Chapter II: , it follows that it is the female rather than the male that (3)

5. The three further factors to be considered which may have a bearing upon fecundity are all connected with marriage. It has been shown by Westermarck that marriage exists as an institution among all races, however primitive.[263] What we have to ask is whether there is any postponement of marriage, whether, that is to say, there is any temporary or permanent celibacy and, so far as fecundity is concerned, the age of women at marriage alone is relevant. The evidence points to the fact that marriage of women takes place almost universally among these races if not before, then at or very soon after, puberty. This is Westermarck’s conclusion, after a wide survey of the races belonging both to this and the next group. It will be sufficient to give some examples of the evidence and then to note a few cases in which some postponement is reported.

Summing up the evidence with regard to the Australians, Malinowski says that in general it is true that there are no unmarried girls under sixteen and no widows under forty-five, though there is some evidence with regard to the existence of unmarried females;[264] thus Smyth, speaking of the inhabitants of Victoria, records that girls were married between the ages of ten and twelve,[265] and similar evidence is given by Taplin of the inhabitants of South Australia.[266] In Australia there is no evidence worth mentioning of either temporary or permanent celibacy. Apart from the instances to be given below the evidence with regard to other races in this group is very similar to that given before of the Australians. Thus the average age for a girl to marry in Vancouver Island was sixteen.[267] among the Californians generally between twelve and fourteen,[268] and among the Stseelis and Skaulits tribes fifteen.[269] Veddah girls married between eleven and twelve.[270]

There is no doubt that, generally speaking, postponement of marriage is rare, though occasionally some slight delay is reported, as in the instances given in what follows. It should be mentioned, however, that from time to time there is quite a considerable delay upon the part of the man amongst these races; to this point we shall return later. As regards women, Crantz states that sometimes Eskimo girls do not marry until they are twenty.[271] Hill Tout, speaking of the Salish and the Tinneh, says ‘with the exception of the Carrier tribes early marriages were everywhere the custom’.[272] The same author mentions that among the Thompson tribes girls did not marry until seventeen or eighteen,[273] and this is confirmed by Teit.[274] The latter author gives somewhat similar evidence for the Shushwap,[275] and also says that among the Lillooet Indians girls are isolated for two years after puberty, and only marry when from sixteen to twenty years old.[276] As regards South America we are told by Musters that among the Tehuelches the girls ‘often remain several years spinsters’,[277] and by Dobrizhoffer that among the Abipones girls do not marry before their twentieth year.[278]

There is one other matter to which reference may be made here. There is often very considerable disparity in age between husband and wife at marriage among primitive races. It is frequently the practice for the girls on reaching the age of puberty to be taken in marriage by the older men, while the young men marry women twice their age.[279] Since, however, as pointed out in Chapter IV the age of the husband has little or no effect upon fertility, this practice is of no importance from our present point of view. The important fact which results from the evidence is that almost universally among these races the women are married at or soon after puberty and remain married throughout the mature period.

6. Among almost every uncivilized race there are numerous occasions upon which sexual intercourse is tabooed. Common instances are those of taboo during the preparations for a hunting party or a military expedition. It is not worth while to enumerate these occasions, because with one exception it does not seem that they can, even when considered together, have any marked effect upon fertility.[280] The exception referred to is the prohibition upon intercourse that follows the birth of a child. This taboo is of very great importance among certain races that we shall consider in the eighth chapter. As regards hunting and fishing races there is no record of its existence in Tasmania, Australia, among the Bushmen, the Eskimos, or any other people of importance with the exception of the American Indians. The evidence in this case is scanty; there are certain difficulties and the matter is better left for discussion in the next chapter when we come to deal with the agricultural races of this part of the world. It is enough to say here that certain early observers, speaking generally of the American Indians, refer to this custom, and that two early observers speaking specifically of two hunting tribes—one in North and one in South America—record this custom. Cabeça de Vaca says that the Yguazas abstain from intercourse for two years after child-birth,[281] and Dobrizhoffer records of the Abipones that ‘the mothers suckle their children for three years, during which time they have no conjugal intercourse with their husbands’.[282]

