stead populations, and the realities of kamikaze kids

From: steve <styopa_at_iname.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 10:15:10 -0500

>>1) half the children <4 will die over the winter.
>>2) 50% of the elders will die over the winter
>>3) the 10 other women and most of the female thralls and widows are
>>pregnant, say a total of 18 bearing women, of which roughly 1/4 will have=
 a
>>live baby at the end of winter.
>
> Are you sure about those numbers? I think if you run that rate over a
>10-20 year period, your clan dies out, certainly not grow which is what
>seems to happen in average times. I seem to recall something about a tribal
>growth rate in the 1 to 6%
>range a long time ago. This is not Glorantha info and I really can't recall
>if it=20
>was game-based or historical data.=20

Pretty sure. Not sure where I read it, but it matches geneological info I've found. It wasn't long ago (my parents' generation) that rural American families commonly had 8+ children, with the expectation that at least 2-3 kids wouldn't make it to adulthood. Of course, this is over the span of a childhood - 15 years.

Come to think of it, it was in Barbara Hanawalt's class on Medieval Society in my days as an undergrad at the good ole' U of MN where she produced figures mortality figures from the Middle Ages -- her book is The Ties That Bound (paper), ISBN 0195045645. Also, here's some stuff off the web: e17C to l18C:
`Useful children', a concept used in population genetics, are those who in turn bear children. In all three places, the useful children represent only from 26 to 31% of births." The results indicate that the contributions of couples to the next generation vary considerably: nearly half of the couples studied left no "useful children" behind them, whereas a small minority of couples made an ample contribution. Correspondence: A. Bideau, Universit=E9 Lumi=E8re Lyon 2, Centre Pierre L=E9= on,
URA CNRS 223, Maison Rh=F4ne-Alpes des Sciences de l'Homme, Lyon, France. Location: Princeton University Library (SPR).=20

I recall from her class something like the 50% figure for kids under 4, due mostly to accidents - primarily drowning. Note this is pre-plague.

>You also forget=20
>Glorantha has a a vital herbalism culture and it could depend on what is=20
>known about first aid and primitive medicine at the village level. Lots of
>other stuff can factor in.

yes, but I would contrast this with the considerably higher density of lethal threats in Glorantha. Sure (we're again talking vs. Medieval Europe here) there were a number of reasons that people died young in the RW, but *most* were passive (in the sense that a death was by circumstance rather than by design) accidents, drowning, daily injury, infection, etc. or long term such as diet, famine, etc, etc.
In Glorantha, there are a significant number of actively lethal agents, from spirits, wandering monsters, (and bats, to segue with another thread!) in addition to a probably higher incidence of war and villainry.

> Hard to say, if the kids stay in the stead proper till they are "old
>enough"=20
>to take care of themselves, how much threat is there besides the illness
ones.

Hahahaha! No offense, but you don't have kids, do you? That's hilarious. 1) IF the kids stay in the stead--great big IF; in fact, such a thing is impossible (both for the kids and for the sanity of the parents). And 2) How much threat?: Watch a <2 year old for 2 hours, and COUNT the number of ways they seem to actively TRY to kill themselves.

---