Custom of the Sea
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The Custom of the Sea was a maritime custom in which stranded survivors drew lots to see who would be killed and eaten so that the others might survive.
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[edit] Examples in history
[edit] Whaleship Essex
After the sinking of the Whaleship Essex of Nantucket by a whale on November 20, 1820, the survivors were left floating in three small boats. They eventually resorted, by common consent, to cannibalism to allow some to survive.[1]
[edit] Mignonette
The case of R. v. Dudley and Stephens ([1884] 14 QBD 273 DC) is an English case which developed a crucial ruling on necessity in modern common law. The case dealt with four crewmembers of an English yacht, the Mignonette, who were cast away in a storm some 1,600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. After a few weeks, one of the crew fell unconscious due to a combination of the famine and drinking seawater. The others (one objecting) decided then to kill him and eat him. They were picked up four days later. The case held that necessity was not a defense to a charge of murder, and the two defendants were convicted, though their death sentence was commuted to six months' imprisonment.
[edit] Examples in popular culture
W. S. Gilbert describes such a practice in his rhyme "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell".[2]
In the television show Futurama, while trapped underwater the bureaucrat Hermes Conrad cites a rulebook titled "The Code of Conduct for Cannibalism". He then suggests, that they cook up lobster for lunch (referring to Dr. Zoidberg, a crustacean-like alien.)
In the Edgar Allan Poe novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the main characters end up in a partially sunken ship. Soon hunger becomes a serious problem, and the survivors draw straws to decide who among them is to be killed and then eaten by the remaining survivors. The contest eventually takes place and one of the survivors is murdered and then eaten.
The epic song, "Onilley's Strange Dream" from the Rheostatics' 1994 album Introducing Happiness centers around an example of shipwreck survivor cannibalism. The second verse opens with the lyrics: "Me and Jim, my life-boat friend-strips of flesh torn from his limbs. Well? Chicken Jimmy kept me alive. (Though he wasn't much for conversation.)"
In 2004 North Carolina musicians The Avett Brothers released an album entitled Mignonette based in part on the events leading to R. v. Dudley and Stephens.
[edit] Further reading
- Hanson, Neil. (1999). The Custom of the Sea: The Story that Changed British Law. Doubleday. ISBN 9780385601153.
- Simpson, A. W. B. (1984). Cannibalism and the Common Law: The Story of the Tragic Last Voyage of the Mignonette and the Strange Legal Proceedings to Which It Gave Rise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226759425.
