than it is. I just think it’s an incredibly academic phrase. Like, of course it’s called gastronomic incest, of course that’s what it’s called when you eat a member of your own family. It couldn’t be, you know, like, culinary… comradeship or something.

[Carmella laughs]

A: No, it’s gastronomic incest.

P: Culinary consanguinity.

C: [Delighted] Yes!

A: Exactly. Something a bit nicer. But no, I will not waste an opportunity to say the words ‘gastronomic incest’.

P: It was another phrase that Gerald Porter used. But he was trying to get at the idea that this would therefore be something that people would be even more ambivalent–

C: So this double taboo wrapped up in one.

P: Absolutely. There’s at least one case where – going back to what we were saying about the rigging of the lots – the lot not only fell to somebody with a dependent, it fell to a passenger whose wife was on the ship. They didn’t query it, but his wife said ‘I get first dibs, because he’s my husband.’

A: Ah, the Frances Mary.

P: Yes!

A: This is a very weird party trick…

[Paul laughs]

A: To be able to identify ships by their lots.

C: By how the cannibalism went down.

P: [Laughs] Well, it’s interesting because that touches on this fear that it might actually be nice. Which does actually get to the kind of, even if we don’t want to use the phrase, gastronomic incest. It does get to what Gerald Porter was a little bit kind of worrying about.

A: We do only really encounter, where we’ve touched on a few times – especially in the Wild West with, like, the ‘Colorado Cannibal’, the ‘Kentucky Cannibal’ – it’s always these larger-than-life villainous myth figures who say, ‘Oh, it tasted wonderful and I went back for seconds and I love the taste of human flesh.’ I can’t think of a survival instance where people have ever commented other than, ‘We ate it, it tastes like this. It was food.’ So there does seem to be quite a black-and-white villany/survival tilt to whether or not it ‘tastes good’. 

P: The suspicion that it tastes good does play out in contemporary legends. I’ve just been reading a collection of Victorian urban legends. There’s a lot of baby in pie stories.

C: Of course, of course. Gotta have a baby in a pie.

P: Of course, yeah. And the suspicion is because it tastes so strong.

A: Was it The Curse of the House of Atreus that started with a little bit of baby eating? 

P: There is baby eating in The House of Atreus. It plays out much as in Titus Andronicus with the serving the children up in a pie.

A: And it becomes this sort of family curse. If you ever had human flesh, that’s not only something that’s defiled you, but has defiled your family and has been passed down.

P: Yes, and honestly the Atreides were not blessed with great luck in family fortune. There’s this constant escalation of the catastrophes. But that’s not really how it plays out in any of the later folkloric material around cannibalism.

A: For a lot of our real life instances, people who’ve survived do tend to just go home. And, while they’re inevitably going to be pretty traumatised from the events that happened… I’m going back to George Pollard, he ends up as the night watchman of Nantucket and is well-loved by the children of the island. You have the Uruguayan students going on to live normal lives. You have a return that I think people might also be a little bit scared of, the idea that you can do such a thing, you can have to resort to eating human flesh, and then just–

C: Get on with it.

A: Get on with it. Be unchanged.

P: Yeah.

C: Yeah. And therefore, could anyone who you meet have potentially eaten a person in their past, and you wouldn’t know?

P: Because Tom Dudley from the Mignonette screwed up his employment in Britain, as you can imagine, so he emigrates. He emigrates to Australia and establishes an extremely successful Sydney harbourside business. Just going back to my lurid tastes, one of the things that I’ve written and talked a lot about over the years as a folklorist is folklore about rats. And one of the stories about rats is as a first indicator of outbreaks of plague, is when the rats start dying. And in 1902, Tom Dudley found a storm drain at his harbourside business clogged with dead rats, which he removed, and within a week he was dead – one of the first victims of a plague outbreak in Australia.

A: You couldn’t write that sort of symbolism.

C: No.

P: No. But there is also this– [Laughs] For me, this is the merger of a number of my possibly less salubrious interests.

A: What connects cannibalism and the plague?

P: Tom Dudley.

A: That is a pub quiz round for us.

P: Yeah. And it’s probably not quite as obvious as the Richard Parker, Richard Parker. Extremely strange coincidence of Richard Parker, the cabin boy on the Mignonette, sharing his name with Richard Parker, the cabin boy in Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym.

C: [In recognition] Oh yes.

P: Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Which was actually written before the Mignonette disaster, so it’s pure coincidence that these two dead and eaten cabin boys, one fictional and one real, shared a name.

C: Unless that was a very cruel predeterministic choice from Richard Parker the real’s parents.

P: [Laughs] ‘We’ll call him Richard because we’ve always like this Poe fellow.’

C: ‘I’ve always thought this name sounded like a good one.’

A: Now, before we wrap up, one of our guests actually let slip right at the end of her interview that she has written her own cannibalism ballad. So we wondered if you’d like to take a listen?

P: Yes!

A: And then if you would like to…

C: Give your live review?

A: [Agreeing] Give your live review. [Beat] Here, we played Stacy’s song for Paul to listen to.

