Recent History
June 1, 1906
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 3
Stefansson talks about Mr. Thomas Anderson of the Hudson Bay Company "much of his talk concerned the degenerate later days when people insisted on living on such imported things as beans, canned corn, and tomatoes, whereas in his day they lived entirely on fish and caribou meat."
On my first trip down the Mackenzie River all of the affairs of the Company had been under the direction of Mr. Thomas Anderson, an energetic and capable officer of the old school. He was a man generous to a fault with his own property, as I have good reason to know through being with him in Winnipeg and Edmonton, but as soon as he got into the North where everything he handled belonged to the Company rather than to himself, he became parsimonious even to niggardliness ; and much of his talk concerned the degenerate later days when people insisted on living on such imported things as beans, canned corn, and tomatoes, whereas in his day they lived entirely on fish and caribou meat. Now everything was changed. Not only had the modern Mackenzie River replaced the old - fashioned Wrigley, but Thomas Anderson had died, and the affairs of the Company were under the no less energetic but completely modern direction of Mr. Brabant. I remember how, in 1906, Mr. Anderson boiled with indignation at having to carry one of the servants of the Hislop & Nagle Trading Company as a passenger for sixty miles from Red River to Macpherson, and he spoke with suppressed fury of the degenerate officials at Winnipeg who compelled him to countenance such things; and now we had in his stead Mr. Brabant, who would have been the better pleased the more of his rivals' men he could have carried, providing, of course, they paid him fares for transportation which yielded a profit to the Company. The change had been gradually taking place, but with the coming of Mr. Brabant the transformation was complete, from the old policy of exclusion of competitors to the modern one of unrestricted competition.
July 1, 1906
Medical Notes on Northern Alaska
“Eskimos never have cancer”
In their absence, the Flaxman Island base of the Anglo-American Polar Expedition was commanded by Dr. George Plummer Howe, the expedition's surgeon. It turned out that he and I had been contemporaries at Harvard, though we had never met — not strange, for the medical school is in Boston, and I had been in the divinity school and then in the graduate school, both of which are in Cambridge. He was A.B. 1900 and M.D. 1904.
Though a medical man by training, Dr. Howe proved to be an anthropologist at heart. What he told me included his having heard in the summer of 1906, almost as soon as the Duchess reached Alaska waters, that “Eskimos never have cancer,” and that Captain Leavitt was credited with originating the local search on which this view rested. One of the first to tell Howe this had been the surgeon on the United States revenue cutter Thetis, whose name I neglected to record; but more extensive detail had been given Howe by the head of the Presbyterian medical mission at Point Barrow, Dr. Horatio Richmond Marsh, a native of Illinois.
In talking with Dr. Howe, both the surgeon of the Thetis and the medical missionary at Barrow had agreed on several points, among these that in northern Alaska Leavitt had originated the local quest; that he had been indefatigable in urging government doctors, medical missionaries, expedition surgeons, everybody, to look for malignant disease; that many of these searchers, including Howe's informants, had expected to find cancer; but that all of those who remained in the Alaskan Arctic had been convinced eventually, that cancer was not to be found among Eskimos who still lived native style.
“It has been said that cancer does not exist among the Eskimos. So far as I could find out, this is true ...”
July 21, 1906
A Book of the Week - Diet and Dietetics by Gautier
Luckily, no band of prophets has yet risen to urge us to confine our eating exclusively to meat. And yet an exclusive meat diet has in certain circumstances been tried and not found wanting, as long as the meat is accompanied by fat.
At the present moment we are in the midst of one of those periodical outbursts of discussion concerning food. Plentiful evidence is afforded by the various catering companies that ideas and theories on the subject are taking the definite and practical form of a return to dishes of greater simplicity than were fashionable before the movement began. So many dogmatic opinions are expressed and propagated, that those who, without being fanatics, desire to order their lives intelligently in regard to the food they eat, will be glad to turn to a scientific authority like M. A. Gautier, whose Diet and Dietetics (Constable) has constantly been translated into English by Dr. A. J. Rice-Oxley. The work is a very learned one, and we may as well say here that it is not our intention to attempt any criticism of the innumerable analyses contained in it. The broad result only concerns the reader who wishes to have sound guidance in regard to diet, without caring to devote a large proportion of his time to what, after all, is a mere detail of existence. There are certain main propositions to which he would like an answer.
