15th century Europeans believed they had hit upon a miracle cure: a remedy for epilepsy, hemorrhage, bruising, nausea, and virtually any other medical ailment.
This brown powder could be mixed into drinks, made into salves or eaten straight up.
It was known as mumia and made by grinding up mummified human flesh.
The word "cannibal" dates from the time of Christopher Columbus;in fact, Columbus may even have coined it himself.
After coming ashore on the island of Guadaloupe, Columbus' initial reports back to the Queen of Spain described the indigenous people as friendly and peaceful though he did mention rumors of a group called the Caribs, who made violent raids and then cooked and ate their prisoners.
In response, Queen Isabella granted permission to capture and enslave anyone who ate human flesh.
When the island failed to produce the gold Columbus was looking for, he began to label anyone who resisted his plundering and kidnapping as a Caribe.
Somewhere along the way, the word "Carib" became "Canibe" and then "Cannibal." First used by colonizers to dehumanize indigenous people, it has since been applied to anyone who eats human flesh.
So the term comes from an account that wasn't based on hard evidence, but cannibalism does have a real and much more complex history.
It has taken diverse forms, sometimes, as with mumia, it doesn't involved recognizable parts of the human body.
