Carnivore Diet

Then came the day when I was the only male left in camp. One corner of my sled had been partially broken off by striking against a tree, and I had been obliged to repair the damage before setting out with the other hunters. Just as I was standing there in the act of binding it up with babiche, the old squaw came racing down the hillside as fast as her legs would carry her, waving her arms and howling at the top of her lungs: " E-then! E-then! " In a flash, women and children poured out of the tepees and began gaping out over the lake. Far out, there was a band of some twenty caribou. What a disturbance then took place! Before I could utter a word, I was surrounded by a regular crowd of squaws. One tugged at my right arm and begged me for two caribou heads, another grabbed my left arm and put in her reservation for three. Then I felt an iron grip on my shoulder and was jerked sharply about face by the heavyweight, Phresi, demanding tongues and half a caribou carcass, as a mere detail, to go with them. At length even little Kachesy ingratiatingly fingered my jacket and made the whole thing even more difficult. All in all, these women demanded of me more meat than a hunter, under ordinary circumstances, would be able to shoot in the course of a week. I attempted to make a few meek objections, but was silenced at once. And, after all, what reply could I make, surrounded by all these women and children who looked trustingly upon me as the only available man and who were giving expression to such blind faith in my prowess as a hunter? 

Since my sled was laid up, I put on my snowshoes, the entire party of women meanwhile stationing themselves on a hilltop from whence they could view the hunt. Whether it was this gallery of the fair sex that disturbed my mental poise and caused my hand to shake, I cannot say for sure. Suffice it to mention that I took uncertain aim at long range and succeeded in but slightly wounding one buck. Terrified by the shot, it raced off down the lake, mile after mile, pursued, unfortunately for me, by all its fellows. In a short time they all appeared as pin-pricks on the horizon. As they were fleeing, I sent a few pot-shots flying after them, but not a single creature fell. 

My return to camp was anything but triumphant. I had contemplated sneaking up to my tent in silence, but nothing came of this notion. The massed ranks of the women stood in my path. Their scorn was unendurable. One asked me how many animals I had slain, another asked me for the head I had promised her, a third stated that she was already boiling the water for the tongues I said I would bring her, so now I could give them to her, she said. Only Phresi was well-meaning in her way; she took me aside and, in a motherly voice, explained to me the reason why I had failed to bring down any game: it was because I had remained behind while the hunters were off on an expedition. " For it is something which everyone knows, that he who hangs back in camp and shows too much interest in the women loses his luck as a hunter." I accepted this criticism without opening my mouth. 

The cloud of opprobrium which hung over my head was not soon dispelled. To disgrace oneself as a hunter is, in this Indian society, no less serious than scandal affecting lawyer, doctor, or priest in a civilized community. There is no defense of one's failure; there are no extenuating circumstances, absolutely none. That the caribou had been within range and that not one had been slain were two hard, cold facts, which were highly aggravated by a third: the whole affair had taken place just when there was something of a food shortage. Such was the judgment I suffered. Furthermore, it had not been pronounced by a court of law; worse than that, it was made known in the insulting attitude of these Indians toward me and in the painful allusions they made to me. This was their form of justice. In the end there was only one thing for me to do: I would have to make amends. So I harnessed up my dogs and departed into the forest, with the determination that I would keep going until I had felled some kind of game, even were it to take me a week. I would not return until I could do so with my sled loaded down with meat, my name and prestige re-established. 

I knocked about for two days without coming within range of a single wild creature. The few I sighted dashed off in mad flight as soon as they saw my sled. I then adopted a new stratagem, often chosen by the Indians on biting cold days when it is downright impossible to creep up on one's game. I established myself on an island, in the vicinity of a narrow sound through which the caribou would be likely to pass, and prepared to wait them out. 

During the afternoon they arrived — four powerful bucks! Sighting the smoke from my fire, they started a bit, but continued, undaunted, along their chosen course. I brought down three of them. The fourth was wounded, but I followed it on snowshoe in through the woods and at last, after an exciting chase, got home a shot. So far as I could determine, all four of these deer were woodland caribou, which have a more lofty crown of antlers and are considerably larger than the Barren Ground caribou. If so, these were the first of this species I had shot in this region. 

It was pleasant indeed to return home to the camp that evening. Proudly seated on my load, I swung up in front of the tepees, and shouted such an imperious " Whoa! " to the dogs that the occupants of even the remotest tents appeared. With that, I threw the meat out of the sled and arranged it in a large pile, making no great ceremony of the act, and, as casually as I possibly could, I said that there were two or three more carcasses out in the woods and suggested that it would be wise to cart them in before the wolves got at them. 

That evening there was a banquet at the home of Tijon. Two tallow candles were lit, and we all sat about in a wide circle. The choicest morsels were then passed round: first, the marrowbones and the roasted heads of the beasts I had slain, then round patties made of dried meat chopped up and mixed with fresh fat, a large wooden bowl of fried marrow, a pile of selected dried meat, inch-thick slabs of dried fat, and a bark cup full of otter-fat. 