7. At this point we may refer to the remarkable fullness and unanimity of the evidence with regard to the number of children observed among these races. The evidence is to the effect that the number of children is always small.[283] Bonwick says that ‘families were never large with the Tasmanians’,[284] and that ‘the native woman as a rule had very few children, and fewer still were ... permitted to live’;[285] he attributes this to the fact that women did not begin to bear children until after several years of marriage,[286] and that women ceased to bear at or soon after the age of thirty-five.[287] Abundant evidence is forthcoming from Australia. ‘Large families of children are unusual among the aborigines,’ says Dawson, ‘however many may be born, rarely more than four are allowed to grow up.’[288] Lumholtz remarks that there are seldom more than three or four children.[289] Mathew referring to two Queensland tribes records that ‘the number of children in a family was small on the average. Six would be rare. I know of no aboriginal family with more than five who survived infancy.’[290] Grey obtained some statistics in Western Australia with reference to the average number of children born by women who had passed child-bearing age. ‘Forty-one females, of whose families I have obtained (from themselves and others) lists upon the accuracy of which I can rely, had 188 children, or about 4·6 children each.’[291] Among the native tribes of Central Australia the number of children in a family rarely exceeds four or five, and is generally two or three;[292] at the same time sterility is common; the greatest fertility is noticed among the stout and the strong, whereas the thin and weak have scarcely any children.[293] Eyre quotes some observations of Moorehouse, also made in Central Australia, and says that ‘his investigations have led to the conclusion that each woman has on an average five children born (nine being the greatest number known)’;[294] Eyre adds that he agrees with this estimate. Schürmann records that ‘the number of children reared by each family is variable, but in general very limited, rarely exceeding four’. He adds the interesting information that in spite of early marriage he has not observed that they have children at an earlier age than is common among the Europeans, and says that it is rare for a mother to have children ‘in rapid succession’.[295] Wilhelmi’s evidence is similar; with reference to the aborigines of the Port Lincoln district he states that ‘the number of children in a family varies considerably; but, on the whole, it is limited—seldom exceeding four’; he also adds that it seldom happens that ‘children are born in a family quick after one another’.[296]

Stow remarks that ‘the Bushmen seldom had large families’;[297] Theal, on the other hand, says that ‘the earliest Dutch colonists observed that they were remarkably prolific’[298]—one of the very few statements which attribute a high fertility to any of these races. Passing now to the New World we find a similar abundance of evidence pointing to the same conclusion. ‘The Greenlanders are not very prolific. A woman has commonly three or four children, but at most six; they generally bear but one child in two or three years.’[299] Writing more than a hundred years later than Crantz, Nansen gives very similar testimony, which has already been quoted,[300] as has that of Murdoch for the Port Barrow Eskimos.[301] The latter adds that ‘they do not commonly bear children before the age of twenty’.[302] According to Bessels the number in an Eskimo family near Smith Sound is on the average two; this low figure is due to infanticide, he goes on to say.[303] In the Ungava district ‘the number of children born varies greatly, for, although these Eskimo are not a prolific race, a couple may occasionally claim parentage of as many as ten children. Two or three is the usual number.’[304] Armstrong notes of the Eskimos generally ‘that they are not a prolific race from all that I could learn’.[305] Of the Aleutes Ritter says that the average number in a family is two or three.[306]

Writing of the neighbourhood of Hudson Bay, Hearne says: ‘Providence is very kind in causing these people to be less prolific than the inhabitants of civilized nations; it is very uncommon to see one woman have more than five or six children; and these are always born at such a distance from one another, that the younger is generally two or three years old before another is born into the world.’[307] Among the Eastern Tinneh to be confined once every three years is ‘a high average’.[308] The author responsible for this statement goes on to say that ‘the women are capable of bearing children from fourteen to forty-five—a long period of their lives—but in it very few infants are produced. Families on an average contain three children ... and ten is the greatest number I have seen.’ In Alaska ‘the females of the coast tribes are not fruitful, and to see four children of one mother is quite a rare occurrence, one or two being the common number of children to a family’.[309] The evidence of Sproat for the Ahts and of Bancroft for the Nootkas and the Chinooks has already been quoted.[310] Among the Omahas ‘the usual number of children may be stated at from four to six in a family’.[311] Of the Sound Indians Bancroft states that ‘the women are not prolific, three or four being ordinarily the limit of their offspring’.[312] The woman of the interior of the Pacific Coast ‘is not prolific’,[313] and the number in a Chepewayan family is on the average four.[314] In California ‘barrenness was not infrequent, twins very uncommon, and the general average of families did not exceed two children’.[315] Of the same people Baegert states that ‘it is certain that many of their women are barren and that a great number of them bear not more than one child’.[316] Of the Comanches we read: ‘they are not a prolific race; indeed it is but seldom that a woman has more than three or four children.’[317] Among the Puelches of South America ‘children are not nearly so numerous as might be imagined’; this is due in part, however, according to the author, to infanticide.[318] According to Bridges, in Tierra del Fuego ‘few women have more than six children owing to the great length of time between the several births’.[319] Of the same people, Hyades and Deniker record their opinion that four is the average number of children to a married woman.[320] They add that in spite of early marriage very few young couples of eighteen to twenty years of age had any children, although sterility was rare.[321]

Of the other races which belong to this group the evidence points to a similar conclusion.[322] Man thinks that three or four is an average number of children in an Andamanese family, and six is the largest number he met with.[323] Portman mentions three as an average.[324] The Sarasins are of opinion that Veddah women are fairly prolific and that the small families recorded are due to infant mortality.[325] Of the Tuski tribes Dall says ‘they are not prolific’,[326] and according to Deniker ‘the Ghiliak women do not have many children; it is rare to find more than two or three to a family’.[327]

8. We now come to the consideration of the factors of elimination. The first practice, the extent of which we have to investigate, is that of abortion. The methods employed need not be specified in each case; the use of violent physical means is perhaps the most common; among other methods the drinking of various decoctions is frequently referred to. Doubt is sometimes expressed as to the efficacy of some of these means—especially that of the last named. It may be that in some cases it is of the nature of a magical ceremony without any practical result; as a general rule, however, there is no doubt that the methods used are effective.

