The Donner Party

I think that most of us have heard of the ill-fated Donner Party, although it's possible that there are some who only have a vague association with them as cannibals, while others will likely know quite a bit about it. While there's no evidence that cannibalism was widespread, even in their desperation, it did occur.

On April 16, 1846, the Donner party, made up of nine wagons carrying 87 people, left Springfield, Illinois, on a journey that would take them 2,500 miles across plains, deserts, the Great Basin, and three mountain ranges in the hope of arriving at Sutter's Fort in California before the snowfall that would cover the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

On July 20, they came to the Little Sandy River in what is now Wyoming. It was here that they made the mistake of attempting a shortcut listed in Lansford Hastings' The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California. While the shortcut was listed in his publication, it is likely that no one had actually tested it in wagons.

Their first obstacle was getting their wagons through dense brush that had not been cleared. Next, they came across a maze of canyons that took them a month to navigate. Then, they came to the Great Salt Lake Desert, and it took them five very hot days and freezing nights to make the 80-mile trek that the guide had indicated would be only 40 miles.

When they made it through the desert in early September, there were already some snow flurries, but they continued on. In early November, they were trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 150 miles from their destination.

Unable to continue, they built some primitive cabins and prepared to wait for the worst of the winter to be over. Trapped for four months, they were starving. Forty members of their party died, and some of the survivors resorted to cannibalizing the bodies, while others refused.

The last living member of the Donner Party was Margaret Breen, who died in 1935.

 

I gotta believe it's an unthinkable act until the first person does it. It's one of those situations where it would be more merciful to have been one of the deceased than been one of the survivors and have to forever bear the burden of what you did.

It's interesting how [almost] universally revolting it is.

 

Yet, cannibalism has been practiced in several cultures around the world throughout history and hasn't always been an act of desperation. Several American Indian tribes practiced cannibalism, sometimes as a way to absorb the spirit of their slain enemies, but sometimes just cannibalism, plain and simple. But, it has been practiced in several African countries, and historically, at least, various groups of people would cannibalize specific parts of the human body ritualistically.

I think most of us would at least like to believe that we would never, ever do that, and I trust that this would be true for perhaps even the greatest number of people. But we never know what we might do until we're in the situation. A lot of people who thought they could never eat worms or maggots did so when these were the only forms of protein available. Cannibalism is a step or two beyond maggots, of course, and I think that most people in Western culture would die first. But, maybe not.

 

Your first post said "Forty members of their party died, and some of the survivors resorted to cannibalizing the bodies, while others refused," so I assume that mean that the others died of starvation rather that eat human flesh. I guess that shows that at least some [most?] of us would not do it.

Reminds me of the Uruguayan soccer team air crash in the early 70s where they resorted to eating their teammates in order to survive. The Wiki account reads as though they all resorted to cannibalism, but it's poorly phrased. Wiki states that they were all Roman Catholic, and actually used the Bible to rationalize what they had done, likening the experience to the Eucharist.

Regarding the Donner Party, Wiki says that they killed 2 Indian guides specifically for food. So apparently they took it one step further than eating those who had died of exposure.

 

Or they survived without doing so.