🚀 go-pugleaf

ma...@mail.com writes:
> Completely off topic, but found this when browsing today.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians
>
> The interesting bit is near the bottom, about those Plains indians
> average heights, when existing on a diet of Buffalo.

from wikipedia:

In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant "pocket vetoed" a Federal bill to
protect the dwindling bison herds, and in 1875 General Philip Sheridan
pleaded to a joint session of Congress to slaughter the herds, to
deprive the Plains Indians of their source of food.[27]

... snip ...

Generals South, Generals North: The Commanders of the Civil War Reconsidered
http://www.amazon.com/Generals-South-North-Commanders-Reconsidered-ebook/dp/B012A1WML6/

loc6085-88: Despite the mixed results of his approach to cavalry and the
moral ambiguity (in the Indian Wars verging on genocide) of his policy
of waging war on civilians, it cannot be denied that Sheridan was a
superb leader of troops, a fine tactician, and an aggressive fighter,
who was especially effective in forcing Lee to surrender his Army of
Northern Virginia in the closing weeks of the Civil War.

... snip ...

The Comanche Empire (The Lamar Series in Western History)
https://www.amazon.com/Comanche-Empire-Lamar-Western-History-ebook/dp/B001HZZ05C/

loc4141-42: Comancheria was a land of great riches and enormous bison
herds, which provided the Comanches a seemingly bottomless reservoir of
hides, protein, and fat, but that abundance rested on a shaky ecological
foundation: Comancheria was a hunter's paradise but only for a limited
number of people.

loc4145-46: The critical gap, the difference between mortality and the
bison's ability to reproduce, was therefore rather narrow. Modern bison
reproduce at an average annual rate of 18 to 20 percent, while the
nineteenth-century bison's annual losses to nonhuman causes-natural
mortality, accidents, and predation-can be estimated at 15 percent.

loc4163-64: The combined toll of Comanches' and their allies'
subsistence and market hunting probably neared, and in some years
exceeded, the sustainable yearly rate of killing of 280,oo0, placing
Comancheria's bison herds on a precarious balance.

loc4176: Struggling under multiple pressures, Comancheria's bison
population lost the ability to maintain its numbers.

log4267-69: Their access to guns, shot, and powder was severely
compromised, but even more troubling, they had lost their only reliable
source of maize and other garden produce. It was a disaster for a people
already suffering from serious deficiencies of protein and fat, and by
the late 1850s the Comanches were vulnerable to several types of
malnutrition, including kwashiorkor (protein deficiency, especially in
infants), marasmus (combined protein and calorie deficiency), and
ketoacidosis (severe carbohydrate deficiency, especially in pregnant
women).

... snip ...

past "Comanche Empire" posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016.html#14 1970--protesters seize computer center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#44 Qbasic
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#45 Qbasic
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016c.html#48 Qbasic
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016d.html#92 "Computer & Automation" later issues--anti-establishment thrust
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#55 Comanche Empire
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#79 60 Minutes interview with Grace Hopper
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#38 Imperial Hubris
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#103 Iraq, Longest War


-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970