On one side he is admonished by certain zealous reformers to give up meat and confine himself to a vegetable diet. M. Gautier, who carries out the Apostle’s injunction to be temperate in all things, does not endorse the teaching of the vegetarian. He quite recognises that a man may be strong without eating meat. The street porters of Salonica and Constantinople live chiefly on rice and figs, and drink water or lemonade, yet it was their strength which gave rise to the saying, ‘as strong as a Turk.” Many men and women have become better in health after adopting a vegetarian diet, and it serves as a check to arthritic, gouty, or rheumatic diathesis. Morally speaking, it tends to produce softness and gentleness of manners. Need we recall the fact that “the mild Hindoo” is a vegetarian? The main disadvantage is that “in order to obtain a vegetable alimentation sufficiently nutritive and varied, the vegetarian is obliged to have recourse sooner or later to exaggerated weights of food.” This our author properly describes ‘‘as a method of alimentation all the more fatiguing for the stomach and alimentary canal because it encumbers them with a quantity of useless matters. The herbiverous animal is constructed so as to digest vegetables, but man digests them very incompletely and more laboriously.” To some extent the difficulty has been got over by using a mixed vegetarian diet, which is still further varied by milk, eggs, fatty bodies, cheese, sugar, and wine. In this shape the diet is well fitted to a passive and peace-loving race, but M. Gautier does not recommend it to those who are hard-working and energetic.
Luckily, no band of prophets has yet risen to urge us to confine our eating exclusively to meat. And yet an exclusive meat diet has in certain circumstances been tried and not found wanting. Says our author:
Some men obliged to live a very fatiguing life, the trappers and hunters of the pampas of America and Siberian steppes, the inhabitants of very cold climates, the fishermen living on the banks of the frozen sea, etc , can eat almost exclusively, without suffering from it, enormous quantities of meat or fish, but on two conditions—that the meat be accompanied by its fat, and that the individual subjected to this diet lead a very active life in the open air.
Darwin relates that the Gauchos of the American pampas live for months on the fat meat of the oxen they watch over. The Esquimaux can get along very well by eating from 5lb. to 6lb. per day of reindeer or seal’s flesh, so long as it is not too lean, but contains a due proportion of fat. These facts might furnish some argument for an exclusive meat diet, but our author is antagonistic to exaggeration in this respect as in the other. He observes quite properly that ‘the well-to-do classes are only too carnivorous,” and his own recommendation is that the best food for the general is a judicious mixture of meat and vegetables.
From a bill of fare that he draws up for the obese, wherein he closely follows Mr. A. Robin, it will be seen that he takes a fairly liberal view of a man’s requirements. He would begin in the morning by giving him who has to say, like Sir John, “Old do I wax and fat,” at eight o’clock an egg, some lean meat, and a very small quantity of bread, following this up at ten o’clock with a couple of eggs, a still smaller quantity of bread, and a glass of wine well diluted with water. At twelve o’clock he would give him some lean meat and bread and vegetables and another glass of wine diluted with water. At four o’clock he recommends tea without sugar and nothing to eat with it. At seven o'clock the patient is to dine on a fair quantity of lean meat, taken with bread and butter and vegetables. He does not seem to allow any wine with this last meal, but he remarks that such a regimen only corresponds to 1,290 calorties per day, and as the average adult loses from 2,100 to 2,200 calories per day he will have to make up about 900 calorties from the combustion of stored-up fats.
July 23, 1906
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 3
Stefansson stays at Fort Macpherson and preps for living off the land. He also describes a story of deaths caused by eating poised white whale.
