48 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY 



20: 107; 30: 91.) A motherless infant, says Crantz, is &quot;buried 

 alive by the desperate father, when he can no longer endure the 

 sight of its misery,&quot; And he adds, &quot;The heartrending anguish 

 of this task must be left to the imagination to conceive.&quot; 

 (1. 61 : 218.) Paul Egede tells of a deeply grieved widower who 

 had thrown his new-born child from a high cliff, with closed 

 eyes, so as not to see its end. He explained that its mother 

 was dead, there was no one to nurse it. It had to die slowly, 

 but now it died quickly, he sighed. (20: 107. See also 6: 117; 

 5: 580; 48: 66; 45: 289; 53: 35.) 



But fortunately extremities which necessitate such actions are 

 comparatively rare. Murdoch writes, &quot;We never heard of a 

 single case of infanticide.&quot; (42:416.) According to AVald- 

 mann, not even feeble or premature children were exposed, by 

 the Labrador natives among whom he lived. (69: 431.) Patient 

 efforts are used to preserve the life of the child when possible. 

 Folk-lore tells of a woman who miscarried and the child &quot;was 

 swaddled in the skin of the eider-duck, and had to be fostered 

 with the utmost care to keep it alive.&quot; It became &quot;one of the 

 most powerful of men.&quot; (53:453.) Amundsen relates a case, 

 where parents had drawn their son, lame from childhood, along 

 on a seal-skin, for many years. The explorer s gift of a sledge 

 was a welcome aid. (1. 2:79.) 



Examples could be multiplied showing the devotion of parents 

 to their children in the face of death. Dalager says, &quot;What 

 chiefly cuts their hearts is to see their children starving. They 

 give food to their children even if they themselves are ready to 

 die of hunger.&quot; (Quoted 43:103.) Parental love and grief 

 of an Eskimo affected Paul Egede more perhaps than the strict 

 logic of his theology would permit, when a man came to him 

 and asked if his dead son was in heaven. Egede notes in his 

 journal (remember father and son were both heathen) : &quot;I 

 could not but answer him that the good God, who is the Father 

 of all, prepares a fitting place for His children.&quot; This com 

 forted the stricken man, but he remarked, &quot;Still it is hard to 

 lose mine, and not see them again in this world.&quot; (20:96.) 

 The value attached to the preservation of a child is illustrated 

 by two folk-tales. 



In one, a man having slain a murderer, was asked by the latter s wife, 

 &quot;Are you going to kill me too?&quot; To which the avenger replied, &quot;No! 

 Pualuna [the youngest son] is not big enough to do without you.&quot; (50: 



