Chapter 36

69Genesis, xxxviii. 24.

70Mittermaier, â€˜BeytrÃ¤ge zur Lehre vom Verbrechen des Kindesmordes,â€™ inNeues Archiv des Criminalrechts, vii. 4. Walter,Geschichte des RÃ¶mischen Rechts, Â§ 537, vol. ii. 147. von Jhering,Geist des rÃ¶mischen Rechts, ii. 220. Mommsen,RÃ¶misches Strafrecht, p. 619.

71Digesta, xlviii. 9. 5. Orosius,HistoriÃ¦, v. 16. Mommsen,RÃ¶misches Strafrecht, p. 618.

72Milman,History of Latin Christianity, ii. 25.

73Lang, in Steinmetz,RechtsverhÃ¤ltnisse von eingeborenen VÃ¶lkern in Afrika und Ozeanien, p. 224 (Washambala). Desoignies,ibid.p. 271 (Msalala). Marx,ibid.p. 349 (Amahlubi). Kohler, â€˜Recht der Hottentotten,â€™ inZeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss.xv. 347. Post,Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, i. 52sq.

But whilst a father only in rare cases, and then merely as a measure of justice, is allowed to put to death his grown-up child, he very frequently has the right of destroying a new-born infant. Nay, in many instances infanticide is not only permitted, but enjoined by custom.

Among a great number of uncivilised peoples it is usual to kill an infant if it is a bastard,74or if its mother dies,75or if it is deformed or diseased,76or if there is anything unusual or uncanny about it, or if it for some reason or other is regarded as an unlucky child. In some parts ofAfrica, for instance, a child who is born with teeth,77or who cuts the upper front teeth before the under,78or whose teeth present some other kind of irregularity,79is put to death. Among the natives of the Bondei country a child who is born head first is considered an unlucky child, and is strangled in consequence.80The Kamchadales used to destroy children who were born in very stormy weather;81and in Madagascar infants born in March or April, or in the last week of a month, or on a Wednesday or a Friday, were exposed or drowned or buried alive.82Among various savages it is the custom that, if a woman gives birth to twins, one or both of them are destroyed.83They are regarded sometimes as an indication of unfaithfulness on the part of the motherâ€”in accordance with the notion that one man cannot be the father of two children at the same time84â€”sometimes as an evil portent or as the result of the wrath of a fetish.85Miss Kingsley observes, "There is always the sense of there being something uncanny regarding twins in West Africa, and in those tribes where they are not killed they are regardedas requiring great care to prevent them from dying on their own account.â€86The Kafirs believe that unless the father places a lump of earth in the mouth of one of the babies he will lose his strength.87

74Turner,Samoa, p. 304 (Savage Islanders). Elton, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xvii. 93 (some Solomon Islanders). Munzinger,Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 145 (Beduan). Dyveyrier,Exploration du Sahara, p. 428 (Touareg). Burton,Sindh, p. 244 (Belochis). Haberland, â€˜Der Kindermord als Volkssitte,â€™ inGlobus, xxxvii. 58. The natives of Australia often kill half-caste children (Roth,Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, p. 184. Curr,Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, p. 252. Haberland,loc. cit.p. 58).

75Collins,English Colony in New South Wales, i. 607sq.(aborigines of Port Jackson). Dale, â€˜Natives inhabiting the Bondei Country,â€™ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxv. 182. Comte de Cardi, â€˜Ju-Ju Laws and Customs in the Niger Delta,â€™ibid.xxix. 58. Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 330; Holm, â€˜Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,â€™ inMeddelelser om GrÃ¶nland, x. 91 (Greenlanders). Haberland,loc. cit.p. 28sq.Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 252, 254, 258sq.Chamberlain,Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought, p. 110sq.

76Dawson,op. cit.p. 39 (tribes of Western Victoria). Kicherer, quoted by Moffat,Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, p. 15 (Bushmans). Shooter,Kafirs of Natal, p. 89. Chapman,Travels in the Interior of South Africa, ii. 285 (Banamjua). Reade,Savage Africa, p. 244 (Equatorial Africans). New,Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 118; Krapf,Travels, p. 193sq.(Wanika). Georgi,Russia, iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Sarytschew,loc. cit.vi. 50; von Wrangell,op. cit.p. 122 (Chukchi). Simpson, quoted by Murdoch, â€˜Point Barrow Expedition,â€™ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.ix. 417 (Eskimo). Powers,Tribes of California, p. 382 (Yokuts). Guinnard,Three Yearsâ€™ Slavery among the Patagonians, p. 144. Haberland,loc. cit.p. 58sq.Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 252, 254, 255, 258.

77Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 257, 259.

78Livingstone,Missionary Travels, p. 577. Kingsley,Travels in West Africa, p. 472. Allen and Thomson,Expedition to the River Niger, i. 243sq.Mockler-Ferryman,British Nigeria, p. 286 (Ibos).

79Baumann,Usambara, pp. 131 (Wabondei), 237 (Wapare).

80Dale, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxv. 183.

81Krasheninnikoff,History of Kamschatka, p. 217.

82Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 257.Cf.Little,Madagascar, p. 60.

83Dawson,op. cit.p. 39 (tribes of Western Victoria). Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 52.Idem,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 609. Romilly,Western Pacific, p. 70 (Solomon Islanders). Kolben,op. cit.i. 144 (Hottentots). Shooter,op. cit.p. 88 (Kafirs of Natal). Livingstone,Missionary Travels, p. 577. Decle,Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 160 (Matabele). Chapman,op. cit.ii. 285 (Banamjua). Baumann,Usambara, p. 131 (Wabondei). New,op. cit.pp. 118 (Wanika, formerly), 458 (Wadshagga). Burton,Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 84. Kingsley,Travels in West Africa, p. 472sqq.Schoen and Crowther,Journals, p. 49 (Ibos on the Niger). Comte de Cardi, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxix. 57sq.(Negroes of the Niger Delta). Nyendael, quoted by Ling Roth,Great Benin, p. 35 (people of Arebo). Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 267sq.(African peoples), 274 (some South American Indians). Schneider,Die NaturvÃ¶lker, i. 305sq.(some South American Indians). Krasheninnikoff,op. cit.p. 217 (Kamchadales).

84Waitz,Anthropologie der NaturvÃ¶lker, iii. 394, 480 (South American Indians). Dapper says (Africa, p. 473) that no twins are ever found in the country of Benin, because the people considered it a great dishonour to give birth to twins.

85Allen and Thomson,op. cit.i. 243. Baumann,Usambara, p. 131 (Wabondei).

86Kingsley,Travels in West Africa, p. 473, According to Nyendael, twin-births are, on the contrary, esteemed good omens in most parts of the Benin territory (Ling Roth,Great Benin, p. 35).

87Kidd,The Essential Kafir, p. 202.

In the instances just referred to, the infant is killed either because, after the death of its mother, there is nobody to nurse it, or on account of the fault of its parents, especially the mother, or because it is held desirable that the sickly or defective should die at once, or out of superstitious fear. However, among many of the lower races, infanticide is not restricted to similar more or less exceptional cases, but is practised on a much larger scale. Custom often decides how many children are to be reared in each family, and not infrequently the majority of infants are destroyed.

