Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964 [Paperback]

Clifford E. Trafzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1997

Clifford Trafzer's disturbing new work, Death Stalks the Yakama, examines life, death, and the shockingly high mortality rates that have persisted among the fourteen tribes and bands living on the Yakama Reservation in the state of Washington. The work contains a valuable discussion of Indian beliefs about spirits, traditional causes of death, mourning ceremonies, and memorials. More significant, however, is Trafzer's research into heretofore unused parturition and death records from 1888-1964. In these documents, he discovers critical evidence to demonstrate how and why many reservation people died in "epidemics" of pneumonia, tuberculosis, and heart disease. 
     Death Stalks the Yakama, takes into account many variables, including age, gender, listed causes of death, residence, and blood quantum. In addition, analyses of fetal and infant mortality rates as well as crude death rates arising from tuberculosis, pneumonia, heart disease, accidents, and other causes are presented. Trafzer argues that Native Americans living on the Yakama Reservation were, in fact, in jeopardy as a result of the "reservation system" itself. Not only did this alien and artificial culture radically alter traditional ways of life, but sanitation methods, housing, hospitals, public education, medicine, and medical personnel affiliated with the reservation system all proved inadequate, and each in its own way contributed significantly to high Yakama death rates.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Cliffor Trafzer is Director of American Indian Studies at University of California, Riverside. He received the 1996-97 Wordcraft Prose Writer of the Year Award for Death Stalks the Yakama.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press (April 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870134639
• ISBN-13: 978-0870134630
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,839,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Epidemiology, December 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964 (Paperback)

I think it is important that people - particularly young white liberals - not use this as an excuse for hating their fathers and other white men.

Having grown up in part around the Yakama Reservation, much of the hard life there had major impacts on all the ethnic groups there: black, white, Yakama, Wenatchis, Tejano, Philippino and others.

5.0 out of 5 stars very enlightening, May 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Death Stalks the Yakama: Epidemiological Transitions and Mortality on the Yakama Indian Reservation, 1888-1964 (Paperback)

An important book that exposes the murderous and hateful agenda of white male settlers in the U. S., who still apparently can't be bothered with providing basic medical help to the people they have oppressed for centuries.