Deadly Feasts
The Prion Controversy and the Publics Health
Excerpt
Chaper One
I Eat You
South Fore, New Guinea Eastern Highlands, 1950
Dark night in the mountains and no drums beating. No flute music like birdsong from the forest above the village - the men controlled the flutes and this was women's business, secret and delicious, sweet revenge. In pity and mourning but also in eagerness the dead woman's female relatives carried her cold, naked body down to her sweet-potato garden bordered with flowers. They would not abandon her to rot in the ground. Sixty or more women with their babies and small children gathered around, gathered wood, lit cooking fires that caught the light in their eyes and shone on their greased dark skins. The dead woman's daughter and the wife of her adopted son took up knives of split bamboo, their silicate skin sharp as glass. They began to cut the body for the feast.
New Guinea was the last wild place on earth. Its fierce reputation repelled explorers. Micronesians canoe-wrecked anywhere in its vicinity swam the other way. Captai ... read full excerpt from: Deadly Feasts: Tracking The Secrets Of A Terrifying New Plague ebook
