HUNTING AND FISHING EACES 159 



some of which specially mention longevity as a characteristic.^ 

 ' The North Americans are in general robust and of a healthful 

 temperament, calculated to live to an advanced age.' ^ Another 

 author says that the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains are ' in 

 general subject to few diseases '.^ Krause quotes the opinion of 

 a doctor who lived among the Thlinkeets in the year 1836 to the 

 effect that they were a strong, healthy people.^ Of the Shushwap 

 we are told that they w-ere formerly healthy and lived to a great 

 age.^ Hill Tout sums up the situation with regard to the Salish 

 as follows : ' the great age, to which both men and women 

 formerly lived, shows the vigour of the race and the general whole- 

 someness of their lives and condition.' ^ ' The Nootkas are 

 generally a long-lived race, and from the beginning to the failing of 

 manhood undergo little change in appearance. Jowitt states that 

 during his captivity of three years at Nootka Sound, only five 

 natural deaths occurred, and the people suffered scarcely any 

 disease except the cholic' '' Powers, referring to the Californians 

 as a whole, calls them ' a healthy, long-lived race ',* and Baegert 

 speaks of them as ' strong, hardy, and much healthier than the 

 many thousands who live in daily abundance ' ^ [in civilized 

 countries]. Among the Abipones ' the diseases which in Europe 

 fill houses with sick persons and graves with the dead bodies are 

 unknown here. . . . You scarce hear once in three years of any of 

 them dying of a fever, pleurisy, or consumption.' ^^ Hardt men- 

 tions the good health of the Botocudos ^^ and King and Fitzroy 

 consider the Patagoiiians to be very healthy .1- 



15. There remains one other matter to be mentioned. There is 

 abundant evidence that the rate of child mortahty is very high 

 amongst all these races. The causes of death are various ; disease 

 is seldom mentioned, and death is most often due to exposure as 

 the result of improper treatment or of certain customs, or to want 

 of suitable food. In Tasmania it was difficult to rear cliildren 

 largely owing to the fact that suitable food was not available.^^ 

 Turner says of the Eskimos of the Ungava District that ' many die 

 in early childhood ',1* and this would seem to be generally true of 



1 Crantz, loc. cit., p. 166. ^ Heriot, loc. cit., p. 350. * Harmon, loc. 



cit., p. 271. * Krause, loc. cit., p. 148. ^ Teit, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 618. 



* Hill Tout, British North America, p. 252. ' Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 284. 



* Powers, loc. cit., p. 416. ° Baegert, loc. cit., p. 385. '" Dobrizhoffer, 

 loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 219. " Hardt, Geography of Brazil, p. 598. '^ King 

 and Fitzroy, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 155. " Bonwick, loc. cit., pp. 78 and 

 85. >* Turner, loc. cit., p. 189. See also Armstrong, loc. cit., p. 197, 

 and Hutton, loc. cit., p. 80. 



