The Marriage Relation. — Sterilit)/. — Infanticide. 1 1 5 



of the family tie, is confined to those few chiefs who are still 

 heathens. 



Usually the young men and girls marry very young. 

 English travellers state they have seen a mother only 1 1 years 

 of age ! Usually the first wife of a young chief is much older 

 than himself, but, on the other hand, instances were frequent 

 of old men marrying young girls. The daughters of men 

 of very high rank frequently remained unmarried. 



The mortality among infants under a year old is very 

 great. At present not more than three children are reckoned 

 to each family, and the number of barren marriages is much 

 greater than those that prove fruitful. 



Infanticide is at present as rare as in Europe. In former 

 times, especially during the wars of the interior, it was by 

 no means unusual for a mother to put her children to death, 

 especially if females, in order to spare herself the trouble of 

 nursing and bringing up. Male offspring, on the contrary, 

 were taken more care of, because they would increase the 

 aggressive power of the tribe, and were looked upon as the 

 avengers of injuries sustained and not yet comj)ensated. 

 Illegitimate children they almost always put to death, 

 either by strangling them or compressing the mouth and 

 nostrils. The practice of infanticide among the weaker sex 

 took its rise chiefly in the life of slavery which, was the 

 normal state of the women during their heathen condition. 

 Such was the reasoning once avowed by a murderess of her 



1 2 



