INFANTICIDE. 



121 



niurdcnng 



It consists of both sexes, and is chiefly composed on 

 the one part of persons distinguished by valour or me- 

 '* rit ; whence some'of the families of the chiefs are always 

 of the number. The greatest trust and confidence arc 

 reposed in its members ; and it appears that the females 

 are principally of the highest rank. The whole enjoy 

 great privileges, and are every where united by the ties 

 of reciprocal friendship and hospitality : their clothes are 

 of the finest materials; they feed on the choicest delica- 

 cies. They pass their time in the enjoyment of luxu- 

 ries, and travel about in great companies from island to 

 island, when nocturnal sports are held for their amuse- 

 ment, along with lascivious dances, to which no other 

 spectators are admitted. They an considered a class 

 separate from the other inhabitants, entitled to every 

 distinction and gratification. Different gradations sub- 

 atst among them, which are externally demonstrated 

 by the mode of tattooing their bodies. By the funda- 

 mental law* of the Arreoys, their whole offspring most 

 be destroyed ; and it is to be inferred that the murder 

 is perpetrated in solitude, and immediately after birth. 

 None must be present, or behold its commission, other- 

 wise they would themselves be deemed participators in 

 the crime, and liable to forfeit their lives. The ordinan- 

 ces of this society seem absolute and imperative; and 

 although any member may withdraw, while the asso- 

 ciation anbaista, the offspring roust perish. A woman 

 who does so, however, incurs a reproachful name, sig- 

 nifying " the b earar a/ children." An instance is 

 quoted of a chief who killed his first born child, but 

 asaaatud the second, having ceased to be an Arreoy in 

 the interval. Another chief married a sister of one of the 

 kasga of Otaheite, by whom be had eight children, and 

 the whole, without exception, wen destroyed ; yet the 

 parei*. afterward, adopted a i>cph*w a. tneir heir. The 

 proceeding* and peculiarities of this society an veiled in 

 mystery ; they have never teen explained, and all that 



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from transient observation. It n not proved that the mo- 

 ther usually suffen much distress from the death of her 

 infant ; rnd so little criminality, in the opinion of the 



> to the deed, that woman 

 they have killed. 



occur of mothers whose feelingii are awaken- 

 reassting every importunity to muruer their off- 

 ig. The ultimate object of this association always 

 it is not known that any similar society 

 exist*, or has existed ; for the words of Father Gobien, 

 which have been referred to, are not sufficiently ex- 

 plicit to establish the reverse. He observes, that in the 

 I jdrooe Islands then wen voung people called ' 

 feu, who never married, and lived together in a kind at 



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UDOtHUBO OHMiatCIMffT* ' T CsttrWu ft 



fd staff as a badge of distinction; and 

 the Spaniards having attempted to destroy the public 

 dwellings which they inhabited, some of the miaiionaries 

 became the victims of their reatnUMnt. I 

 of the infanticide of U.e Arreoys, it teems a 



ce among the South Sea islander*. When an Ota- 

 i chief has a child by a woman of the lower order, 

 it is never suffered to live; and the like seems lo take 

 place reciprocally with the higher ranks of females. 

 All their natural children must perish. No satisfactory 

 can be offered concerning the origin and 

 of this mysterious society. It* source has been 

 in the provision of some wise lawgiver to check 

 population : .but who has ever heard of 

 dwelling in territories, frequently fertile, de- 

 vil. 



stroying one another's lives to obtain a greater portion of ''' 

 subsistence ? Others have ascribed its contrivance to ^^ r ~,'^**^ 

 the pursuit of pleasure, which, withmit such restraints, 

 might be more freely courted ; and if we may reason 

 from analogy, the reasons actuating the Abiponian wo- 

 men will support this opinion. During three years 

 that children are suckled among that tribe, no con- 

 jugal intercourse subsists between the spouses: the 

 husband sometimes takes another wife in the interval ; 

 and to obviate these alienations, or even repudiation it- 

 self, the mother destroys her progeny. 



But we shall find a more powerful motive for infan- Infanticide 

 ticide than all the rest, in that unbounded ascendancy fr ? m su P r ' 

 which superstition sometimes gains over the human ^ 

 mind. The practice of the moderns, however, is not 

 so explicit in this respect as what we may collect from 

 antiquity. It is said that the Kamtschadalcs destroy 

 their children if born during storms, though the neces- 

 r sity of doing so may be averted by conjurations. The 

 indigenous inhabitants of Madagascar nnd I V\ Ion are 

 likewise accused of infanticide, should the epoch of 

 the birth of a child be declared unfortunate by their 

 priests and astrologers. Certain periods of time, as the 

 months of March and April, the last week of every 

 month, together with every Thursday and Friday, 

 are judged ominous. The child born at these times, 

 will either be animated by evil propensities, or occa- 

 sion numberless disasters, from which txi-mption is 

 purchased by the sacrifice of its life. Mankind have 

 been prone to embrue their hands in each other's 

 blood, to propitiate or appease their sanguinary dei- 

 ties. But of all offerings, children were deemed the 

 most acceptable, being a sacrifice of what was the 

 most precious to parents. The Moabites offered up 

 their children for propitiation in desperate enterprizes. 

 Thus, " when the King of Moab saw that the battle 

 was too sore for him, he took with him 700 men 

 that drew swords, to break through, even unto the 

 King of Edom : but they could not. Then he took 

 his eldest sou, that should have reigned in his stead, 

 and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall." 

 J Kings, iii. 27. Again, it is said that Halak, King 

 of Moab, consulting Balaam, the son of Beor of Me- 

 sopotamia, and calling en him to come and curse his 

 enemies, exclaimed, " Wherewith shall I come before 

 the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall 

 I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of 

 a year old r Will the Lord be pleased with thousand* 

 of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil ? Shall I 

 give my first born for my transgressions, the fruit of my 

 body for the ein of my soul r Micah vi. 7. We read 

 that Hamilear, on leceiriug similar intelligence, at- 

 tended with alarming circumstances, immediately seiz- 

 ed on a boy, and offend him for a sacrifice to the deity 

 Kronus : while, for an opposite reason, after Hanni- 

 bal had gained the battles of Ticinus and Trebia, it 

 was proposed in the senate to sacrifice his infant con. 

 On occasion of an enemy being at the gates of Carthage, 

 Diodorus relates, that 800 children, of the most distin- 

 guished citisens, wen offered up to the sanguinary 

 deities to avert the danger. We read also, though with 

 mon uncertainty of the fact, that the Grecian sooth- 

 sayers recommended the sacrifice of Ipliigenia, the 

 daughter of Agamemnon, to Diana. In descending to a 

 mon modern period of history, Hacon, King of Nor- 

 way, offend his son to Odin to obtain a victory over 

 his enemy Harold ; and Harold, the son of Gunild, 

 sacrificed two of his children to his idol*, to obtain A 



