Kuru, a debilitating disease prevalent in the Fore tribe of New Guinea, yet not isolated to them. Guess what it’s from?

     Welcome back to another entry in Homer’s Vault of Mysteries! I pulled another fascinating book off of my magical mystical bookcase and wanted to take a few entries to go over some of the more interesting things I found in it. The book is entitled The Best, Worst and Most unusual, noteworthy achievements, events, feats & blunders of every conceivable kind.  By Bruce Felton and Mark Fowler, Galahad Books, 1994. I’m not going to do 26 chapters like I did with the alphabet but there are a few entries that I really wanted to look at and bring to all of your attentions. Today’s entry is extremely interesting and somewhat mysterious, I will share what the book has to say and then we will discuss it a bit. Here is the entry, it is under the title Worst Disease.

     The Fore tribe of New Guinea is afflicted by epidemics of kuru, a very rare disease characterized by trembling, dizziness, and a gradual decline into insanity.  At one stage of the illness, the victim is subject to fits of excessive laughter, and in fact kuru is sometimes referred to as “the laughing death”. As far as doctors have been able to ascertain, there is only one way that the slow virus that causes kuru to be transmitted from one person to another-by eating portions of infected brains. The Fore are one of the few tribes in New Guinea still practicing ritual cannibalism of their own dead.

I have done a little research into ritualistic cannibalism when it pertains to our ancient ancestors, such as Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon people. Many Neanderthal remains show signs of ritualistic cannibalism, especially the skull and arm bones. The skulls are carefully defleshed and the brains where then consumed, or so researchers figure. It is thought that it may have been a ritual to celebrate  a powerful or influential persons death. Eating the brains was supposed to give the eaters the eaten individuals powers, memories, etc. There were other reasons for cannibalism. Some tribes from around the world would eat their enemies after capturing them and of course people were forced to eat their own during horrible droughts, famine or other natural disasters. Cannibalism subsided throughout the Middle Ages and eventually feel out of favor in most civilized nations by the 1800’s although some Pacific Island tribes still practiced it well into the 21^st century and a few of the still isolated uncontacted tribes probably still practice ritual cannibalism to some extent to this day.

I should mention that the practice of cannibalism has been found on some Homo species from a million years ago or so. Where these ancient cousins of Homo Sapiens eating their dead out of necessity or was there some sort of ritual eating of certain parts of a dead individual? How and when did it start? Of course of animals in nature eat their own kind, chimpanzee males who take over a troop will often kill and eat all the infants not sired by him, to keep his blood line intact. Now here is where it gets interesting, here is where kuru makes the mysterious list. It has been shown that those tribes who actively ate other humans, especially the brains, would eventually be afflicted with kuru. Shamans were probably afflicted more than other members of the tribe and I would assume it was because they were the ones responsible for eating the brains of their dead. So then the Shaman gets stricken, turns mad and dies. After his death, imagine the whole tribe sitting around and sharing a skull full of his brains. Now the entire tribe is afflicted, and the cycle would continue.  I believe it was the movie, The Road, which even mentioned that the people who turned to eating other people during that time would show signs of being afflicted with kuru.  I would wager that if I were to research some other popular cannibalistic tribes or societies throughout history, that kuru would be mentioned at some point.  I would even consider that this cannibalistic tendency to eat the dead may have been an important religious practice for some of these tribes to pay the ultimate homage to their dead loved ones. Kuru probably came to them as an affliction from the Gods or a sign that their ancestors were present. For all we know, perhaps these ancient Shamans wanted to contract kuru as it connected them closer to their dead. I think of the diseases that strike other animals when they eat the infected brains of their dead, deer with chronic wasting disease and cow with Mad cow disease. It is obvious that eating infected or any brains over an amount of time can and will affect the individual or individuals doing the eating. 

My personal opinion is that kuru is the human version of Mad Cow or Chronic wasting and it is an evolutionary trait meant to keep us and animals from eating our brains. It is mind boggling to think that our brains may be wired to cause disease if eaten. Why?  The brain is the least none about organ in the human body and researchers know very little about how it really works. Its also possible that our bodies are not meant to eat the complex proteins and such in the human brain and that these diseases are a by product of putting that stuff in our systems. Whatever the reason I think it shows some sort of grand design, made on purpose in order to stop people from eating each other. Cannibalism is very taboo now a days as it should be, but the fact is it has a long and complicated place in our evolutionary history and diseases like kuru may have come about to keep us from continuing the nasty habit of eating our dead’s brains for knowledge, power or religious practice.

  Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the whole issue of cannibalism and our ancient ancestors. I do intend on researching this more heavily and when I do accomplish that I will happily share it amongst you all.

So do you think Kuru and diseases like that are an evolutionary caution against cannibalism? Do you think there may be certain proteins or such in the human brain that makes eating them pretty much toxic? A person could spend a life time researching this stuff! Ok, well, I am done for today. I hope you enjoyed this little article and I hope it gets you thinking. Have a pleasant day and a wonderful week and until the next time………PEACE!!!!!!!!!