160 HUNTING AND FISHING EACES 



this race. The reason usually given is the absence of proper food ; ^ 

 and it is not difficult to understand that the peculiar Eskimo diet 

 should be unsuitable for children. Child mortahty is heavy among 

 the Indians, * only a small proportion coming to maturity '.^ The 

 reason given in this case is generally the absence not only of 

 knowledge with regard to the simplest requirements of children, 

 but of any reasonable care of them.^ To this we may add — as the 

 evidence will show — the practice of extraordinary customs which 

 seem designed to eliminate all but those with the strongest consti- 

 tutions. ' With all the affection of the mother, the women are 

 almost completely ignorant of ordinary sanitary rules as to feeding, 

 exposure, &c., with the result that infant mortality is something 

 terrible in almost every tribe.' * Heriot speaks of ' incredible 

 fatigues, whose excess occasions the death of many long before the 

 age of maturity '.^ According to Domenech : ' many Indians die 

 in infancy ; their mothers, to inure them to suffering and to 

 strengthen their constitution, do not take all the necessary care of 

 them. . . . Till the age of ten or twelve years they are kept quite 

 naked, having only in winter a garment which we would hardly 

 call such in the warmest summer.' ^ Throughout America it is 

 a common custom to bathe even new-born children in cold water 

 at all seasons of the year, and to this Krause attributes the high 

 child mortality that he records among the Thlinkeet.'^ ' Many 

 children [of the Eastern Tinneh] die at an early age,' according to 

 one author,^ whilst from another we hear that ' the infant is not 

 allowed food until four days after birth, in order to accustom it to 

 fasting in the next world '.^ Nootka mothers ' roll their children 

 in the snow to make them hardy \^^ and the Thompson Indians 

 take small care of their children, allowing them to run about 

 without any protection.^^ Of the Californians the Jesuit missionary 

 Baegert, who dwelt long among them when they were almost 

 uninfluenced by European culture, says : ' that many infants die 

 among them is not surprising ; on the contrary, it would be a great 



1 Crantz, loc. cit., p. 162 ; Murdoch, loc. cit., p. 415. ^ Handbook of 



American Indians: Article, Child Life. ^ The absence of care and the 



resulting mortality is emphasized by Gerland {Vber das Aussterben der Natur- 

 volker, p. 24 to p. 39). * Handbook of American Indians: Article, Child Life. 



It may be noticed that, among the older authors, Robertson (loc. cit., voL i, p. 297) 

 has very similar remarks on the same subject. ' Heriot, loc. cit. p. 344. 



° Domenech, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 295. ' Krause, loc. cit., p. 217. Of these 



people Bancroft (loc. cit., vol. i, p. Ill) says that ' when the child is able to leave 

 its cradle, it is bathed in the ocean every day without regard to season '. 

 « Ross, loc. cit., p. 305. » Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 121. i» Ibid., 



p. 201. " Teit, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 178. 



