Abstract
This paper is part of a wider study to explain the historical spread and changing epidemiological patterns of kuru by analysing factors that affect the transmission of kuru. Part of the study has been to look at the mortuary feasts that were the means of transmission of the kuru agent. This paper shows the complexity of Fore eschatology, and the variations and contradictions of human behaviour in relation to mortuary rites and the transmission of kuru. It also confirms that oral ingestion was the primary route of inoculation though some cases of parenteral inoculation may have occurred. The exclusion of alternative routes of transmission is of importance owing to the dietary exposure of the UK and other populations to bovine spongiform encephalopathy prions.
Highlights
Anthropological studies in the kuru-affected region suggested that the reason for the practice of eating dead kinfolk was primarily gastronomic, and that it had no ritual or spiritual role despite the normative rules about who should or could consume various parts of the body at mortuary feasts (Berndt 1962; Glasse 1963, 1967).Later works have explained the role of endocannibalism in the epidemiology of kuru and emphasized that the body was eaten out of love as well as for gastronomic appreciation, which was not the intended purpose of the practice but its result
Part of the study has been to look at the mortuary feasts that were the means of transmission of the kuru agent
This paper shows the complexity of Fore eschatology, and the variations and contradictions of human behaviour in relation to mortuary rites and the transmission of kuru
Summary
Anthropological studies in the kuru-affected region suggested that the reason for the practice of eating dead kinfolk was primarily gastronomic, and that it had no ritual or spiritual role despite the normative rules about who should or could consume various parts of the body at mortuary feasts (Berndt 1962; Glasse 1963, 1967). Later works have explained the role of endocannibalism in the epidemiology of kuru and emphasized that the body was eaten out of love as well as for gastronomic appreciation, which was not the intended purpose of the practice but its result. They pointed out the importance of kinship, gender and age in the participation at mortuary feasts to the transmission and spread of the disease (Alpers 1968; Mathews et al 1968; Lindenbaum 1979; Klitzman et al 1984). The principal conclusions of this paper are that transumption had deep significance for the Fore people, that for eschatological reasons the body was totally consumed and that intentional rubbing of brain tissue on the mourners’ bodies did not occur
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