Excerpt from People of the Deer : Death of a People — The Ihalmiut / VolumeI by Farley MowatDuring the fall hunt the Ihalmiut must collect sufficient fat to meet the year ’ s needs , but there is never enough to provide fuel , food and heat together . As a result the winter igloos generally remain entirely unheated , and almost without artificial light during the interminable winter darkness . Yet the People manage to survive temperatures of fifty degrees below zero in their winter homes because fat is being burned — within their bodies … . as long as there are enough blocks of deer fat to last until spring , the People manage to stay alive under conditions which seem inimical to the maintenance of human life . Enough fat is the answer , and the sole answer , to winter survival in the Barrens . The importance of fat as a fuel is , however , only part of the story . Even in summer , when the problem is to stay cool , fat remains absolutely essential to the well - being of the People . I had it ’ s importance demonstrated to me during one long canoe trip Franz and I took . We were short on supplies — in fact we were completely out of them except for a pound of tea , half a pound of lard , and some ammunition . So we lived by the rifle , and we lived on deer . It was late summer then and the deer were extraordinarily thin as a result of long months of persecution by the flies , and so our diet consisted almost entirely of lean meat . For the first few days I made out very well on three meals of lean meat a day , but before the end of the week I was smitten with an illness which for want of a better name I called mal de caribou . It was an unpleasant illness to have during a canoe voyage . The river was fast and filled with rapids , but nevertheless I had to go ashore at frequent intervals , whether we were in “ white water ” or not . And I had to expose myself so often to the insatiable flies that it became painful for me to sit down . But persistent diarrhea was only a part of the effect of mal de caribou . I was filled with a sick lassitude , an increasing loss of will to work that made me quite useless in the canoe . I began to get really worried . Memories of dysentery in Sicily came uneasily to mind and the thought that the nearest medical aid was three hundred miles away did not bring me much comfort . Then Franz turned physician . One evening he took our half - pound of precious lard , melted it in a frying pan , and when it was lukewarm and not yet congealed , he ordered me to drink it . Strangely , I was greedy for it , though the thought of tepid lard nauseates me now . I drank a lot of it , then went to bed ; and by morning I was completely recovered . This sounds like a shock cure , but in fact I was suffering from a deficiency of fat and did not realize it . Exactly what the physiological effect of fat , apart from its straight nutrition value , is on the metabolism of a meat - eater is something I do not know . But I do know that man cannot function on lean meat alone . Perhaps there is an enzyme in fat which acts on lean meat in the digestive tract ; perhaps certain essential vitamins are present in the fat . Whatever the factor may be , it is clear that fat provides not only the large amount of calories essential to winter survival in the arctic , but also some essential stubstance without which a meat diet is impossible . Of course the Ihalmiut have always been aware of this , and it is their custom , winter or summer , to eat not less than a mouthful of fat for every three of lean meat . This is the ideal proportion , but it is not always possible to maintain it , and when fat becomes scarce the Ihalmiut appear most susceptible to disease and show other symptoms of a greatly lowered resistance . So the point I wish to make is that fat is not just a cold weather fuel to the Eskimos , but is a vitally essential part of their every - day diet . And this is a point which seems to have escaped the notice of those administrators who are entrusted with the well - being of the Northern natives . At any rate , the current trend in the arctic is to bring about the transition from native foods , and by that I mean animal or protein or fat foods , to the prepared foods of the white man which are largely composed of starch . I will have something to say about the appalling results of this policy later in this chapter . ( above passage from pages 106 - 107 ) … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Now I am going to speak for a while of famine . I want to tell you something of the real but hidden cause of the destruction which has come upon all the Northern natives , Eskimos and Indians , wherever white en have come amongst them . It is not a pretty tale . Perhaps you have heard of the decimation of the forest Indians brought about by disease , by lack of adaptability , by inherent laziness and indolence or by other causes . You may have heard of these things but you have never heard the truth , for all of these apparent causes are but