Are We a Declining Race ? 



It would be almost impossible to imagine a 

 greater contrast between the loose morality 

 revealed by these letters, and the former condition 

 of these people. The devotion of the women 

 to their children, both before and after birth, 

 was almost phenomenal. In polygamous times 

 the woman separated from her husband as soon 

 as she became enceinte, and the other women of 

 the household used to guard the interests of the 

 unborn child as jealously as if it were their own. 

 It is a recorded fact that on one occasion when a 

 young chief was killed, one of his two wives, 

 who were to be buried with him, was found to 

 be with child, upon which another woman, in 

 order to save the child, volunteered to take the 

 young wife's place, and was strangled in her 

 stead. 



Such devotion to the unborn babe is perhaps 

 unknown in any other history, and yet we now 

 find these people sunk to the low condition de- 

 picted in the foregoing extracts. 



The Rev. A. J. Small was of opinion that the 

 decrease of native population " would have been 

 apparent to-day, even if they had never seen a 

 European." How could the reverend gentleman 

 make such a statement ? Had he taken the 

 trouble to look up the folk-lore of the people, 

 whose spiritual condition he had undertaken to 

 improve, he would have found that their first 

 important physiological trouble was an epidemic 

 of dysentery, which appeared with their first 

 acquaintance with the white man. Prior to 

 that, disease was, comparatively speaking, un- 

 known. 



70 