When the meal was over, Isep began to beat on his tomtom. Immediately everyone picked up whatever object he could reach — knife, pipe, or snowshoe — and began to hammer out the rhythm on the stove-pipe, frying-pans, or meat-kettle, whilst they all burst out at the top of their lungs with that wild, monotonous festival song with its refrain of " Hi-hi~he, hi-hi-he-ho, hi-yi," uttered in screeches in every pitch and in every key. A most weirdly intricate orchestra of sound. 

Then followed the dance. I remained in the background, for I could do nothing with this Indian dance. Furthermore, the roof was too low for my head. Great slabs of dried meat hung in rows from the tent-poles and I had to bend almost double every time I wished to cross the floor. But when the Indians crowded around me and insisted, I took my life in my hands and threw myself into the dance. 

The effect was as I had feared. I leaned over so far that my back ached, I ducked my head like a boxer, but no matter which way I turned, I ran afoul of dried meat. Dried meat cuffed at my neck, dried meat came raining down from above, and dried meat lay beneath my tramping feet. At length there were but a few slabs left hanging in their place, while on the floor there must have been the flesh of many a carcass. Then I threw up both hands and quit. But it was a long time before the Indians recovered from their hearty laugh. They simply lay down on their caribou blankets, held their sides, and roared. Oh, the white man!... 

It was late in May, and spring was at hand. The caribou were trekking far off to the east in the direction of the Barren Lands, and in our section of the country there were very few of them left. Were a man to be dependent upon his luck in the field, it would not be long before he would find himself in dire straits. It happened that one hunter was without game for eight full days. On the other hand, some hunters might spasmodically run into a streak of splendid luck. Thanks be to the socialistic basis on which the Indians governed their society, we were able to keep going. We shared all we had and, although we lived no life of luxury, we did not experience any immediate want.

The Indians native to the Canadian Northewst Territories belong to the Dene nation, and are subdivided into the following tribes: the Hares, the Loucheux, the Yellowknives, the Slaves, the Dogribs, and the Chipewyans. Their languages have a common root in the Athabaska languagegroup. 

We know but little of the history of these tribes. By means of a number of dissociated and incomplete sources alone are we able to trace through the general thread of their story. As a rough outline, indicating something of their earlier modes of life, a few facts must be mentioned: First and foremost, these peoples were hunters and nomads, the majority of whom were constantly migrating with the caribou. Their weapons consisted of spears and arrows tipped with flint, and various trapping devices, such as snares and nets of animal hide (the latter also of bast) and primitive deadfalls. Fire they obtained for the most part by striking sparks from pyrites. Their shelter was a tepee of caribou-skins, their means of transport dog-sleds, snowshoes, and birch-bark canoes. These were poor weapons with which to conduct a struggle for existence in a land where the Arctic winter lasts eight months of the year. Considering, then, the constant warfare waged amongst themselves and with strange tribes, as well as those periods when wild game was scarce, it is evident that these people lived a difficult life. 

The advent of the fur-traders opened new possibilities to these natives. A rough choice of the goods of civilization was then accessible to them, and the price for these was pelts. The Indians no longer found it necessary to keep wandering about the country in quest of game in order to remain alive. The doors of the trading stores stood open to anyone who had a beaver, fox, lynx, or marten to offer in exchange. There were not only food and tools to be had, but weapons which were more effective than the old. This introduction of white civilization meant that the Indians, in addition to their ancient form of hunting, could undertake, if they liked, the harvesting of pelts and thus make a livelihood in a more limited field. 

The majority of northern Canada's Indian tribes yielded, to a remarkable degree, to these new conditions. This marked the beginning of a new era. Hunting in the wilderness still constituted the most substantial and the most perfect form of existence, but it was no longer essential to life in the same way it had been in the past. Their society began to take on a different tone when, with a safer mode of existence open to them, they were no longer obliged to pursue their own more exacting struggle for food, wherein all was risked upon one mad dash, good luck, and their own alertness. Necessary adjustments were made, for weal as well as woe, but, in any event, the result for them was a life more insipid than their old. 

One may find branches of the Dene nation, however, which still retain their ancient heritage — the Barren Land Indians. A few of the goods of civilization have filtered through to them, via the channel of fur-trading, but the primitive impulse which guides their daily lives is as firm as ever, and outside influences have altered to but a slight degree their original culture. Their existence follows the lines set by their ancestors, whether it be symbolized by their perpetual expeditions through forest or over barren plain in search of the wandering caribou, by their battle against blizzard and winter's cold, by their feasts and general gormandizing when the country is flooded with deer, or by their dark hours of need and starvation when the country lies empty about them. 

The term " Barren Land Indians " includes the people of several tribes. Their hunting-grounds are the lands which follow the timber-line from Hudson Bay northwest to the Mackenzie delta, where the river empties into the Polar Sea. In its broader outlines, a common culture here exists. My statements apply in particular to the peoples east and northeast of Great Slave Lake, the peoples amongst whom I have lived and whose life and activities I have already mentioned in some detail in earlier chapters. In the following pages I shall attempt to include a number of facts which I have heretofore failed to mention or but loosely touched upon.

