154 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. 



tribes only up to the fourth year of the child, but after thu 

 with young animals a monkey, dog, or opossum. 1 Sterility 

 of the women is frequent. 2 Heckewelder and Lahontan \ 

 mention that in ancient times the natives did not marry before 

 the thirtieth year, as it weakened the body, rendering it unfit 

 for war. All this is now changed. Too early marriages seem 

 to have contributed to weaken the race and to render the 

 marriages less prolific, a circumstance already known to Aris- 

 totle. 4 Schomburgk 5 attributes the decay of the Tarumas in 

 Guiana to the deficiency of women, and to the circumstance 

 that girls marry before the period of puberty. With regard to 

 South America, D'Orbigny observes, that the women, though 

 never sterile, have only from two to three children on the 

 average. Burmeister, however, 6 attributes the diminution of 

 the number of the people to early deaths and feeble productive- 

 ness. With regard to the first statement we certainly find 

 that the Cholones, for instance, on the upper Huallaga, scarcely 

 reach the fortieth year, have rarely more than two children, and 

 are frequently childless; but these inhabit an unhealthy region, 7 

 and this must be considered as an exceptional case. 



From the preceding facts it must be inferred, that the 

 sterility of the American race, wherever it occurs, is owing 

 to a variety of causes among the different tribes. The preva- 

 lence of artificial abortion renders this sterility more apparent 

 than real. Among some tribes the sexual appetite seems to be 

 proportionably weak in the men ; 8 hence the Indian women 

 have intercourse with the Negroes, whilst the men consider 

 it beneath their dignity to cohabit with a Negress, 9 a circum- 

 stance which may, perhaps, be connected with the small de- 

 velopment of the genitals among the Gruaranis, Coroados, etc. 10 



1 Schomburgk, in " Monatsb. der Ges. f. Erdk." iii, p. 208. 



2 Keating, i, p. 131. 



3 LOG. cit., ii, p. 130. 



4 Illustrative cases in Lucas, " Traite de 1'heredite," ii, p. 460. 



5 " Journal E. Greogr. Soc.," xv, p. 45. 

 e Reise,"p. 250. 



7 Poppig, ii, p. 322. 



8 Rengger, " Naturgesch. der Siiugeth." 



9 Spix and Martius, " Eeise," pp. 369, 376. 



10 Rengger, p. 2 ; Eschwege, i, pp. 126, 230. 



