There was a book in the late 70s or early 80s called KEEPERS OF
THE GAME by an anthropologist (Calvin ???) whose last name I
cannot remember. He makes a very interesting and HIGHLY
controversial argument about how the tribes in the northeast and
northwest (that is, what we now refer to as the Midwest) had no
"scientific" way to explain the diseases brought by the Europeans
(Dutch, French, English, others) were striking down their
populations. They reasoned that their gods were angry at them
and they sought revenge against animals whom they thought were
the channels for disease. This confluence of interpretations
coincided with the extinction and near extinction of many species
(e.g., beaver, mink) through their increased hunting for the fur
trade. We're probably talking mid- to late-18th century in North
America.
This book was really controversial. It is well-argued and
documented, but there are some leaps that the author had to
explain and document. I don't remember what consensus emerged
from the brouhaha. One major objection was that it really takes
the gloss off of the image of Native Americans as somehow more
spiritual and loving stewards of the natural world. It was,
after all, as the book shows, Indian warriors and hunters who
showed the European fur traders where the habitats of these
animals were and helped kill them.
In California, disease (venereal, and small pox among them) was
also believed to cause an 80 percent drop in the populations of
the California tribes in the 50 years subsequent to the arrival
of the Spaniards in the late 18th Century. That stat is my
recollection; it was incredible the impact of disease here
though. My (recalled) source on that is Sherburne Cooke's book
on the California Indians from the 1940s.
This was also true of Cortez' conquest of Aztec Tenochtitlan too,
and Pizarro's conquest of the Incas. The native peoples on both
continents had no immune defenses against the critters the
Europeans brought. Same with Hawai'i when contacted in the late
18th Century by Captain Cook, particularly with sexually
transmitted diseases. The list is a long, sad one.