Among the Tasmanians ‘abortion was frequently practised’.[328] Statements are sometimes made which seem to imply that abortion was not uncommon among the Australians.[329] A survey of the literature does not support this view; the practice is indeed mentioned occasionally, but it is clearly negligible in comparison with the universal presence of infanticide. Curr says that it is occasionally employed.[330] In Collins’s account of the aborigines in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson there is a reference to ‘the horrid and cruel custom of endeavouring to cause a miscarriage’.[331] Palmer records the practice as occurring among the Mythuggadi tribe,[332] and Roth says it is common among certain districts of North-west and Central Queensland.[333] Abortion has been noticed among the Eskimos, but never as a common practice.[334] It is among the Indian tribes of the North and the Pacific Coast that we find the most numerous references to this custom.[335] Speaking of the tribes near Hudson Bay, Ellis mentions ‘a very strange maxim of policy which prevails much amongst them, which is that of suffering rather than of obliging their women to procure frequent abortions by the use of a certain herb common in that country’.[336] Similar facts are recorded of the Knisteneaux.[337] Abortion is not ‘uncommon among the Haidahs’.[338] The Nootkas ‘frequently prevent the increase of their families by abortion’.[339] Lord says that the ‘causing of abortion’ is ‘not uncommon’ among the natives of Puget Sound,[340] while we find this practice spoken of as ‘common’ in Vancouver Island.[341] Teit mentions abortion as being ‘rarely practised’ among the Thompson Indians,[342] and as ‘rare’ among the Shushwap.[343] Gibbs speaks of abortion as being ‘almost universal’ among the tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon.[344] According to Bancroft abortion is of ‘frequent occurrence’ among the Chinooks, and ‘not uncommon’ among the inland tribes.[345] Powers also records the practice among the Kabinapek of California,[346] and Castelnau among the Guaycurus[347] and Rengger among the Payaguas.[348] Cooper, who has reviewed the evidence so far as the Fuegians are concerned, states that ‘deliberate abortion is common’.[349]

9. There is one common form of infanticide—the killing of deformed children—which can have no importance so far as numbers are concerned. But this practice may be noted here because of its bearing upon quality. We may also note in particular when the killing is said to be of female children.[350]

Bonwick states that infanticide was fairly prevalent in Tasmania.[351] Ling Roth, who summarizes the evidence of several authors, finds it somewhat conflicting; but it would seem that infanticide undoubtedly occurred though it is not known with any certainty whether it was practised on a large scale or not.[352] In Australia infanticide is practised on a very large scale. Parker states that it was very frequent and that deformed children were always killed.[353] Lumholtz’s testimony is similar,[354] while, according to Dawson, no matter how many children are born, ‘rarely more than four are allowed to grow up’—the deformed children apparently always being destroyed.[355] According to an estimate made by Curr of conditions in Victoria ‘nearly one-half [of the children born to any one married woman] fell victims to infanticide’[356], and more girls than boys perished.[357] According to Wilhelmi, if, as rarely happens, births follow one another quickly among the aborigines of the Port Lincoln district, ‘the youngest is generally destroyed’;[358] Beveridge says that the practice prevails in Victoria and Riverina ‘to a very considerable extent’.[359] This last statement is supported by that of Mathews to the effect that ‘infanticide is common’ in New South Wales and Victoria.[360] Among the inhabitants of the River Darling region ‘it seems to have been the custom to kill many of the children directly after birth’,[361] and in Southern Australia infanticide was very prevalent.[362] According to Howitt infanticide was practised ‘to some extent’ among the Mining Tribe,[363] in the Tongeranka tribe it was ‘common’;[364] in the Mukjarawaint tribe ‘the grandparents had to decide whether a child was to be kept alive or not’;[365] in all the tribes of the Wotjo nation and also the Tatuthi and other tribes of the Murray River frontage, when a child was weak and sickly they used to kill its infant brother and sister and feed it with the flesh to make it strong;[366] in the Wadthaurung tribe the practice was evidently not uncommon;[367] in the Narrinyeri tribe infanticide appears to have been very prevalent, so that ‘more than one-half of the children fell victims to this atrocious custom’,[368] whilst deformed children seem always to have been killed both in this case[369] and among the aborigines of Encounter Bay.[370] Infanticide was common among the tribes of Port Lincoln—girls being less often spared than boys[371]—among the Dieyerie tribe, where deformed children were never spared,[372] among two Queensland tribes,[373] in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin,[374] in Central Australia,[375] and among the Northern tribes of Central Australia.[376] In Western Australia deformed children were always killed.[377]

