Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History(37)
Years later, some of the Andes survivors admitted that relating their cannibalistic acts to the sacrament was actually more of a public relations exercise than a religious experience. According to survivor Carlos Paez, “We were hungry, we were cold and we needed to live—these were the most important factors in our decision.”
With this in mind, it is now time to examine the phenomenon of survival cannibalism.
12: The Worst Party Ever
It is a long road and those who follow it must meet certain risks; exhaustion and disease, alkali water, and Indian arrows will take a toll. But the greatest problem is a simple one, and the chief opponent is Time. If August sees them on the Humboldt and September at the Sierra—good! Even if they are a month delayed, all may yet go well. But let it come late October, or November, and the snowstorms block the heights, when wagons are light of provisions and the oxen lean, then will come a story.
— George R. Stewart, Ordeal by Hunger, 1936
It was late June, and by the time we arrived at Alder Creek, the air at snout level (which was currently about an inch off the ground) had risen to an uncomfortable 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Kayle, a five-year-old black-and-white border collie, raised her head, searching in vain for a breeze. There was a rustling in the brush nearby and something (probably a chipmunk) provided a welcome distraction to the task at hand. Kayle took a step toward the commotion.
“No,” came a calm voice. It was Kayle’s owner and handler, John Grebenkemper. “Go to work.” Work, in this case, referred to Kayle’s training as a HHRD dog, which was an abbreviation for Historical Human Remains Detection. In short, Kayle was searching for bodies—old ones.
The dog responded instantly, reversing direction while lowering her nose to the ground. I hitched my backpack higher and followed, taking a moment to survey the meadow where Kayle slowly sniffed her way in the direction of a large pine tree. At an elevation of 5,800 feet, we were in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just across the Nevada border and into California. It had been a dry spring throughout the American West, and the fist-sized clumps of grass that had sprouted from the rocky soil were already turning brown. We’d passed several creek beds and I remembered reading about the muddy conditions that had led to the construction of a low boardwalk for the tourists visiting the incongruously named Donner Camp and Picnic Area.
No need for a boardwalk today, I thought.
We headed farther and farther away from the trail and into a mountain meadow strewn with wildflowers: orange-colored Indian paintbrush, yellow cinquefoils, purple penstemon. I’d come to the Alder Creek historic site to learn about the Donner Party, a subject I had initially planned to explore only in passing. I mean, who would be interested in yet another rehashing of what was probably the most infamous example of cannibalism in U.S. history?16
But as I began to investigate the Donners, I realized that research into the tragedy was alive and well, and that there were many important aspects of the story that were still unfolding.
In the summer of 1846, 87 pioneers, many of them children accompanying their parents, set out from Independence, Missouri, for the California coast, eventually taking what might qualify as the most ill-advised shortcut in the history of human travel. Dreamed up by a promoter who had never taken the route himself, the Hastings Cutoff turned out to be 125 miles longer than the established route to the West Coast. It was also a far more treacherous trek, forcing the travelers to blaze a fresh trail through the Wasatch Range before sending them on an 80-mile hike across arid lowlands that transitioned into Utah’s Great Salt Desert. Tempers flared as wagons broke down and livestock were lost, or stolen, or died from exhaustion. People also died. Some from natural causes (like tuberculosis), while others were shot (by accident) and stabbed (not by accident). As the heat of summer transitioned into the dread of fall, the travelers found themselves in a desperate race to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains before winter conditions turned the high mountain passes into impenetrable barriers. Along the way, 60-year-old businessman George Donner had been elected leader of the group, though he had no trail experience.
On September 26, 1846, the wagon train finally rejoined the traditional westward route. Lansford Hastings’s shortcut had delayed the Donner Party an entire month—with potentially catastrophic consequences. Disheartened, the pioneers followed the well-worn Emigrants’ Trail along the Humboldt River, which by that time of year had been reduced to a series of stagnant pools. As they traveled along the Humboldt, raids by Paiute Indians further depleted their weary and emaciated livestock.
By October, any ideas of maintaining the wagon train as a cohesive unit had been abandoned. Instead, bickering, stress, exhaustion, and desperation split the group along class, ethnic, and family lines. Those travelers who could not keep up fell farther and farther behind. Afraid to overburden their oxen or slow down his own family’s progress, pioneer Louis Keseberg had informed one of the older men, a Mr. Hardcoop (none of the survivors could remember his first name), that he would have to walk. Hardcoop was having an increasingly difficult time with his forced march and eventually he was left behind on the trail. Another elderly bachelor was murdered by two of the teamsters (men tasked with driving the draft animals) accompanying the group.
By the end of October, it still appeared that most of the Donner Party had overcome terrible advice, challenging terrain, short rations, injuries, and death. With the group now split in two and separated by a distance of nearly ten miles, those accompanying the lead wagons stood before the final mountain pass, three miles from the summit and a mere 50 miles from civilization. They decided to rest until the following day. But on the night before they were to make their final push, and weeks before the first winter storms usually arrived, something awful occurred.