Infanticide is common among various tribes in North and South America.88Dobrizhoffer says that it was a rare exception among the Abipones to find a woman who had brought up two or three sons, whilst some mothers killed all the children they bore, â€œno one either preventing or avenging these murders.â€89According to Azara, the Guanas buried alive the majority of their female infants, and the Mbayas suffered only one boy or one girl in a family to live;90but the correctness of his statements has been questioned.91On the other hand there can be no doubt as to the extreme prevalence of infanticide in the islands of the South Seas. In some of the principal groups of Polynesia it was practised publicly and systematically, without compunction, to an extent almost incredible. During the whole period of his residence in the Society Islands, Ellis doesnot recollect having met with a single pagan woman who had not imbrued her hands in the blood of her offspring, and he thinks that there, as also in the Sandwich Islands, two-thirds of the children were destroyed by their parents.92â€œNo sense of irresolution or horror,â€ he says, â€œappeared to exist in the bosoms of those parents who deliberately resolved on the deed before the child was born. They often visited the dwellings of the foreigners, and spoke with perfect complacency of their cruel purposeâ€; and when the missionaries tried to dissuade them from executing their intention, the only answer generally received was that it was the custom of the country.93The Line Islanders allowed only four children of a family to get the chance of life; the mother had a right to rear one child, whereas it rested with the husband to decide whether any more should live.94In Radack every mother was permitted to bring up three children, but the fourth and every succeeding one she was obliged to bury alive herself, unless she was the wife of a chief.95In Vaitupu, of the Ellice Archipelago, also, â€œinfanticide was ordered by law,â€ and only two children were allowed to a family.96In New Zealand and the Marquesas infanticide, though not so general, was yet of frequent occurrence and not regarded as a crime.97In most of the Melanesian groups it was very common.98In the Solomon Islands there still seem to be several places where it is the custom to kill nearly all children soon after they are born, and to buy other children from foreign tribes, good care being taken not to buy them too young.99The practice of infanticide occurred at least occasionally in Tasmania,100and, as it seems, almost universally in Australia. Mr. Curr supposes that the Australian woman, as a rule, reared only two boys and one girl, the rest of her children being destroyed.101â€œIn the laws known to her,â€ says Mr. Brough Smyth, â€œinfanticide is a necessary practice, and one which, if disregarded, would, under certain circumstances, be disapprovedof; and the disapproval would be marked by punishment.â€102Mr. Taplin was assured that, among the Narrinyeri, more than one-half of the children born fell victims to this custom;103and in the Dieyerie tribe hardly an old woman, if questioned, but will admit of having destroyed from two to four of her offspring.104

88Bessels, quoted by Murdoch, â€˜Point Barrow Expedition,â€™ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.ix. 417 (Eskimo of Smith Sound). Nelson, â€˜Eskimo about Bering Strait,â€™ibid.xviii. 289. Gibbs, â€˜Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon,â€™ inContributions to North American Ethnology, i. 198. Powers,op. cit.pp. 177, 184 (Californian tribes). Yarrow, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.i. 99 (Pimas of Arizona), Hawtrey, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxxi. 295 (Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco).

89Dobrizhoffer,op. cit.ii. 98. For another account of the infanticides of the Abipones, seeinfra,p. 400.

90Azara,Voyages dans lâ€™AmÃ©rique mÃ©ridionale, ii. 93, 115.

91Wied-Neuwied,Reise nach Brasilien, ii. 39.

92Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 252.Idem,Tour through Hawaii, p. 325.

93Idem,Polynesian Researches, i. 250.

94Tutuila, â€˜Line Islanders,â€™ inJour. Polynesian Society, i. 267.

95von Kotzebue,Voyage of Discovery, iii. 173.

96Turner,Samoa, p. 284.

97Hale,U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, p. 15.

98Codrington,Melanesians, p. 229. Turner,Samoa, p. 333 (Efatese). Gill,Life in the Southern Isles, p. 213 (islands of Torres Straits). Atkinson, inFolk-Lore, xiv. 248 (New Caledonians).

99Romilly,Western Pacific, p. 68sq.Cf.Guppy,Solomon Islands, p. 42.

100Ling Roth,Aborigines of Tasmania, p. 167sq.Bonwick,Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians, p. 85. Brough Smyth,Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 386.

101Curr,The Australian Race, i. 70.

102Brough Smyth,op. cit.i. p. xxi.Cf.OberlÃ¤nder, â€˜Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Victoria,â€™ inGlobus, iv. 279.

103Taplin, â€˜Narrinyeri,â€™ in Woods,Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 13.

104Gason, â€˜Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe,â€™ibid.p. 259.

Among the Todas of India, up to the period of Mr. Sullivanâ€™s visit to their hills, about the year 1820, only one female child was allowed to live in each family.105With reference to the Kandhs, or Khonds, Macpherson observes, â€œThe practice of female infanticide is, I believe, not wholly unknown amongst any portion of the Khond people, while it exists in some of the tribes of the sect of Boora to such an extent, that no female infant is spared, except when a womanâ€™s first child is a female, and that villages containing a hundred houses may be seen without a female child.â€106

105Metz,Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 16.

106Macpherson,Memorials of Service in India, p. 132.

