Questioning the Correlational Evidence for Kipsigis Wealth as a Cause of Reproductive Success Rather than Polygyny as a Cause of Both Extra Children and Extra Wealth

COMMENTARIES enced the ravages of disease (Reff 1986:229- Jesuit materials as well as other colonial sources suggest that it was not until the fourth quarter of the 16th century, following the rapid expansion ofthe Spanish mining frontier and the related development of an extensive trade network, that a suitable infrastructure existed that facilitated the regular northward movement of disease agents from southern Mexico into the Greater Southwest.’ T h e founding of Franciscan and Jesuit missions further intensified contact within and without the northern frontier, paving the way for reg- ular, widespread epidemics, including the ep- idemic of 1636-41 (Reff 1986). In his commentary, Dobyns accused me of uncritically accepting several reports that the epidemic of 1636-41 involved smallpox.‘ In a n apparent effort to demonstrate another pandemic, Dobyns argued that this epidemic actually involved scarlet fever, which was not distinguished at the time from smallpox. In support of this thesis, Dobyns noted that the epidemic affected Europeans as well as na- tives, and persisted in some locales for over a year. While it is true (as I noted in my original commentary) that Europeans often confused or failed to differentiate diseases, I a m reluc- tant to dismiss the statements of at least three different observers that smallpox was involved in the epidemic of 1636-41. This is not to sug- gest that scarlet fever as well as other maladies did not contribute to the epidemic. Indeed as I noted on at least several occasions in my commentary, epidemics of a single malady were uncommon during the 16th and 17th centuries; circumstances such as malnutrition that encouraged smallpox also favored the spread of maladies such as pneumonia, influ- enza, typhus, and so on. The fact that most ep- idemics involved multiple disease agents ex- plains in part why Europeans and natives fre- quently suffered during epidemics, although it is true that both incidence and mortality rates were invariably highest among native peoples. It should also be noted that i t was quite com- mon for diseases to ravage a community or area, subside, and then, many months or a year later, reappear (Reff 1986:237). The var- ious areas (e.g. Santa Fe, Parral, Monterey, Zacatecas, Mexico) that reported smallpox or other diseases between 1636-41 were inte- grated by the Camino Real of the interior and other heavily traveled roads, which made it possible for a disease to move from one locale to another and back again. There is nothing problematic, therefore, about a community like Monterey or the Parral district suffering for a year or two from smallpox and other mal- adies, or the whole northern region experienc- ing related outbreaks of disease over the course of five years. Notes ‘Although most areas of the Greater South- west do not appear to have been affected by Old World diseases prior to 1575, southern and central Sinaloa as well as the mountains to the east did witness tremendous population losses prior to this date (Reff 1986). ‘It is unclear why Dobyns is willing to reject several different reports of smallpox in 1636- 41, while readily accepting a passage from Obregon’s Chronicle that mentions an officer who was suffering from “measles” in 1564. Significantly, the maestro de camp0 (Betanco) apparently was one of Ibarra’s Basque follow- ers. Since measles characteristically was a childhood disease among Europeans, Obre- gon, who wrote his Chronicle 20 years after the events in question, is likely to have erred in his recollection of what ailed Betanco. References Cited Reff, Daniel T. 1981 The Location ofcorazones and Sen- ora: Archaeological Evidence from the Rio Sonora Valley, Mexico. In The Pro- tohistoric Period in the North American Southwest, A D 1450-1700. David R. Wilcox and W. Bruce Masse, eds. Pp. 94- 112. Tempe: Arizona State Anthropolog- ical Research Papers 24. 1986 T h e Demographic a n d C u l t u r a l Consequences of Old World Disease in the Greater Southwest, 1520-1660. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. Questioning the Correlational Evidence for Kipsigis Wealth as a Cause of Reproductive Success Rather than Polygyny as a Cause of Both Extra Children and Extra Wealth DOUGLAS R. WHITE University of California, Irvine I a p p l a u d Borgerhoff M u l d e r ’ s ( A A 89:617:634, 1987) effort to establish a causal link between cultural and reproductive suc- cess, and the pains she has taken to eliminate rival hypotheses. There is one point in her ar- gument, however, that I find totally uncon-