CANIBALISM
Have you ever thought why cannibals eat human flesh? Do you think it is because they like it? 
Actually, it is because it was a part of sacred rite, a kind of religious observation.
For Instance, among certain people of East India a long time ago, it was the custom to eat one?s parents, year one?s parents! Can you believe that? It was because they respected and honored them. Many primitive tribes believe that a man acquires the spirit of what ever he eats. If he eats a lion, he will be lion hearted. If he eats a deer, he will be able to run fast. If he eats a fox, he will be cunning, and so on. So the more one of these man respected his father, the more anxious he was to eat him.
Among other primitive people it was the custom to eat a criminal who had been condemned to death, but not a person who had died a natural death. This was due to the reason that they believed that a criminal had in a way ended his goals. Therefore he had to be sacrificed to the gods to satisfy them. And since it was the practice to eat or taste sacrifices to the gods , this had to be done even if the sacrifice was human.
The word Cannibal comes from cannibal, or carib, the name of the West Indian tribe among whom the Sniards first noticed the practice of eating human flesh. Some of the early North American Indians also practiced cannibalism as part of their religion.
There is some evidence that cannibalism existed in central Europe in the late ice age, and possibly among the most ancient Egyptians.
It is probable that cannibalism today occurs only in the most remote districts of New Guinea, perhaps in the northern Congo, and in certain inaccessible parts of South America too.