Thread by @Paracelsus1092

On Cannibals and Consoomers

I want to draw a comparison between the consoomer meme and the many cannibalistic folk monsters around the world. It seems to me they share a common archetype in the man who's soul has been hijacked by the same spiritual sickness

See the consoomer, he is thin and weak, he pines after goods he already owns, but their iterations will continue until Judgement Day. See his eyes, not quite human, possessed of a light beyond this world.

The Kwakiutl believe babies are dangerous, for precisely the reason that all they know is consumption, born with a voracious and unstoppable appetite.

Not only babies, but for the Kwakiutl the whole world is full of mouths, all fully prepared to rip, tear and consume the bodies of people.

This is extended to the ultimate fear, of monsters, of cannibals, of that primal lust to consume another being. The Kwakiutl channel this horror through the Cannibal Dance, the hamatsa. See the Cannibal Bird, beak opened to devour

The cannibal is the ultimate consoomer. One whose spiritual architecture has been so rearranged to yield a monomaniacal drive, a will to consoom. He has transcended the ordinary and become of one purpose.

This drive is reflected in the midnight tales of cannibalistic horror told across North America. The famous Wendigo, the Atshen, the Owl Woman, the Skudakumooch.

One source of these tales are the dim memories of tribes which endured the ravages of starvation and hunger. Sunken eyes and crazed mouths, at a certain point famine drives a rational man to eat the inedible, the mineral, the forbidden and even his kin.

This soul sickness is seen as irrecoverable, the one who succumbs is a pariah, an outcast to the pure society. Our malaise is to place this abominable person in the centre of our social world, give him praise and esteem.