It is said that among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, in ancient times, all children, except the first-born, were killed.107The people of Madagascar frequently practised infanticide; but Ellis says that they were much less addicted to it than the South Sea Islanders, a numerous offspring being generally a source of much satisfaction.108According to Kolben, infanticide was common among the Hottentots;109whereas Sparrman only states that â€œthe Hottentots are accustomed to inter, in case of the motherâ€™s death, children at the breast alive,â€110and Le Vaillant altogether denies the existence of customary infanticide among them.111Among the Swahili, according to Baumann, infanticides are very common and hardly disapproved of.112But the peoples of the African continent are not generally addicted to infanticide, except in such special cases as have already come under our notice.

107Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 259sq.

108Little,Madagascar, p. 60. Ellis,History of Madagascar, i. 155, 160.

109Kolben,op. cit.i. 333.

110Sparrman,Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, i. 358sq.

111Le Vaillant,op. cit.ii. 58sqq.

112Baumann,Usambara, p. 42.

The custom of infanticide, in its extensive form, has been attributed to various motives. Among some peoples mothers are said to kill their new-born infants on accountof the trouble of rearing them,113or the consequent loss of beauty.114Another cause is the long suckling time, generally lasting, among savages, for two, three, four years, or even more, owing to want of soft food and animal milk.115When, as is very commonly the case, the husband must not cohabit with his wife during the whole of this period,116he is naturally inclined to form other connections, and this seems in some instances to induce the mother to destroy her child.117In another respect, also, the long suckling-time is an inducement to infanticide; among certain Australian tribes an infant is killed immediately on birth â€œwhen the mother is, or thinks she is, unable to rear it owing to there being a young child whom she is still feeding.â€118Among the Pimas of Arizona, again, infanticide is said to be connected with the custom of destroying all the property of the husband when he dies. â€œThe women of the tribe, well aware that they will be poor should their husbands die, and that then they will have to provide for their children by their own exertions, do not care to have many children, and infanticide, both before and after birth, prevails to a great extent. This is not considered a crime.â€119But there can be little doubt that the wholesale infanticide of many of the lower races is in the main due to the hardships of savage life. The helpless infant may be a great burden to the parents both in times of peace and in times of war. It may prevent the mother from following her husband about on his wanderings in search of food, or otherwise encumber her in her work.120Mr. Curr states of the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, with whom he was intimate for ten years, that their habit of killing nearly halfof the children born resulted â€œprincipally from the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of transporting several children of tender age from place to place on their frequent marches.â€121Concerning the Abipones, Charlevoix observes:â€”â€œThey seldom rear but one child of each sex, murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are strong enough to walk alone. They think to justify this cruelty by saying that, as they are almost constantly travelling from one place to another, it is impossible for them to take care of more infants than two at a time; one to be carried by the father, and the other by the mother.â€122Among the Lenguas of the Paraguayan Chaco an interval of seven or eight years is always observable between children of the same family, infants born in this interval being immediately killed. The reasons for this practice, says Mr. Hawtrey, are obvious. â€œThe woman has the hard work of carrying food from garden and field, and all the transport to do; the Lenguas are a nomadic race, and their frequent moves often entail journeys of from ten to twenty miles a dayâ€¦. Travelling with natives under these circumstances, one is forced to the conclusion that it would be impossible for a mother to have more than one young child to carry and to care for.â€123Moreover, a little forethought tells the parents that their child before long will become a consumer of provisions perhaps already too scanty for the family. Savages often suffer greatly from want of food, and may have to choose between destroying their offspring or famishing themselves. Hence they often have recourse to infanticide as a means of saving their lives; indeed, among several tribes, in case of famine, children are not only killed, but eaten.124Urgent want is frequently represented by our authorities as the main cause of infanticide;125andtheir statements are corroborated by the conspicuous prevalence of this custom among poor tribes and in islands whose inhabitants are confined to a narrow territory with limited resources.

113Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 256 (Tahitians).Idem,Tour through Hawaii, p. 327. Polack,Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, ii. 92. Gason,loc. cit.p. 258 (Dieyerie tribe).

114Williams,Missionary Enterprises, p. 565 (Tahitians).

115See Westermarck,History of Human Marriage, p. 484.

116Ibid.p. 483.

117Schneider,Die NaturvÃ¶lker, i. 297, 307.

118Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 51, 264.Idem,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 608. OberlÃ¤nder,loc. cit.p. 279.