During my stay at Fort Macpherson I was the guest of Major Jarvis. The rest of the policemen occupied the barracks on top of the high bluffs that here flank the eastern side of the Peel, but the Major preferred a tent by himself down by the riverside. Soon after our arrival, the Eskimo boats began to come from the North and the Major's tent became the center of a village of their tents. Most of the Eskimo were old friends among whom I had lived on my previous expedition. There was much talking and laughter, and apparently they were very glad to see me, but no more glad, I am sure, than I was to see them, for I had reason to consider some of them among my best friends in the world. Under their communistic system of living the Eskimo have developed the social virtues to a considerably higher degree than we have; they are therefore people easy to live with, and one readily makes friends among them, but, of course, they differ individually as we do. Of all those who came here this summer the finest, in my estimation, was Ovayuak, a man who had been my host for several months during 1906–1907. The Hudson's Bay Company had recognized in him the same qualities which were apparent to me, and had accordingly made him a “Chief,” which merely means that he is the Company's accredited representa tive among his countrymen , and acts, in a sense, as the Company's agent. In talking with Ovayuak I found that many of my acquaintances of a few years before were dead, some of them of consumption, some of unknown diseases, and a group of eight had been poisoned by eating the meat of a freshly killed white whale. It happens every now and then that a whole party of natives is killed by eating white whale meat. This sort of thing is referred to by the whalers ordinarily as ptomaine poisoning; but it can scarcely be that, as I have seen tons of semi- decayed whale meat eaten and have never known a single case of sickness or death connected therewith, while the poisonings always occur at feasts which are held immediately after the killing of a whale, or else from whale meat that has been cut up promptly after the killing and stored so as to largely or entirely prevent its decay. On the lower posts of the Mackenzie River and here at Mac pherson we had gradually been picking up such dogs as were for sale, and now had eleven all together. So as to put in operation as early as possible our principle of living on the country, we began here to set our fish nets to get food for ourselves and the dogs, but there were so many other nets in the water that we got very little, and I had to buy a few hundred pounds of dried fish to eke out.
We reached the open ocean July 23d, but were delayed here somewhat by strong winds, for, like the delta flats of any other river, the Mackenzie mouth is an exceedingly dangerous place in a high wind, when mountainous breakers roll in from the open sea. On the 24th we reached the first Eskimo camp on the coast, at a place called Niakonak, just after the sudden death of a woman and young girl from white whale poisoning. This is another of the cases I have since heard referred to by mounted policemen and whalers as ptomaine poisoning. But the Eskimo explain it by saying that the women died because they made some caribou skin into garments the day after they ate white whale. In other words, they had broken a taboo. Personally, I agree neither with the policemen nor the Eskimo. It seems to me the poisoning could scarcely have been ptomaine, because the meal after which the women sickened took place within three or four hours after the animal was killed; in fact, the pieces of meat were put right into the pot the moment they were cut from the animal.
May 28, 1907
Report on the Danmark expedition to the north-east coast
In spite of illness, owing to an exclusive meat diet for a long time, Koch's party succeeded in reaching Cape Bridgman....for about 3 weeks been living exclusively on hare and musk-ox meat.
During the northward journey MYLIUS-ERICHSEN had constantly been writing letters for TROLLE, containing an account of the journey and of the discoveries made. Altogether there are 6 of these letters, The last was brought home by KocH and has been written at Cape Rigsdagen on the day when the 1st party drove westward and the 2nd eastward on the return journey. As this is the last communication from MYLIUS-ERICHSEN, the portions refering to the journey may be quoted here.
North Cape of NE. Greenland. ca. 82 03 Na lat. 28th May 1907.
2 months after the departure from the ship.
Dear TROLLE.
With Koch and his comrades, whom we left on May 1st and met last night at midnight quite by chance, I send you these lines in haste in order personally to tell you the good news, of which Koch's party will be able to give a more detailed report, that everything has gone well with us all. In spite of illness, owing to an exclusive meat diet for a long time, Koch's party succeeded in reaching Cape Bridgman, and, what I consider a great triumph, in finding and bringing away Peary's record.
My party acting in the belief that we found ourselves in Peary Channel has discovered and penetrated into the head of one of East Greenland's largest fjords, which runs in south of the land where we are at present and reaches the inland ice, for which the glacier behind Academy Land forms the northern outlet. In here we shot 22 hares, 4 ptarmigan and 21 musk-oxen, found drift timber in the inner fjord (at ca. 81° N. lat. and ca. 29° W. long.) and Eskimo ruins! Shot at a wolf at too long range, saw 2 snow-owls etc and collected a considerable number or samples the sedimentary-like, imposing rocks along the coast.
