148 HUNTING AND FISHING EACES 



deformed children were never spared,^ among two Queensland 

 tribes,^ in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin,^ in Central Australia,* 

 and among the Northern tribes of Central Australia.^ In Western 

 Australia deformed children were always killed.^ 



Our information with regard to the Bushmen suggests that 

 infanticide was prevalent, though not confined to new-born 

 children. ' The Bushmen will kill their children without remorse 

 on various occasions ; as when they are ill-shaped, when they 

 are in want of food, when the father of a child has forsaken its 

 mother, or when obliged to flee from the fathers of others.' ' 

 Infanticide is more common than abortion among the Eskimos.® 

 Nelson says that in the neighbourhood of Behring Straits even 

 girls of four to six years of age are at times killed.^ Among the 

 Central Eskimos ' it is practised to some extent ', though apparently 

 only girls and the children of widows and widowers are destroyed.^" 

 Murdoch never heard of infanticide in the Port Barrow region, ^^ 

 but says that it is reported to be ' frequently practised among the 

 Eskimo of Smith Sound without regard of sex ' and that female 

 infanticide occurs among the people of King William Land.^^ It 

 is also recorded of the inhabitants of Smith Sound by Bessels that, 

 after two children have been born, any others that may come are 

 more often than not killed. ^^ In Greenland ' the heathen Eskimo 

 killed deformed children, and those that seem too sickly to live, 

 as w'ell as those that lose their mothers at birth, when no one else 

 can be found to take charge of them '.^* Kilhng of deformed 

 children is also reported by Smith,i^ and that of children who have 

 lost their parents b}'- Eink.^^ Among the Aleuts infanticide is said 

 to be rare,^^ but among the Malemutes infanticide, especially of 

 girls, was not infrequent. ^^ 



Infanti^idg js frequentlv jjractised among the Kutchins ^^ and 

 the killing~of detofmedchildren by the inhabitants of the Copper 



1 Gason, Planners and Customs, p. 258. ^ Mathew, Tivo Representative 



Tribes, p. 165. ^ Foelsche, J. A. I., vol. xxiv, p. 192. * Eyre, loc. cit., 



vol. ii, p. 376. See also Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, p. 264. ^ Ibid., 



Northern Tribes, p. 608. " Grey, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 251. ' Moffat, 



Missionary Labours, p. 58. See also Stow, Native Races, p. 51. ' Reclus, 



Primitive Folk, p. 34. » Nelson, loc. cit., p. 289. "> Boas, 6th A. R. B. E., 



p. 580. " Murdoch, loc. cit., p. 416. »2 ibjd.. p. 417. 13 Bessels, 



loc. cit., p. 112. " Nansen, Greenland, p. 330. See also Nansen, Eskimo 



Life, p. 151. »5 G. E. Smith, Edinburgh Medical Journal, vol. xiii, p. 859. 



» Rink, loc. cit., p. 35. i' Dall, loc. cit., p. 399. " Bancroft, loc. cit., 



vol. ii, p. 81. " Kirkby, Church Missionary Intelligencer, vol. xiv, p. 115 ; 



Hardisty, A. R. S. /., 1866, p. 312 ; S. Jones, ibid., p. 327 ; MacKenzie, Voyages, 

 vol. i, p. 148. 