119Yarrow,loc. cit.p. 99.

121Curr,Squatting in Victoria, p. 252. OberlÃ¤nder,loc. cit.p. 279.Cf.Fison and Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 259; Fraser,Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 5.

122Charlevoix,History of Paraguay, i. 405.

123Hawtrey, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxxi. 295.

124See Steinmetz,Endokannibalismus, pp. 8, 13, 14, 17.

125Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 330. Nelson, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xviii. 289 (Eskimo about Behring Strait). Brough Smyth,op. cit.i. 53; ii. 386 (aboriginal tribes of Australia and Tasmania), von Kotzebue,op. cit.iii. 173 (natives of Radack). Tutuila, in.Jour. Polynesian Soc.i. 263 (Line Islanders). Campbell,Wild Tribes of Khondistan, p. 140 (Kandbs of Sooradah). Marshall,A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, p. 194. Kolben,op. cit.i. 144 (Hottentots). See also Haberland,loc. cit.p. 26; Dimitroff,Die GeringschÃ¤tzung des menschlichen Lebens und ihre Ursachen bei den NaturvÃ¶lkern, p. 162sqq.; Sutherland,Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, i. 115sqq.

In the chapter dealing with human sacrifice we shall notice that infanticide is in some cases practised as a sacrificial rite. In other cases infants are killed for medicinal purposes, without being sacrificed to any divine being.126Thus in the Luritcha tribe, in Central Australia, â€œit is not an infrequent custom, when a child is in weak health, to kill a younger and healthy one and then to feed the weakling on its flesh, the idea being that this will give to the weak child the strength of the stronger one.â€127A curious motive for female infanticide is also worth mentioning. That the victims of this practice are most commonly, among several peoples almost exclusively, females,128is generally due to the greater usefulness of the men both as food-providers and in war. But the Hakka, a Mongolian tribe in China, often put their girls to a cruel death with a view to inducing thereby the soul to appear the next time in the shape of a boy.129

126Seeinfra,p. 458sq.

127Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 475.Cf.ibid.p. 52.

128Cf.Haberland,loc. cit.p. 56sqq.

129Hubrig, quoted by Ploss,Das Kind, ii. 263.

Thus various considerations have led men to destroy their own offspring. Under certain circumstances the advantages, real or imaginary, assumed to result from the deed have been sufficiently great to silence the voice of parental love, which, as will be seen, is to be found even in the bosom of a savage father. The resistance offered by this instinct would be so much the less as the child is killed immediately after its birth, at a period of its lifewhen the fatherâ€™s affection for it is as yet only dawning Even where, at first, infanticide was an exception, practised by a few members of the tribe, any interference from the side of the community may have been prevented by the notion that a person possesses proprietary rights over his offspring; and, once become habitual, infanticide easily grew into a regular custom. In cases where it was found useful to the tribe, it would be enforced as a public duty; and even where there no longer was any need for it, owing to changed conditions of life, the force of habit might still keep the old custom alive.

Though infanticide is thus regarded as allowable, or even obligatory, among many of the lower races, we must not suppose that they universally look upon it in this light. Mr. McLennan grossly exaggerated its prevalence when he asserted that female infanticide is â€œcommon among savages everywhere.â€130Among a great number of them it is said to be unheard of or almost so,131and to these belong peoples of so low a type as the Andaman Islanders,132the Botocudos,133and certain Californian tribes.134The Veddahs of Ceylon have never been known to practise it.135Among the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges informs me, it occurred only occasionally, and then it was almost always the deed of the mother, who acted from â€œjealousy, or hatred of her husband, or because of desertion and wretchedness.â€136Mr. Fison, who has lived for a long time among uncivilised races, thinks it will be found that infanticide is far less common among the lower savages than it is among the more advanced tribes.137Consideringfurther that the custom of infanticide, being opposed to the instinct of parental love, presupposes a certain amount of reasoning or forethought, it seems probable that, where it occurs, it is not a survival of earliest savagery, but has grown up under specific conditions in later stages of development.138It is, for instance, very generally asserted that certain Indians in California never committed infanticide before the arrival of the whites;139and Ellis thinks there is every reason to suppose that this custom was practised less extensively by the Polynesians during the early periods of their history than it was afterwards.140

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