HUNTING AND FISHING KACES 143 



it seldom happens that ' children are born in a family quick after 

 one another '. 1 



Stow remarks that ' the Bushmen seldom had large families ' ; 2 

 Theal, on the other hand, says that ' the earliest Dutch colonists 

 observed that they were remarkably prolific ' 3 one of the very 

 few statements which attribute a high fertility to any of these 

 races. Passing now to the New World we find a similar abundance 

 of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. ' The Greenlanders 

 are not very prolific. A woman has commonly three or four 

 children, but at most six ; they generally bear but one child in 

 two or three years.' 4 Writing more than a hundred years later 

 than Crantz, Nansen gives very similar testimony, which has 

 already been quoted, 5 as has that of Murdoch for the Port Barrow 

 Eskimos. 6 The latter adds that ' they do not commonly bear 

 children before the age of twenty '. 7 According to Bessels the 

 number in an Eskimo family near Smith Sound is on the average 

 two ; this low figure is due to infanticide, he goes on to say. 8 In 

 the Ungava district ' the number of children born varies greatly, 

 for, although these Eskimo are not a prolific race, a couple may 

 occasionally claim parentage of as many as ten children. Two or 

 three is the usual number.' 9 Armstrong notes of the Eskimos 

 generally ' that they are not a prolific race from all that I could 

 learn '. 10 Of the Aleut es Bitter says that the average number in 

 a family is two or three. 11 



Writing of the neighbourhood of Hudson Bay, Hearne says : 

 ' Providence is very kind in causing these people to be less prolific 

 than the inhabitants of civilized nations ; it is very uncommon 

 to see one woman have more than five or six children ; and these 

 are always born at such a distance from one another, that the 

 younger is generally two or three years old before another is born 

 into the world.' 12 Among the Eastern Tinneh to be confined once 

 every three years is ' a high average '. 13 The author responsible 

 for this statement goes on to say that * the women are capable of 

 bearing children from fourteen to forty-five a long period of their 



1 Wilhelmi, Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol. v, p. 1 80. 2 Stow, 



Native Races, p. 50. 3 Theal, loc. cit., p. 44. 4 Crantz, loc. cit., vol. i, 



p. 161. 6 p. 99. Hutton, however, gives a high figure for the birth-rate 



(Eskimos of Labrador, p. 80). 6 p. 99. 7 Murdoch, loc. cit., p. 39. 



This author says further that ' all authors who have described Eskimos of unmixed 

 descent agree in regard to the generally small number of their offspring ' (ibid., 

 p. 419). Bessels, loc. cit., p. 112. 9 Turner, loc. cit., p. 189. 



10 Armstrong, Personal Narrative, p. 195. " Ritter, Zeit.fur all. Erd., vol. xiii, 



p. 265. 12 Hearne, Journey, p. 312. 13 Ross, loc. cit., p. 305. 