manifestations of the real destroyer , which is – starvation . If you ask about the thousands of Indians and Eskimos who die each year of tuberculosis , if you ask about the measles and smallpox epidemics which in the last two decades have destroyed over one - tenth of the Northern natives , and if you ask whether these people too died of starvation , I will answer that they did . Let me explain . To begin with , one of the most popular apologies for our failure to preserve the Northern races from destruction has ben the theory of “ acquired immunities . ” It is something the natives haven ’ t got – and cannot get – if we believe the propagandists . And yet no medical authority has ever been foolish enough to say that certain races can develop specific immunities to disease while others cannot . The theory that Eskimos and Indians are , and always will be , lacking in the immunities we possess has been used to explain our inability to check the ravages of tuberculosis and the other diseases that yearly take a tremendous toll of the Northern natives . But this idea is an untenable as the theory that Aryans are superior to Semitic peoples . Immunities to disease are acquired . And the ability to acquire them belongs to all men . But if it were simply a question of immunities , then the Indians of the Mackenzie River region would long since have acquired all they needed , for disease has been a mighty killer in that land for a century and a half . And yet the children ’ s children of survivors of ancient epidemics still die by the hundred when a plague comes down the river and into the huddled settlements . It looks then as if the “ immunities ” apologists may be correct – but it only looks that way . I loathe statistics , but I must quote these to prove my point . The reported death rate from tuberculosis in the Canadian Northwest Territories between 1937 and 1941 was 761 per 100 , 000 as compared with 50 per 100 , 000 in the rest of Canada . This figure includes only those native deaths examined by a medical officer . There is good reason to believe the true figure should be well over 1 , 000 deaths , since a high proportion of the Northern peoples die , and are buried , without the knowledge of white men . Now tuberculosis has been present in this area for 150 years and yet , oddly enough , the natives seem to have been quite unable to develop a resistance to it . What has starvation to do with all this ? I shall explain with men , instead of figures . On Reindeer Lake in Northern Manitoba there is a settlement called Brochet . It is the center of the surviving members of the branch of the Chipewyan Indians who call themselves Idthen Eldeli – Eaters of Deer . In 1860 when Brochet was already a well - established trading post there were about 2 , 000 members of the Idthen band and theirs was a peculiar and demanding life . In the winter they lived in tents withing the borders of the high arctic forests where the deer also wintered . In spring , when the deer moved out into the great plains , the Idthen people followed after . So the Idthen band annually traveled over a thousand miles through the Barrens , the home of the Ihalmiut . In the eighteenth century the famous explorer Samuel Hearne journeyed overland across the Barrens from Churchill to Coppermine River with a band of these Indians and he speaks , as do many others , of the almost superhuman endurance and physical capacity of the Idthen people . In the winter of 1948 when I lived with the Idthen Eldeli at Brochet , they numbered a little over 150 men , women and children who spent the winters on their scanty trap lines , starving through the cold months until they could fish for life along the opening rivers . They no longer followed the deer on the long trek into the Barrens . Instead they followed the deer on the long trek to extinction . They are a passive , beaten , hopeless people who wait miserably for death . They are unclean , weak - bodied , sick caricatures of men , who spend their days in an apathy broken only when utter necessity drives them to make an effort to live a little longer . Also -- and despite almost a century of contact with white men – they have acquired no immunities . It has been nearly one hundred years now since the Idthen Eldell began to starve . Starvation first came to them when they began to exist on a winter diet which now consists of 80 per cent white flour , with a very little lard and baking powder , and in summer almost nothing bug straight fish . The Idthen people now get little of the red meat and white fat of the deer , once their sole food . Three generations have been born and lived – or died – upon a diet of flour bannocks and fish eaten three times a day and washed down with tea . Each of these generations has been weaker and had less “ immunity ” to disease than the last . Some of the people died from outright hunger , with their bodies shrunken into hard bundles of dry skin , and with bones which showed startlingly clear through the parchment tissues . But