Cannibal Spell for King Unis

Cannibal Spell for King Unis is a short Egyptian mythology story written about a king named Unis in ca. 2325 B.C.E. This story was inscribed inside the pyramid of where King Unis’ tomb lied, and it told the story of how King Unis gained his power over the people and how he became a God after his death. This Egyptian myth also tells of the Egyptian culture and beliefs by expressing the ‘Cannibal Spell’ in this short story as well. This Cannibal Spell basically implies that if someone were to say this spell (sort of like a prayer) over their choice of food (in this case humans that were deities) and when they would devour them, that person would essentially gain the powers and talents of that human being they had eaten. With this Egyptian mythology through the story of King Unis, we did in fact learn a lot about the values and beliefs of the Egyptian culture and people in general. Did they really think it was okay to have a God-like person who was so demented and evil rule over them? Or was it just fear that struck the Egyptian people to not do anything about this madness?  

It is known from this Egyptian mythology that King Unis was a very powerful and important person during this time period. He was considered to be the most powerful person among all people, and the people of this time period loved and feared him. However, the way that King Unis went about gaining his power was very very demented and sickening. As said before, the story tells of the Cannibal Spell, in which king Unis used for his own guilty pleasure. King Unis would practice cannibalism with humans; he would literally eat them in order to gain there special talents and powers. There are two different quotes from the book that state, “By consuming the other deities, the king assimilated their magical powers” and “Unis is the one who eats their magic and swallows their akhs, for their adults are for his morning meal, their middle-sized ones for his evening meal, their little ones for his nighttime snack, their old men and women (fuel) for his ovens.” These two quotes just go to show that King Unis did in fact was okay with murdering and eating people just for his selfish needs of gaining power and talent. The second quote even says that he used to eat young people, as in CHILDREN, as a nighttime snack. It is unbelievable to think how someone so evil in his ways and so selfish and glorified with unlimited power could be so looked up to and called a “God.” Yes, he was the greatest and most powerful man of that time period but his moral standing was nowhere near close to God-worthy and he himself as a man was nowhere near respectable in any way due to his actions.

Puchner, Martin. “Cannibal Spell For King Unis.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3^rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 26-27. Print.