Unfortunately we had to drive about 80 miles to get out of the fjord again and north round this land, on the northern point of which we drove right against our 3 returning comrades. They were suffering from constipation, Tobias also from snow-blindness, but in good spirits and full of energy: and now today they start off for the ship which they will probably reach in about 3 or 4 weeks. A week later or at the utmost a fortnight you may expect to see us. We now seek to end the journey of our party by a 40 miles tour towards Cape Glacier We will then have established a connection with Peary's point and will return with satisfactory results. When we separated from Koch's party on the Ist of May, we had only one sledge-case left and have now for about 3 weeks been living exclusively on hare and musk-ox meat, of which we boil a pot-full twice during the 24 hours, the one time mixed with a packet of knorrsk' which makes the soup saltish and a little more substantial. We have all 3 heen in good health and have not suflered from constipation, rather the reverse, though not troubled thereby in any way.
Unfortunately, your dog-team has by mishap been considerably reduced. But we shall make up for it later! HAGEN has lost 2 dogs and Jorgen and I have each shot one tor dog-food. Our travelling is still fairly good. With another fortnight at our disposal (now it is too late in the year) and 10 quarts of petroleum besides the 5 still left, we should willingly have made more journeys in these attractive regions. Hard days we have had, that cannot be denied, days full of hope and bitter with deceptions, and the month we have still left will not be the easiest - but we are all grateful for our work, the life and comradeship during the 3 months we have spent up here. We should like to travel with Koch's party towards the south, but duty calls us 2 or 3 days to the west, so we must separate again after 24 hours never to be forgotten.
Good-bye to you, dear TROLLE, and to every one onboard, with greetings and all good wishes, once more good-bye with the last sledge post we can send and then in a month we shall certainly meet,
Yours sincerely
L. MYLIUS-ERICHSEN.
On the 28th of May at 7 p. m. MYLIUs-ERICHSEN, HAGEN and BRONLUND drove west into Independence Sound with 3 sledges and 23 dogs and at the same time KocH. BERTELSEN and ToBIAS left the tent place and drove east
Ancient History
Germany
50000
B.C.E.
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic kill-butchering sites: the hard evidence
The upper paleolithic is characterized by advanced hunting of large animals with various weapons, and planning to maximize easy prey
Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Hunting:
the archaeological record leaves us some direct evidence of man's hunting activities. At Meiendorf (Rust 1937) and Stellmoor (Rusf 1937), some bones of reindeer and birds still conserve weapon marks and a few pieces of silex have remained thrusted in mammalian bones; man kills reindeer with harpoons and sticks (fractured skulls), birds with bows and maybe slings. Three fractured skulls of red deer in Abri Pataud (Bouchud, 1975), and one bovid skull with a circular orifice in Saint Marcel (Allain, 1952) suggest the practice of the so called " co'up de merlin": man has delivered a blow similar to the one used today to butcher cattle. Probably the animal already immobilized (wounded or entrapped) was hit on the frontal with a big stone. At Kokorevo I (Siberia), a large scapula of bison is pierced by the upper end of a point made of bone (Boriskowksi, 1965). At High Furlong (Mesolithic), an elk was discovered with the marks of L7 wounds made by barbed points, of which two were found in the site, and by other arms. The animal had apparently been attacked at two distinct occasions: during the first one, hunters aimed at the legs to lame the animal (fig. 6), later hunters hit the thoracic region and the lungs to kill it. However the elk died in a little lake, perhaps imprisoned in the ice, and man had no access to the meat. The animal represents in fact a hunting loss (Hallam et a1.,1973).
Planning: very good. Many sites belong to Wpe e, were occupied periodically or seasonally and specialised in the capture of a particular game (e.g., horse, reindeeq, ibex). Game drive towards cliffs have been claimed and Solutre (Combier & Thevenot,1976) has long figured as an example, but the evidence is far from conclusive.
Scavenging: no doubt H. sapiens still killed or exploited animals in the occasional and opportunistic way of Lower Palaeolithic times. According to Lindner (Lindner,1941), hunters at Predmost utilised the carcasses of hundreds of mammoths that probably succumbed as a result of natural catastrophes, as food.
Food transport: selective transport of the most useful animal parts is claimed for many sites.
