8 ANTHROFOIiOCHCAL C(>NHIDKKATl()iN.S {)]■ i;UKP;NSI,AN 1). 



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Those of us who possess children of our own naturally 

 find the study of child life most absorbing, but casual 

 glances at the youtlis growing up in our inidst force ua to 

 the conclusion that this subject does not receive general 

 consideration. Backward and ill-developed children 

 necessarily abound in all classes of society, and in view of 

 the large sum spent yearly on education they constitute 

 a section of no small importance to the student, and though 

 Ethnography generally may onl}^ indirectl}^ deal with 

 problems of infant life, it is nevertheless a matter which 

 sliould be regarded of paramount sociological importance. 



Without being impious and a trespasser on the haiaits 

 of medical men it might be suggested that perhaps due 

 consideration has not so far been given to the fact that 

 the country l)reeds the people. Perhaps the Aboriginals 

 have a truer conception of this fact than the average w^hite 

 man. They declare that children do not really belong to 

 their parents, but to the land on which they happen to 

 be born. There is an illustration of this fact now growing 

 into youth. The child was born of white parents living 

 in a somewhat lonely district. He was immediately 

 claimed 1)y an old couple who had escaped the contamin- 

 ating touch of the rough edge of our race and named l)y 

 them. They argued that the child was actually of the 

 soil, for did not the parents get most of their food from the 

 soil ? If they sustained their lives by the fruits of the 

 earth then the hfe of the <;hild came from the soil and the 

 child belonged to it. In this particular case it was 

 claimed that the germ of life came from fish caught on the 

 coral reef fringing the beach on which the home of the 

 parents stood, and the sea being of the land gave the cliild 

 its birthright. The boy is known now by one of the names 

 given him by the blacks.* 



I wonder do we sufficiently reaUse the effect of cli7ncUf 

 and local conditions upon the risimj generations '. Would 

 it be unreasonable to say that the sun and soil make the 

 man ? It is almost a universal aboriginal belief. In 

 this c(jnuection a reference to the customs of the West 

 Australian natives (Le Souef 125t) may serve to strengthen 



! *0u tho authority of K, J. Banfield. .i 



t Thf-t- nunibtis refer to the bibliof^raj/hy at tie t ii<,l. 



