Posted on 01/16/2018 6:08:19 AM PST by C19fan
In the decades after Hernán Cortés invaded Mexico, one of the worst epidemics in human history swept through the new Spanish colony. A mysterious disease called “cocolitzli” appeared first in 1545 and then again in 1576, each time killing millions of the native population. “From morning to sunset,” wrote a Franciscan friar who witness the epidemic, “the priests did nothing else but carry the dead bodies and throw them into the ditches.”
In less than a century, the number of people living in Mexico fell from an estimated 20 million to 2 million. “It’s a massive population loss. Really, it’s impressive,” says Rodolfo Acuña-Soto, an epidemiologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What can even kill so many people so quickly?
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I’m sure that was in the mix. Sanitation - obviously a white heterosupremacist plot.
The old saying, “Don’t poop where you eat.”
I had a bad feeling after eating a taco in Sonora.
Well that was a weak argument for Salmonella. They also don’t know if it’s indigenous. There are all sorts of reasons you might find a bacteria on one corpse and not another.
So far the best bet is it was an indigenous hemoragic fever. I give a lot of credence to the evidence that the natives identified the killer themselves, “cocolitzli”. Meso-american health had been on a decline for centuries, they were sometimes struck with massive epidemics.
Does Neil Young have to change the song tfrom Cortez the Killer to Cocolitzli the Killer?
Separate water and sewer systems be racist.
L
“are there any accounts that would lend credence to the notion of Europeans being somehow immune or less affected by this than the native population(s)?”
Did the Spanish try to avoid water? Some Europeans did.
“So far the false positive rate is 100%.”
Admirable honesty.
I’m sure we all hope that your record remains unblemished.
Indeed! Fingers crossed!
Of the 2 million residents remaining in Mexico, after the epidemics killed off 90% of the population, then what portion were true NATIVES - ethnically - of Mexico and what portion were Spanish colonialists and their descendants? You’d think the sources of the population figures given in the report would contain that answer. Curious minds want to know what it is.
The inhabitants of Mexico City lived on a lake, often on floating or anchored rafts of vegetation and earth. It would be easy for people living like that to be contaminated by the water. The Mixtec, however, who were studied in this article lived in valleys near Oaxaca. Their neighbors, the Zapotecs lived on the hillsides so far as I could tell when I visited that area. It would be interesting to see if the Zapotecs also suffered major deaths for this disease. I imagine that Mixtec lands might be subject to flooding during raining seasons.
As we've spread out over the Earth, humans have remained fairly close to sealevel, that is, most people live within 1000 feet of it. Naturally, there are people who live much higher than that, and I don't blame them if it means more solitude. :^)
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