Specialised activities: sometimes the material is dislocated in distinct clusters that could reflect specialised activity areas as for example at Solutre (Combier & Thevenot, 1976). Site topography: some hunting sites were located in valleys enclosed by steep slopes as at Rascano (Gonziilez-Echegaray, 1979), Stellmoor (Rust, 1937), Meiendorf (Rust 1937), or at the foot of rocky cliffs at Solutr6 (Combier & Th6venot, 1,976).
4. Conclusions
Most of the Lower Palaeolithic sites analysed here belong to category a (butchering sites); other kind of concentrations are rare and difficult to ascertain. A number of hunting stations (category e) and a hunting stop (category f) form my sample for the age of Neanderthal man and related people. The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by many hunting stations, while in Mesolithic times a hunting loss (category d ) was found as well as several sighting sites (category g). The foregoing distribution seems to reflect in a vague way an evolution from scavenging and haphazard opportunistic hunting to well organised, selective hunting activities. However, this reflection results no doubt in part from a priori assumptions concerning the evolution of hominid meat procurement often colouring the interpretations offered for the osseous "hard" data; these are frequently equivocal.
Vindija, 42000, Varaždin, Croatia
28500
B.C.E.
Neanderthal diet at Vindija and Neanderthal predation: The evidence from stable isotopes
The isotope evidence overwhelmingly points to the Neanderthals behaving as top-level carnivores, obtaining almost all of their dietary protein from animal sources
Archeological analysis of faunal remains and of lithic and bone tools has suggested that hunting of medium to large mammals was a major element of Neanderthal subsistence. Plant foods are almost invisible in the archeological record, and it is impossible to estimate accurately their dietary importance. However, stable isotope (13C and 15N) analysis of mammal bone collagen provides a direct measure of diet and has been applied to two Neanderthals and various faunal species from Vindija Cave, Croatia. The isotope evidence overwhelmingly points to the Neanderthals behaving as top-level carnivores, obtaining almost all of their dietary protein from animal sources. Earlier Neanderthals in France and Belgium have yielded similar results, and a pattern of European Neander- thal adaptation as carnivores is emerging. These data reinforce current taphonomic assessments of associated faunal elements and make it unlikely that the Neanderthals were acquiring animal protein principally through scavenging. Instead, these findings portray them as effective predators.
Stable Isotope Analyses.
Mammal bone collagen δ13C and δ15N values reflect the δ13C and δ15N values of dietary protein (14). They furnish a long-term record of diet, giving the average δ13C and δ15N values of all of the protein consumed over the last years of the measured individual's life. δ13C values can be used to discriminate between terrestrial and marine dietary protein in humans and other mammals (15, 16). In addition, because of the canopy effect, species that live in forest environments can have δ13C values that are more negative than species that live in open environments (17). δ15N values are, on average, 2–4‰ higher than the average δ15N value of the protein consumed (18). Therefore, δ15N values can be used to determine the trophic level of the protein consumed. By measuring the δ13C and δ15N values of various fauna in a paleo-ecosystem, it is possible to reconstruct the trophic level relationships within that ecosystem. Therefore, by comparing the δ13C and δ15N values of omnivores such as hominids with the values of herbivores and carnivores from the same ecosystem, it is possible to determine whether those omnivores were obtaining dietary protein from plant or animal sources.
Cheddar Reservoir, Cheddar BS26, UK
12000
B.C.E.
FOCUS: Gough’s Cave and Sun Hole Cave Human Stable Isotope Values Indicate a High Animal Protein Diet in the British Upper Palaeolithic
We were testing the hypothesis that these humans had a mainly hunting economy, and therefore a diet high in animal protein. We found this to be the case, and by comparing the human δ15N values with those of contemporary fauna, we conclude that the protein sources in human diets at these sites came mainly from herbivores such as Bos sp. and Cervus elaphus
We undertook stable isotope analysis of Upper Palaeolithic humans and fauna from the sites of Gough's Cave and Sun Hole Cave, Somerset, U.K., for palaeodietary reconstruction. We were testing the hypothesis that these humans had a mainly hunting economy, and therefore a diet high in animal protein. We found this to be the case, and by comparing the human δ15N values with those of contemporary fauna, we conclude that the protein sources in human diets at these sites came mainly from herbivores such as Bos sp. and Cervus elaphus. There are a large number ofEquus sp. faunal remains from this site, but this species was not a significant food resource in the diets of these Upper Palaeolithic humans.
