HUNTING AND FISHING EACES 147 



Australia infanticide is practised on a very large scale. Parker 

 states that it was very frequent and that deformed children were 

 always killed.^ Lumholtz's testimony is similar,^ while, according 

 to Dawson, no matter how many children are born, * rarely more 

 than four are allowed to grow up ' — the deformed children 

 apparently always being destroyed.^ According to an estimate 

 made by Curr of conditions in Victoria ' nearly one half [of the 

 children born to any one married woman] fell victims to infanti- 

 cide ' *, and more girls than boys perished.^ According to Wil- 

 helmi, if, as rarely happens, births follow one another quickly 

 among the aborigines of the Port Lincoln district, ' the youngest 

 is generally destroyed ' ; ^ Beveridge says that the practice 

 prevails in Victoria and Riverina ' to a very considerable extent '.' 

 This last statement is supported by that of Mathews to the effect 

 that ' infanticide is common ' in New South Wales and Victoria.^ 

 Among the inhabitants of the River Darling region ' it seems to 

 have been the custom to kill many of the children directly after 

 birth ',^ and in Southern x\ustralia infanticide was very prevalent.^^ 

 According to Howitt infanticide was practised ' to some extent ' 

 among the Mining Tribe,^^ in the Tongeranka tribe it was ' com- 

 mon ' ; 1^ in the Mukjara waint tribe ' the grandparents had to decide 

 whether a child was to be kept alive or not ' ; ^^ in all the tribes of 

 the Wotjo nation and also the Tatuthi and other tribes of the 

 Murray River frontage, when a child was weak and sickly they 

 used to kill its infant brother and sister and feed it with the flesh 

 to make it strong ; ^* in the Wadthaurung tribe the practice was 

 evidently not uncommon ; ^^ in the Narrinyeri tribe infanticide 

 appears to have been very prevalent, so that ' more than one half 

 of the children fell victims to this atrocious custom \^^ whilst 

 deformed children seem always to have been killed both in this 

 case ^' and among the aborigines of Encounter Bay.^^ Infanticide 

 was common among the tribes of Port Lincoln — girls being less 

 often spared than boys ^^ — among the Dieyerie tribe, where 



* K. L. Parker, loc. cit., p. 23. ^ Lumholtz, loc. cit., p. 134. ^ Dawson, 



loc. cit., p. 39. * Curr, Recollections, p. 252. = Ibid., p. 263. 



* Wilhelmi, loc. cit., p. 180. ' P. Beveridge, Aborigines of Victoria, p. 26. 



' R. H. Mathews, Ethnological Notes, p. 17. ^ Bonney, J. A. I., vol. xiii, 



p. 125. " Palmer, loc. cit., p. 280 ; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi ard 



Kurnai, p. 190 ; Eyimann, loc. cit., p. 261 ; and Smyth, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 52. 

 »i Howitt, Native Tribes, p. 748. ^■' Howitt, loc. cit., p. 749. " Ibid., 



p. 749. " Ibid., p. 750. '^ Ibid., p. 750. " Taplin, loo. cit., p. 13. 



" Ibid., p. 14. " Meyer, loc. cit., p. 186. i' Schiirmann, loc. cit., 



p. 223. 



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