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 mortality 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 w'hen 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 



' Crantz, loc. cit., p. 162; Murdoch, loc. cit., p. 415. * Handbook oj 



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



resulting mortality is emphasized bj' Gerland {Ober das Aussterhen der Natur- 

 valker, 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 



pople 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. 