The question of minimal and optimal protein requirements has received considerable research attention in recent years. There is now very little disagreement among students of nutrition as to what these requirements are. On the effects of a high protein dietary, however, not only do opinions of authorities differ but the results of carefully controlled experiments show considerable variance. It is a traditional belief that a high protein intake leads to high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis or nephritis. Among physicians it has almost become a dietetic dogma to reduce or eliminate entirely the intake of meat whenever diets are prescribed. Unless proper interpretation is given to certain present-day investigations on protein metabolism, including the results of the experiment reviewed in this paper, there is danger that the dietetic pendulum will swing too far in the opposite direction.

I carefully set up my tent on the very spot where the buck had stood, crept into my sleeping-bag without any supper, and fell asleep. Early next morning I was up prowling through the woods. Yes, there had been caribou here, thousands of them. Everywhere I found the marks of their hoofs. But had they all forsaken these parts? It appeared so. 

After pottering around for half a day without glimpsing a living thing, I clambered up a barren ridge and sat down for a consoling smoke. It was a sparkling autumn day. Far off in the distance lay the subdued green of the forest, alternating with the glittering surface of small lakes. Beneath where I sat, white birches were growing in the lee of the ridge, the sunlight dancing in and out amongst those snowy trunks and caressing with its rays their foliage of pure gold. 

I thought at first that my eye had fallen upon two huge caribou bucks, but then I saw that they were moose. Sedately they were stalking along through the birches. I threw myself down on the ground, crawled forward and fired. One moose tumbled head over heels. On my running up to it, the other simply stood there looking at me, so I shot it, too. 

An enormous quantity of meat. It was almost unbelievable. Here was food for hungry dogs, and here were marrowbones, fat, kidneys, tongues, and all manner of good things — enough so that I could eat as much as my belly would hold. Had I suddenly inherited a fortune, I could not have felt more wealthy. Fate, in spite of everything, had kept a friendly eye upon this solitary trapper, wandering about through the wilderness. 

I immediately moved my camp over to the place where I had felled my game. This marked the beginning of a busy time for me, for to transform two moose carcasses, each weighing approximately nine hundred pounds, into dried meat required slightly more than a wave of the hand. Day after day I sat outside my tent and cut off slab after slab of meat. The piles grew. The knack of cutting the meat off in broad thin slices I had acquired from my friends amongst the Caribou-Eaters. First you must cut the muscles, one by one, then, grasping each one in turn in the left hand, roll it over the wrist whilst a large meat-knife cuts it loose from the flesh. It is otherwise with the rib meat, which must be cut off and dried in its entirety. 

Outside the tent I had erected a good stout scaffold from which I hung the meat to dry over a slow fire. The hides I stretched as tight as a drum across two four-cornered frames made from spruce poles, at once proceeding to flesh them and prepare them for tanning. It was my thought to get some of the Indians to tan them for me later, a service they would gladly perform in return for half the finished leather. Moose hide is both warmer and stronger than caribou.

The Nephropathic Effect in Man of a Diet High in Beef Muscle and Liver.

Author(s) : Newburgh, L. H. ;  Falcon-lesses, M. ;  Johnston, Margaret W.

Author Affiliation : Med. School, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Journal article : American Journal of Medical Sciences 1930 Vol.179 pp.305-10 ref.8

Abstract : The authors have previously shown that rats living on a diet rich in animal tissues (muscle and liver) gradually developed sclerosis of the kidney. In the present investigation a normal man, aged 32, was given a diet containing less than 100 gm. protein daily, for a preliminary period of 35 days. There was no albumen in the urine during this period and the number of urinary casts averaged 50 per hour (ADDIS gives the average figure in group of students as 87). During the next 6 months the man ate a diet containing 327 gm. of animal protein and with a total calorie value of 4, 177. Beef liver, veal round, beef tenderloin and dried beef were given, about one-quarter of the protein being liver. Only 31 per cent. of the calories of the diet represented animal protein. No clinical or subjective abnormalities appeared. There was a gradual increase in the urine albumen which reached 2 to 4 mgm. of protein per hour in the 6th month. The cast counts during the first 7 weeks were within the normal range. Afterwards the counts were definitely pathological and during the last 6 weeks the average count was 1, 283 (15 X normal average). At first the casts were hyaline; gradually more and more granular casts appeared, and during the last 6 weeks, some were cellular and the hyaline type were in the minority. After returning to a diet of his own choice, in which meat was avoided, the man's urine became normal in 10 days. A diet containing the same proportions of animal protein was found not to affect the kidney of the rat. There are a number of observations which appear to show that an exclusive meat diet is not harmful to the kidneys of man. The Eskimos are cited in this regard, but a recent survey of a number of middle-aged Eskimos shows a definitely higher degree of albuminuria than in the policy holders of a large American insurance company. Furthermore the Eskimos have presumably over many generations become adapted to their diet. The recent investigation on 2 arctic explorers (this Bulletin, 1929, v. 4, 829), showed no renal impairment with " an exclusive meat diet " for 12 months. This diet only contained 100-140 gm. protein daily and 80 per cent. of the energy was in the form of fat.
H. N. H. Green.