VII 

 HUNTING AND FISHING RACES 



1 . WE now pass to a consideration of the quantitative problem. 

 In this chapter we deal with hunting and fishing races. We 

 require information first regarding those factors which hinder the 

 realization to the full of the power of fecundity, and secondly 

 regarding those factors which cause elimination. Not until we have 

 this information can we hope to determine how numbers are 

 regulated among these races. This inquiry is not intended to be 

 exhaustive ; our aim is merely to gain an idea of the nature of the 

 more important factors which are in operation. When we come 

 to the interpretation of the evidence, there will be more to say 

 both as to the incompleteness of the evidence as here presented 

 and as to the inherent difficulties of ascertaining what the position 

 was before European influence had made itself felt. 



2. We may first consider sexual intercourse before maturity. 

 It is perhaps more difficult to determine the prevalence of this 

 custom than that of any other practice which we shall have to 

 examine in the course of this chapter. The difficulty is due to the 

 nature of the facts under discussion ; first it is clearly noir easy 

 to ascertain them and comparatively few authors have the 

 intimate knowledge necessary to enable definite statements to 

 be made ; secondly such veiled and guarded language is often used 

 that the true state of the case remains uncertain. We shall see 

 that marriage, or at any rate cohabitation, very soon after puberty 

 is the universal rule among these races. Statements therefore 

 concerning ' very early ' marriage must, in the absence of more 

 exact information, be taken to mean no more than that marriage 

 follows at once after puberty. Of the Tasmanians there is no cer- 

 tain information. Statements exist to the effect that marriages 

 are sometimes consummated in Australia before puberty ; l these 

 statements are seldom specific or on good authority. The more 

 trustworthy accounts state definitely that, no matter at what age 

 betrothal occurs, the husband does not claim his wife until she is 



1 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 164. 



