UNIVERSALITY OF INFANTICIDE. 253 
having, in the course of the thirty years he had 
spent in the South Sea Islands, known a female, 
who was a mother under the former system of 
superstition, who had not been guilty of this unna¬ 
tural crime. Startling and affecting as the infer¬ 
ence is, it is perhaps not too much to suppose, 
that few, if any, became mothers, in those later 
periods of the existence of idolatry, who did not 
also commit infanticide. Recent facts confirm this 
melancholy supposition. During the year 1829, 
Mr. Williams was conversing with some friends in 
his own house in the island of Raiatea, on this 
subject. Three native females were sitting in the 
room at the time, the eldest not more than forty 
years of age. In the course of conversation he 
observed, “ Perhaps some of these females have 
been guilty of this crime.” The question was pro¬ 
posed, and it was found that no one was guiltless ; 
and the astonishment of the parties was increased, 
when it was reluctantly confessed, that these three 
females had destroyed not fewer than one-and- 
twenty infants. One had destroyed nine, another 
seven, and the third five. These individuals were 
not questioned as having been more addicted to 
the practice of this crime than others, but simply 
because they happened to be in the room when 
the conversation took place. Without reference 
to other deeds of barbarism, they were in this 
respect a nation of murderers ; and, in connexion 
with the Areoi institution, murder was sanctioned 
by their laws. 
The various methods by which infanticide was 
effected are most of them of such a nature as to pro¬ 
hibit their publication. It does not appear that they 
ever buried them alive, as the Sandwich Islanders 
were accustomed to do, by digging a hole, some- 
