Last time, I said I would explore the lifeways of the Occaneechi Tribe, but before I do, I want to offer some observations on the illness that ravaged the Coastal Algonkians following the first visits of the English, and created the first real war between the English and the Natives, namely, Pemisapan's War. "Twise this Wiroans named Wingina [later Pemisapan] was so grieviously sicke that hee was like to die, and as he lay languishing, doubting of any helpe by his own priestes, and thinking he was in such danger for offending us, and thereby our God, sent for some of us to pray . . . . the people began to die very fast, and many in short space, in some townes about twentie, and in some fourtie, and in one sixe score [120] , which in trueth was very many in respect of their numbers. . . .The disease also so strange, that they neither knew what it was, nor how to cure it . . . . [yet] all the space of their sickenes, there was no man of ours known to die, or that was specially sicke," from A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, by Thomas Hariot, 1588.
Despite the terrible death toll, the chief Wingina did survive, but his beloved brother, Granganimeo, and many of his people, succumbed. Vowing revenge, Wingina changed his name to Pemisapan and assembled an alliance of Algonkian tribes -- Roanoak, Mangoak, and Chowanoak -- to totally destroy the English explorers in the summer of 1586. However, the plot was revealed to Ralph Lane by Skiko, the son of the Chowanoak chief, who remained friendly to the English and seemed reluctant to oppose them openly, even if some of his people chose to join the alliance. The raid on the English explorers encamped on Roanoke thus failed to surprise them, and in the battle, Wingina/Pemisapan was killed. The rest of the alliance melted back into their home villages, but clearly the desire to defend their people against mysterious foreign disease did not die with Pemisapan. His war again flared to life when another group of English, this time colonists with women and children, entered coastal North Carolina just one year later. The mysterious disease that killed so many Natives, yet hardly showed any symptoms of illness among the English, could not be measles or smallpox -- two diseases that did ravage Native populations in other places, but have a very short time of transmission, and must be spread to another person during the infectious phase of the sickness. Given that the disease spread rapidly in close quarters, but with no signs of serious illness from the transmitting person or persons, it had to be a disease that can be carried and spread by otherwise healthy humans. Influenza fits the description perfectly, as it can be asymptomatic, a fact which is not widely understood. According to an article published by the National Institutes of Health in 2009, "One in three influenza-infected individuals is asymptomatic." Influenza could ravage the Native populations because they had zero immunity to any form of the virus, unlike European populations regularly exposed to some form of influenza from infancy. It has been theorized that Europeans carried so many new diseases to the Americas because they had domesticated such a variety of animals -- chickens, pigs, cattle -- and lived with them in close proximity, often in the same structure, during the Middle Ages. The modern version of flu, avian flu, can also produce asymptomatic carriers, especially in persons who frequently handle live poultry, as in the case of one Chinese worker tested in January, 2014. Native Americans frequently ate meat, but primarily wild caught game, and had no exposure to diseases transmitted by domestic animals or rats, namely, influenza, measles, smallpox, and bubonic plague. These 4 diseases accounted for the highest numbers of deaths among Native populations in the years following European contact. Thus, I suggest that it is not animal protein itself that is the source of so many diseases and poor health in Westernized populations, but the manner in which those animals are reared, slaughtered, and consumed. We also need to be aware that diseases like influenza are not solely transmitted by sick persons, and take greater measures to prevent infection by new viruses, or risk experiencing the same trauma suffered by Pemisapan's people. |
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