ABSTRACT
The causes of mortality among forest-living precontact Ache can be compared with data from the best-known hunter-gatherer and native South American populations to assess the similarity or differences in mortality patterns across traditional populations. Causes of mortality differ greatly among different age and sex categories in most human populations, so analyses specific to these age-sex groupings are informative. In the Ache population, causes of death have changed considerably between the forest, contact, and reservation periods. The causes of death are divided into four major categories: illness/parasitic disease, degenerative/congenital/miscellaneous health problems, accident, and con-specific violence. Tabulation of cause of death suggests that conspecific violence was the most common cause of death in the forest-living Ache population during the twentieth century. Infanticide was the most common cause of death of unweaned infants, whereas external warfare against Paraguayan colonists was the major cause of death for all older age categories.
