HUMAN FECUNDITY 99 



attempted to discount the effects of infanticide and other factors 

 of ehmination. 



Of the Austrahans Curr remarks : * I am of opinion that the 

 Austrahan females bear on an average six children, or did before 

 the advent of the whites and whilst living in their natural state.' ^ 

 Spencer and Gillen state that sterihty is common among the 

 Australians ^ and that the number of children rarely exceeds four 

 or five and is generally two or three.^ Of the Eskimos we read : 

 ' the women are not prolific. Although all the adults are or have 

 been married, many of them are childless, and few have more 

 than two children. One woman was known to have had at least 

 four. Dr. Simpson heard of a "rare case" where one woman had 

 borne seven children.' ^ ' On the average the pure breed Green- 

 landers are not prolific. Two, three, or four children to each 

 marriage is the general rule, though there are instances of families 

 of six or eight or even more.' ^ Of the American Indians there is 

 a large amount of evidence. Dr. Holder, who combined medical 

 knowledge with exceptional opportunities for observation, says : 

 ' With Indians large families are the exception. The Crow tribe, 

 of less than 2,500 people, is divided into 630 famihes, which gives 

 less than four to each family, and this includes parents and often 

 grand-parents and relatives by affinity or adoption, leaving the 

 average offspring, to each child-bearing woman decidedly lower 

 than in white communities.' ^ Speaking of the Indians of Van- 

 couver Island, Sproat says : ' As a rule they have few children.' ' 

 Bancroft reports of the Nootka tribe : ' Women rarely have more 

 than two or three children.' ^ Of the Chinooks : ' Barrenness is 

 common, the birth of twins rare, and families do not usually 

 exceed two children.' ^ Cathn says : ' It is a very rare occurrence 

 for an Indian woman to be " blessed " with more than four or five 

 children during her life ; generally they are contented with two 

 or three.' ^^ 



It is merely suggested here that evidence of this kind, which 

 will be much amplified in the following chapters, may have to be 

 interpreted as pointing to a lower degree of fecundity among these 



1 Curr, The Australian Bace, p. 70. ^ Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes 



of Central Australia, p. 52. ' Ibid., p. 264. * Murdoch, Ethnological 



Residues of the Port Barrow Expedition, 9th A. R. B. E., p. 38. * Nansen, 



Eskimo Life, p. 150. * Holder, Am. Jour. Obstet., vol. xxv, 1891, p. 44. 



' Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, p. 94. ' Bancroft, Native 



Races of the Pacific States, vol. i, p. 197. » Ibid., p. 242. '» Catlin, 



North Arrierican Indians, vol. ii, p. 228. 



G2 



