INFANTICIDE. 



125 



which they had committed so barbarous an act. 

 It is seldom they will confess having destroyed 

 their offspring : one, however, who had a child 

 by an European, acknowledged it readily ; and 

 the reason given for the commission was its 

 being like a warragul, or native dog. This was 

 because the infant, like its papa, had a " carroty 

 poll," and thus resembled, in colour, the hair of 

 the native dog, which is certainly not so handsome 

 as the dark black locks of the aboriginal tribes. 



Although addicted to infanticide, they dis- 

 play, in other instances, an extraordinary degree 

 of affection for their dead offspring, evidenced 

 by an act that almost exceeds credibility, had it 

 not so often been witnessed among the tribes in 

 the interior of the colony. I allude to the fact 

 of deceased children, from the earliest age to 

 even six or seven years, being placed in a 

 bag, made of kangaroo skin, and slung upon 

 the back of the mother, who, besides this ad- 

 ditional burden, carries her usual netbul, or 

 culj/,* for provisions, &c. They carry them thus 

 for ten or twelve months, sleeping upon the mass 

 of mortal remains, which serves them for a pil- 

 low, apparently unmindful of the horrid foetor 



* " Netbul," (the net-bag of the aborigines,) is a cor- 

 rupted native word ; " culy" is one of the native appel- 

 lations. 



