UnNews:Should we eat others at Thanksgiving?

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

1 May 2013

One of the victims' skulls, with the tell-tale massive hole in the back where the brains were scooped out.

Proof that the first settlers in the USA resorted to cannibalism has led to questions over whether modern day Thanksgiving should commemorate the act.

Newly discovered human bones prove that during the cruel winter of 1609-10, the first permanent settlers in Jamestown cut up and ate two girls, aged four and fourteen. Scientists identified unusual cuts consistent with butchering for meat on the girls' remains, which had been found in a rubbish pit.

Dr Joanna Corey, who led the study, told us: "The view we have of the first settlers is sanitized. It wasn't some smiling white dudes handing over turkey and pumpkin pie to the Indians, it was balls-cold and these fucking Limeys ate a four-year-old's brain to stay alive."

Corey brushed away suggestions that the study might lead to the erosion of American patriotism, but admitted, "The story of persecuted pilgrims seeking refuge in the New World takes on a rather different timbre when the final act involves the protagonists feasting on their young."

Finally, she added a note of caution to anyone who might be thinking holding of a more 'authentic' Thanksgiving dinner: "We have to be careful how we apply the findings of this paper. We don't want modern day Americans to disown their forefathers, but nor do we want the fourth weekend in November to be nothing but cannibalistic orgies, although some Republicans have pointed out that eating the poor would lead to a reduction in unemployment figures."

An attempted straw poll in the UnNews office as to whether our writers would eat a fellow American led to nothing but cunnilingus jokes, some of which were positively vile. Outside our derelict portacabin plush headquarters, we interviewed three normal passers-by to see what they had to say.

• James Earl Chonies, 35, told us, "I wouldn't want to get rid of the turkey, I really enjoy that once a year, but if it just meant having a bit of a person on the sides, like instead of a buffalo wing, I'd be down with that."

• Carly Bernard, 21, said, "I'd eat someone for Thanksgiving, if I thought it was what my ancestors really wanted. But not a Mexican. Mexican always repeats on me, or gives me the shits."

• Finally, Harry Stevenson, 42, admitted, "I almost ate my mother-in-law last Thanksgiving. During an absolutely excruciating afternoon, I found myself behind her in the kitchen, the turkey carver in my hand, and I had the most vivid vision of hacking the back of her neck open and chewing and slurping on anything inside."

Sources

• Leverage, "'Proof' Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism" BBC, May 1, 2013