If the humans hunted and consumed mainly horse, then their 15N values should be c. 3–5‰ (Equus 15N value of 0·7‰+enrichment of 2–4‰). Instead, their 15N values make more sense if they lived mostly off Bos and Cervus elaphus (Bos and Cervus values of c. 3‰+enrichment of 2–4‰=the observed values c. 6–7‰). It is also possible that other species, including Rangifer tarandus, were consumed by these individuals. Rangifer tarandus has 15N values similar to Cervus elaphus (Richards, 1998), and has more positive 13C values, which may explain the observed slight enrichment in the human 13C values. A number of artefacts made from Rangifer tarandus have been found at Gough’s, but there is no other evidence that this species was being exploited for food
Province of Crotone, Italy
500
B.C.E.
On the Sociology of Ancient Sport
One report states that a trainer named Pythagoras recommended a meat diet to the Olympic athletes he trained.
A lack of animal-derived protein seems to have been rectified early in history, as there are two reports of the introduction of meat into the athletes’ diet. One report states that a trainer named Pythagoras recommended a meat diet to the athletes he trained. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-comparison-of-ancient-greek-and-roman-sports-diets-with-modern-day-practices-2473-6449-1000104.php?aid=69865
8 He [Pythagoras] is said to have been the first to train athletes on a meat diet. The first athlete he did this with was Eurymenes. Formerly they had trained on dried figs, moist cheese, and wheat. Some say that it was a trainer named Pythagoras and not the philosopher who was responsible for this innovative diet. For our Pythagoras prohibited killing, not to mention eating, life which possessed souls like our own.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 8.12
Sport and Recreation
To all appearances medical knowledge in general and nutrition in particular was widespread in Pythagorean circles in Southern Italy, especially in Kroton. Burkert has pointed out that the fmaous doctor Alcmaeon came from the Pythagorean center of Kroton. From the akousmata (secret doctrines), which doubtless contain old religious traditions, we learn that the Pythagoreans were not originally strict vegetarians; the consumption of meat was permitted, with the exception of lamb and the meat of draft oxen. Burkert considers there is some likelihood that Pythagoras introduced a meat diet for athletes. He believes this tradition arose when Pythagorean vegetarianism had not yet been completely developed. In later times, when vegetarianism had prevailed, a second tradition has possibly been invented, in which it was not Pythagoras, the philosopher from Samos and Kroton, but a homonymous person who wrot the great 'trainer's recipe book'.
57: There are similar issues regarding the transmission in later sources of Pythagoras advising the successful heavy athlete Eurymenes of Samos to use a special meat-based diet instead of the dried figs and cheese he had previously been eating.
On the Sociology of Ancient Sport - page 43.
Mantineia 221 00, Greece
480
B.C.E.
A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices
Dromeus, a long-distance runner, is said to have first thought of eating meat for training instead of just cheese and won multiple victories.
The second report is that of Pausanias, who writes of Dromeus, a long-distance runner from Stymphalos [23].
“...he won two victories in the dolichos at Olympia, the same number in the Pythian Games, three at the Isthmian and five at the Nemean. He is said to have first thought of eating meat (as part of his training diet). Until then the food for athletes was cheese fresh out of the basket.”
Clearly, if his success is anything to go by, then Dromeus had really found a winner’s diet. There are also reports of athletes eating meat from oxen, bulls, goats and deer, a very” red-meat” diet which is a rich form of protein. Moreover, with meat as a part of their diet, the performance of competing athletes would most certainly have improved noticeably.
5 A man named Dromeus from Mantineia was said to have been the first we know of to have won the pankration by default [ = akoniti]. Pausanias 6.11.4
Dromeus, Long-Distance Runner
There was a man from Stymphalos, named Dromeus, whose record as a long-distance runner was exceptional: he won two victories in the dolichos at Olympia, the same number in the Pythian Games, three at the Isthmian and five at the Nemean. He is said to have first thought of eating meat (as part of his training diet). Until then the food for athletes was cheese fresh out of the basket.
