Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/71

 INFANTICIDE. 13 SECTION II. INFANTICIDE. Mr. Meyer says"When a woman is near her confinement she removes from the encampment with some of the women to assist her. As soon as the child is born, the information is conveyed to the father, who immediately goes to see the child and to attend upon the mother, by carrying firewood, water, &c. If there are unmarried men and boys in the camp, as there generally are, the woman and her friends are obliged to remain at a distance in their own encampment. This appears to be part of the same superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the camp at certain times, when, if a young man or boy should approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a. circuit to avoid her. If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to scolding, and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest relation. "If the child is permitted to live (I say permitted, because they are frequently put to death) it is brought up with great care, more than generally falls to the lot of children of the poorer class of Europeans. Should it cry, it is passed from one person to another and caressed and soothed, and the father will frequently nurse it for several hours together." Infanticide appears to have been very prevalent among the Aborigines before the commencement of this colony. I have been assured by Narrinyeri that at that time more than one-half of the children born fell victims to this atrocious custom. One intelligent woman said, she thought that if the Europeans had waited a few more years they would have found the country without inhabitants. She herself had destroyed one infant. I know several women who have put to death two or three each of their new-born children. The details of this practice disclose the most horrible cruelty. The babe was generally deprived of life as soon as it was born, before parental love could assert its power and save it. A red-hot ember from the fire was stuffed into each of its ears as far as it could be thrust, and then the orifice closed by filling it with sand. After a few cries of agony