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 course of the sexes prevails in their society; however, they are permitted great latitude in their amours, except in times of danger, as almost all are fighting men. Sufficient inducements are therefore held out to be admitted into this mysterious community.

Any one may withdraw at pleasure from the society; and an example is given of a chief who had killed his first-born child, but preserved the second, having withdrawn in the interval. A woman who ceases to be an Arreoy, incurs a reproachful name, signifying “bearer of children.” Thus, while in most other countries the name of parent confers honour and respect; among the Arreoys of Otaheite, it is used as a term of contempt and reproach. A Chief of some repute, hearing that the King of Great Britain had a numerous offspring, he declared that “he thought himself a much greater man, because he belonged to the Arreoys.”

With respect to the origin of this society, Forster was the first to offer any conjectures. “In a country,” says he, “which has emerged so lately from barbarism as Otaheite, we cannot suppose that such a community, which is evidently injurious to the rest of the nation, would have maintained itself to the present time, were not its advantages so considerable as to require its continuance.” There are two causes, he adds, which favour the existence of the Arreoys: first, the necessity for entertaining a body of warriors, to defend their fellow-citizens from the invasions and depredations of enemies. Secondly, it was necessary by such an association to prevent the too rapid increase of the number of their chiefs. “Perhaps,” he remarks, “some intelligent Otaheitan lawgiver might foresee, that the common people would at length groan under the yoke of such petty tyrants, whose number was ever multiplying.” The ordinary practice of infanticide is ascribed by Mr Wilson, who visited the South Seas in 1801, merely to the love of pleasure and avarice, which latter passion had gained great ascendancy since the intercourse of the Islanders with Europeans; “being well aware,” says he, “that the beauty of females rearing families experiences an earlier decay, it is anxiously preserved for their visitors, by destruction of their offspring, or even by procuring abortion.” Before offering any opinion on this point, we shall notice a custom in the North West of India, somewhat analogous, which also is attended with mystery.

Amongst certain tribes called Jarejahs, which are more particularly disseminated in the peninsula of Guzarat, the whole females are devoted to death at the moment of their birth. But this is in consequence of general custom, not of any special association. The immediate death of a daughter is viewed as the inevitable consequence of its birth; and the innocent beings falling a sacrifice to this barbarous ordinance, yearly amount to many thousands. When a woman is delivered of a daughter, the event is communicated to the father by the female attendants, who desires them to do as is customary; an injunction said to be followed by the mother applying a tittle opium on the nipple of her breast, which is sucked in by the child. More usually it is strangled by herself, of drowned in a basin of milk; but women of rank, who have attendants, never perform the office themselves. However, from the mystery observed, it is, as among the Arreoys, difficult to obtain correct information. In some districts, any of the female attendants may put the infant to death; in others, a kind of domestic Priest becomes the executioner; and the infant being placed naked in a small basket, it is carried out to be interred; for which he receives a trifling fee. Among the Arreoys, those who preserve their children seem to suffer a degree of degradation, and they plead as an apology for their destruction, that it is necessary to preserve the privileges of their tribe. With the Jurejahs, the father is obeyed on signifying his desire for preservation; but if he continue silent on receiving the intelligence, the usual custom must be complied with. The mother is generally averse to the sacrifice, but her scruples to preserve her offspring are seldom attended to; should a short interval elapse, however, before the bloody deed is done, it then becomes unlawful, and the child must be spared.

In India, it is said that mothers who had been long barren, offered their first born as a sacrifice to the gods, either by leaving it in the woods to be devoured by beasts of prey, or by throwing it into a river. But, in progress of time, a commutation took place, by devoting the victim to the service.of some temple, from which it might be redeemed. The ancients were profuse of human blood to gratify their Deities, and even without the particular cause just alluded to, children were especially doomed to be offered in sacrifice. In times of public calamity, an only child was deemed the most acceptable sacrifice: as being more precious to its parents, its death was supposed of greater efficacy in purchasing expiation. “And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too hot for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall.” Nothing can be more precise than this passage of Scripture, as to the fact of a parent sacrificing his eldest child, in case of a grievous extremity; and there is also another passage, though more obscurely expressed, to the came purport, where the offering is in atonement. “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? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” The barbarities which have been inflicted by mankind to allay their superstitious fears, seem to have no bounds or limitation. It is horrible to reflect, that the most painful death which the mind can figure, burning alive, has been alike the sacrifice of the moderns for erroneous religions tenets, and of the ancients to gain the favour, or to avert the wrath of their Deities. The Moloch of the Phenicians, the Kronus of the