ROTH] CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 559 
count and threatening the other women with dire punishment if they 
dared go and do likewise (G, 1, 189-190). At the present day among 
the Kobeua (Betoya stock) of the Uaupes River it is the second 
twin that is immediately killed after birth, and then and there 
buried; but if the infants are of different sexes it is the female that 
is sacrificed (KG, m1, 146). Schomburgk admits that he could not 
learn anything of the practice of destroying one out of every birth 
of twins, as had been mentioned by Humboldt (ScF, 219) and as to 
the Makusi and Waika he distinctly denies the existence of such a 
practice (SR, m, 313). The infanticide of a twin or abnormal child , 
was likewise practiced by their kinsfolk, the Surinam Carib. In the 
former case it was a sign of her adultery, in the latter it pointed to 
its being the offspring of the Snake Spirit (PEN, 1,158). Van Berkel 
mentions the custom on the Essequibo, in the case, apparently, of an 
Arawaktwin (BER, 57). Barrére, in writing onthe Cayenne Indians, 
says that as soon as a child is born its fate is decided; if anything 
is wrong with it it is killed and buried without pity; hence, no 
dwarfs, hunchbacks, lame, and crippled are to be seen (PBA, 227). 
So also, on the Orinoco, Gumilla has recorded that if an infant is 
born with any defect or monstrosity, minus a hand or foot, or with a 
harelip, as commonly happens, the child, boy or girl, is put to 
death without any objections being raised (G, m, 61). On the other 
hand, there is no less an authority than Schomburgk for the state- 
ment that the practice was not so general among the savages of 
Guiana as had been supposed (ScF, 219). All the same it is very 
uncommon to see an Indian either lame or deformed (BA, 331), 
730. As one of the principal causes of the depopulation of the 
Orinoco lands, Gumilla mentioned the practice of destroying the 
girls soon after they were born. “I do not mean,” he says, “ that the 
_ crime of infanticide is common among all the savage women, for there 
are many who bring up their little girls with as much affection as 
their boys, but yet such women are not sufficiently numerous to in- 
fluence the many who practice it, with the result that infanticide still 
proves no inconsiderable factor in the diminution of a tribe. Those 
women who practice it, defend it on the score of love and affection. 
They recognize the hardship of their own lot, as compared with the 
opposite sex, and maintain that they only treat their little babies as 
they wish their own mothers had treated them. The practice is not 
universal amongst all these Orinoco nations, but though it dominates 
in them, there are many exceptions, especially where the husbands 
treat their wives decently. When committed, it is effected immedi- 
ately after birth, by breaking the baby’s neck, by forcibly pressing on 
its breastbone, or by cutting the string too near the navel, so as to pre- 
vent its being tied and so bleeding to death, or without hurting it at 
all, as some say, by burying it alive” (G, 1, 60-63). 