most of them died coughing blood , or with festering membranes clogging their throats , or with huge sores upon the surfaces of their thin bodies . They also were the victims of that long starvation . Before the opening of the trading posts , the People lived , as the Ihalmiut do , upon the deer . After Brochet was established by the Hudson Bay Company as a “ meat post ” – that is , as a point of supply where deer meat could be made into pemmican and sent out onto the prairies where the buffalo had already been destroyed and meat was scarce – the Idthen people began to change their diet . They were encouraged by the traders to forgo the summer trips out into the Barrens to live with , and on , the deer , and they learned to live instead on fish and on the handouts of flour given them on credit so that they would remain tied in the infamous “ debt system ” which was , and is , the white man ’ s way of trading with the natives . They were encouraged to slaughter the deer not for their own use but for the meat trade , and on such a scale that the deer inevitably began to follow the buffalo . The idthen Eldeli were discouraged from eating the meat they killed , for there was no profit in that for the traders . There was profit in flour at seventy - five dollars a sack . There was profit in sugar , baking powder , and in an array of useless knickknacks , but there was no profit in the deer as food for the people . And so today disease , the fatal apathy which prevents men from looking into the uncertain future , and weakness of body wich prevents a man from defending himself against the approach of death – these three are present in the land , and they have one name , and the name is starvation . The Idthen people who have been tricked and bribed into abandoning the gift of the deer are passing quickly from the high forests . Each year the energy of men grows less and the hunters catch less fur . Each year more women cough their life ’ s blood onto the filthy dirt floors of the wooden hobpens which their ancestors would have scorned . In the winter tents , with the subzero cold passing at will through the shoddy cloth of trade clothes instead of being kept out by warm caribou skin garments , the women mix flour and baking powder to feed the children who may live till spring . In the summer the men lift the nets they have been taught to use and the people eat fish each day , and when fall comes they are impotent beings against the night of winter . It is true – such people as these cannot acquire our immunities , for starving bodies have no strength to repulse the onslaughts of disease . The Idthen people , who are but one of the many tribes in similar condition across the Territories , are dying of starvation . Nor is it far from the silent campsites of the Idthen Indians to the tent of Ootek , where I sat down to feast upon the meal he set before me , amidst the laughter and strength of people who have not yet reached the poverty of spirit and of mind which is now the birthright of the Idthen Eldeli . The Ihalmiut still have a little way to go , for as yet the starvation they have known is only the direct death of famine and though it has thinned their ranks , the hidden starvation that has come to the Indians has not yet destroyed the hearts of the Ihalmiut . Now that we have made our decision to aid the few surviving inland Eskimos , no doubt it will not be very long before they are brought to the same pass as those other Eaters of the Deer , for then there will be no eaters of the deer , and in a little while , no People of the Deer . Remember that I am talking in terms of the present , and not of the past . When I was in the forests amongst Indians , I met a doctor who is sent in twice yearly by the authorities , and I spoke to him of the number of Indians who were dying of tuberculosis in that area . He replied by telling me he could do little for them . The hospitals were full and , anyway , the Indians did not seem to respond to treatment . But he pointed out with righteous pride that the government was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars building hospitals to cure the natives of their ailments across the North . Surely there is but one way to cure a man of the diseases which are the products of three generations of starvation , and that is to feed him . It is so simple an idea that I suppose it cannot possibly have real validity – or else it would have been tried long before this . But it does not greatly matter any more , for soon there will be no mouths to feed . These disintegrating men , contemporary Indians , are not God ’ s creations as the missionaries would insist , but were created at our hands . They will not need great hospitals , for it is quite true after all , they are incapable of building up immunity – against starvation . ( above passage from pages 109 - 114 ) … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … From People of the Deer : Death of a People — The IhalmiutVolume 1 By Farley Mowat 저작 자표 시비 영리 동일 조건