CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

Chapter I SIR ROBERT McCARRISON

Chapter II SIR ALBERT HOWARD

Chapter III THE ORGANIC DOCTRINE

Chapter IV CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS

Chapter V MANURE

Chapter VI PRIVIES AND GOITRE

Chapter VII THE HUSBANDRY OF THE HUNZAS

Chapter VIII HUNZA LAND PRACTICES

Chapter IX ROCK POWDERS

Chapter X THE BLINKS

Chapter XI WHO ARE THE HUNZAS?

Chapter XII OUR KINESTHETIC SENSE

Chapter XIII THE NAGYRI

Chapter XIV THE FOOD OF THE HUNZAS

Chapter XV THE HEALTH OF THE HUNZAS

Chapter XVI THE INTELLIGENT HUNZUKUTS

Chapter XVII EVIDENCE ON HUNZARIZATION POSSIBILITIES

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY




Introduction

THIS BOOK must immediately express, as it reveals on many a page, the immeasurable debt of gratitude which I owe to Lieutenant-Colonel D. L. R. Lorimer for having read its manuscript and for having furnished me with more than forty closely typewritten pages of comment thereon, a critical exposition that could easily have been made a slender volume in itself. Inasmuch as I adopted a large majority of his technical suggestions, I can safely present The Healthy Hunzas with the conviction that it is an authoritative piece of work, even though I have never set foot in Hunza.

My first book, Pay Dirt (Devin-Adair Co., N. Y.), explains how the use of strong chemical fertilizers is endangering our soil and health. Though it is not overly technical, it seems to have a specialized appeal; enjoying as it does a fair distribution and acceptance among people who are farmers and gardeners. The Healthy Hunzas, on the other hand, was written with an eye to interesting the general public in the important questions which I hope it will provoke. Here and there I have interpolated a bit of agricultural theory, but I have tried to keep such parts as simple as possible, assuming that my average reader will excusably know practically nothing about the principles of farming.

The Healthy Hunzas is based on the work of many authors who wrote about the Hunzukuts. Most of these writers actually visited the Hunza country and thus can speak from the authority of personal experience and observation. Others accumulated data from books as well as from conversations with persons who had been there. For example, Sir Albert Howard and Dr. Wrench interviewed and visited with the Lorimers and Sir Robert McCarrison on different occasions. When the desire to secure information about Hunza took on the challenging nature of an idée fixe with me, I sent out calls to book-dealers all over the world. Though a volume they might have had in their possession contained only a single paragraph relevant to my purpose, I nevertheless purchased it. 1 believe, therefore, that I have seen practically everything that was ever published in English about this fabulous people. The bibliography at the end of this book contains only a partial list of the most detailed and informational of this Hunza collection now in my library.

I was fortunate also in making contact with the present Mir of Hunza, M. M. Jamal Khan, having exchanged several letters with him. He writes a fine English and confirmed many of the important facts given in this book. With solicitude and interest in my project, he has supplied me with many photographs, including several of himself wearing modern English clothes. The proud possessor of a 16 millimeter camera, he has even promised to send some films. I am also indebted to Capt. C. J. Morris for photographs used in the text.

Some might ask, "Why do you venture to write a book about a race of people whom you have never seen?" To them, one and all, I can only suggest that long before they have reached the mid-point of its message they will have admitted that the issues it discusses are of the most imminently serious pertinence to us and our time. The Healthy Hunzas is avowedly more or less of a compilation of expert scientific opinion on the subject of why it is that a people who seem to be less "civilized" than we, can yet eclipse us so dramatically in the pursuit of health and happiness. On the basis of the latter of those necessarily intertwining themes, this book might well indeed have been called The Happy Hunzas.

Let me again thank the many authors, each and every one of whom I acknowledge in his proper place, for having interested me to the point of feeling it a necessity that I bring the vital message of Hunza to America.

J. I. RODALE.