UGANDA: Eating the Evidence

Near the town of Lugazi, in the Buganda section of Uganda, an African husband got home from a beer party one night recently to find his wife of 22 years entertaining three men. A fight broke out, and the husband was killed. As the guilty foursome wondered how to dispose of the corpse, a simple solution occurred to them: eat it.

While the woman got the pot boiling, the men set to work dismembering the body. In the feast that followed, the four managed to devour all of the deceased save the head and one leg, which they put aside for the next meal. It proved a mistake. A young boy found the head, ran horrified to tell his parents, and the police were called. Uganda, whites and blacks alike, was shocked: the ceremonial eating of a bit of human flesh is still not uncommon in Uganda, but wholesale cannibalism as such is unheard of.

Last week, as crowds outside the Lugazi police station chanted, “We want to see the cannibals,” the widow and her three accomplices were in jail pending inquiry into a murder charge. Said one of the defendants matter-of-factly: “It was the sweetest meat I ever tasted.”