[Brief pause]

P: God, that’s great! And I’ll tell you what, it’s interesting because the sort of change in some non-cannibal sea songs, you get a sort of ghostly narrative and ghostly apparition figures crop up as quite late developments. So I’d say Stacy’s narrative voice of that is very consistent with developments in sea songs over the last couple of hundred years and where we’ve got to now. But also it’s interesting because it sort of takes it serious as a historical– the historical distance allows them to be sort of serious about the subject. If it were contemporaneous, it would be serious in a different way, I think. All of which made me think that I do have to share where I came into this…

[Singing acapella, in the style of a folk ballad]

There were three men from Bristol city /

There were three men from Bristol city /

They stole a ship and they sailed to sea /

They stole a ship and sailed to sea /

There was Gorging Jack and Guzzling Jimmy /

There was Gorging Jack and Guzzling Jimmy /

And also Little Boy Billee / 

And also Little Boy Billee / 

They stole a box of captain’s biscuits / 

They stole a box of captain’s biscuits / 

And one large bottle of whiskey / 

And one large bottle of whiskey / 

But when they reached the broad Atlantic / 

But when they reached the broad Atlantic / 

They’d nothing left but one split pea / 

They’d nothing left but one split pea / 

Says Gorging Jack to Guzzling Jimmy / 

Says Gorging Jack to Guzzling Jimmy / 

‘We’ve nothing to eat, some I’m gonna eat thee’ / 

‘We’ve nothing to eat, some I’m gonna eat thee’ / 

Says Guzzling Jim, ‘I’m old and toughest’ /

Says Guzzling Jim, ‘I’m old and toughest’ /

‘So let us eat Little Boy Billee’ / 

‘So let us eat Little Boy Billee’ / 

‘Oh, Little Boy Billee, we’re gonna kill and eat you’ /

‘Oh, Little Boy Billee, we’re gonna kill and eat you’ /

‘So undo the top button of your little chemie’ / 

‘So undo the top button of your little chemie’ / 

‘Oh may I say my catechism?’ / 

‘Oh may I say my catechism?’ / 

‘That my dear mother taught to me?’ / 

‘That my dear mother taught to me?’ / 

So he’s gone up to the main-top gallant /

So he’s gone up to the main-top gallant /

And there he fell down on his knee /

And there he fell down on his knee /

But when he reached the eleventh commandment /

But when he reached the eleventh commandment /

He cried, ‘Yo-ho! For land I see!’ /

He cried, ‘Yo-ho! For land I see!’ /

‘I see Jerusalem and Madagascar’ /

‘I see Jerusalem and Madagascar’ /

‘And North and South Amerikee’ /

‘And North and South Amerikee’ /

‘I see the British fleet at anchor’ /

‘I see the British fleet at anchor’ /

‘And Admiral Nelson K.C.B.’ /

‘And Admiral Nelson K.C.B.’ /

Well, they hung Gorging Jack and Guzzling Jimmy /

They hung Gorging Jack and Guzzling Jimmy /

But they made an Admiral out of Boy Billee /

They made an Admiral out of Boy Billee.

[Song ends]

[Alix and Carmella applaud]

A: Fabulous!

C: I think that’s the perfect place to end this episode. Thank you so much for sharing that with us!

P: It’s quite alright.

C: What a brilliant song.

P: Now I must go and think of something that I can possibly eat with white sauce and raw salsify…

C: [Laughs] Thank you so much for joining us today. One final thing before we let you go. Did you have any projects or work that you’d like to plug to our audience, or suggest that they go and explore further?

P: Post-lockdown, I’ve not been able to go out and do any fieldwork, and like many good folklorists, field work is really standing around in pubs talking to strangers about interesting stuff.

[Carmella laughs]

P: There’s a really good project coming at some point, but it’s not anywhere near fruition yet, about a local legend to me involving shipwrecks and washed up barrels of brandy. But unable to speak to people for a long time, I’ve tended to be doing a lot of quite abstruse but important stuff on the history of folklore as a discipline, which perhaps is not for all of your listeners. Although I would encourage them all to kind of get involved!

C: I think it probably is, actually!

P: I’ve gone back recently to doing stuff on ghosts, so that’s sort of– My ghost stuff is out there a little bit to keep an eye out for. I think the thing that I would encourage, with my lurid tastes, your listeners to go and check out is probably my stuff on folklore about rats. Which, as a fellow member of the council of the folklore society once said to me when I said, ‘Oh I’ve been invited to do a talk about rats’, he said, ‘Yes, it’s always rats with you as the entry, isn’t it?’

[Carmella and Alix both laugh]

P: Because let’s face it, if you like stories about eating people about eating people at sea, you will like stories about whether rats are really clever or not.

C: [Laughing] Thank you so much.

A: This has been brilliant.

P: Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope you’ve had a filling time…

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Thank you for listening to today’s episode, featuring Stacy Hackner and Paul Cowdell. Next time, we’ll be speaking to two horror experts.

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Ashley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/

Coming 31 October 2022: Season 4 of Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

Join Alix and Carmella for an extra helping of survival cannibalism in this bonus mini-season, featuring a number of special dinner guests.

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Ashley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

TRANSCRIPT

Carmella: Is anyone else still hungry?

[Casting Lots theme tune fades in, continuing in the background]

Carmella: Coming soon, Casting Lots: the taster menu. And this time, we’re not the only ones at the table.

Alix: Would you like to tell us who you are and where cannibalism comes into your life?

Voice 1: I’m Ally Wilkes.

Voice 2: I’m Ric, and I’m with my son-

Voice 3: Anton.

Voice 4: I’m Dr Paul Cowdell.

Voice 5: I’m Teddy.

Voice 6: My name’s Catriona.

Voice 7: I’m the host of a podcast called Talking Scared.

Voice 8: My name is Linnea Hartsuyker.

Voice 9: I’m Ana-

Voice 10: And I’m Luca.

Voice 11: I’m Nibedita Sen.

Voice 12: I’m Nicasio Andres Reed.

Voice 13: I’m Richard Sugg.

Voice 14: I am Stacy Hackner.

[Theme tune fades out]

Alix: Asking for someone’s connection to survival cannibalism does sound a bit like we’ve gone very far in an interview direction I didn’t think we’d land.

[Alix and Carmella laugh]

Carmella: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast will be back on 31 October 2022.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://castinglotspod.home.blog/