Our information with regard to the Bushmen suggests that infanticide was prevalent, though not confined to new born children. ‘The Bushmen will kill their children without remorse on various occasions; as when they are ill-shaped, when they are in want of food, when the father of a child has forsaken its mother, or when obliged to flee from the fathers of others.’[378] Infanticide is more common than abortion among the Eskimos.[379] Nelson says that in the neighbourhood of Behring Straits even girls of four to six years of age are at times killed.[380] Among the Central Eskimos ‘it is practised to some extent’, though apparently only girls and the children of widows and widowers are destroyed.[381] Murdoch never heard of infanticide in the Port Barrow region,[382] but says that it is reported to be ‘frequently practised among the Eskimo of Smith Sound without regard of sex’ and that female infanticide occurs among the people of King William Land.[383] It is also recorded of the inhabitants of Smith Sound by Bessels that, after two children have been born, any others that may come are more often than not killed.[384] In Greenland ‘the heathen Eskimo killed deformed children, and those that seem too sickly to live, as well as those that lose their mothers at birth, when no one else can be found to take charge of them’.[385] Killing of deformed children is also reported by Smith,[386] and that of children who have lost their parents by Rink.[387] Among the Aleuts infanticide is said to be rare,[388] but among the Malemutes infanticide, especially of girls, was not infrequent.[389]

Infanticide is frequently practised among the Kutchins[390] and the killing of deformed children by the inhabitants of the Copper River District is especially mentioned in the account of Jacobsen’s journey.[391] Among the Chinooks Lord says it is ‘not uncommon’[392] and Bancroft that it is of ‘frequent occurrence’.[393] The Thompson Indians seldom kill their children, and a woman who did so was reprimanded.[394] With the Haidahs, on the other hand, infanticide is reported to be ‘not uncommon’,[395] and among the tribes between the Frazer and Columbia Rivers it was formerly common.[396] The same impression is gained from accounts of the Chepewayans.[397] The Koniagas ‘prize boy babies, but frequently kill the girls’.[398] Powers, referring generally to the Californians, speaks of ‘the prevalence of the crime of infanticide’;[399] in particular he records that it was common among the Gallinomero, who never spared deformed children,[400] that among the Kabinapek[401] and the Nishinan[402] children who had lost their mother were killed, and that deformed children were destroyed by the Woruk.[403] Among the Yguazes infanticide was fairly frequent.[404] The Abipones of South America ‘do not bring up more than two children to a family, the others being killed to save trouble;’[405] According to another observer ‘they seldom rear but one child of each sex, murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are strong enough to walk alone’.[406] This practice, on the other hand, is said to be ‘extremely rare’ among the Botocudos.[407] It occurs among the Guaycurus.[408] Among the Puelches infanticide is common and deformed children are always killed.[409] In spite of what has sometimes been said, infanticide ‘only occurs occasionally’ among the Fuegians.[410] In the literature with regard to the Veddahs reviewed by the Sarasins, there is only one author who mentions infanticide.[411]

10. Wars[412] were apparently common between the Tasmanian tribes, but we have no trustworthy information as to their character.[413] Of conditions in Australia we have abundant evidence; the literature has been recently studied by Wheeler.[414] He distinguishes between regulated and unregulated warfare, of which the latter is rare.[415] By regulated warfare is meant not only that the use of heralds, messengers, and preliminary negotiations is recognized, but also that the fighting itself is regulated in such a manner as to restrict bloodshed. Most commonly, if it comes to fighting, the two opposing sides meet and throw boomerangs until one or two men are knocked down. Then, before further damage is done, fighting stops and peace is re-established—not a single life perhaps having been lost.[416] Unregulated warfare is a more serious matter; a war party may attack and destroy a local group of some other tribe without observing any of the formalities described above.[417] In the latter case women are sometimes slain, although this never happens in regulated warfare.[418] On the whole the loss of life owing to warfare in Australia must be very small.

The Bushmen gained the reputation of being vigorous fighters during the wars with the colonists and managed to inspire terror throughout a large part of Africa. We have, however, but little information as to their habits before they were so rudely disturbed and, it must be said, so barbarously treated. ‘They never appear’, says Stow, ‘to have had great wars against each other; sudden quarrels among rival huntsmen, ending in lively skirmishes, which owing to their nimbleness and presence of mind, caused little damage to life or limb, appear to have been the extent of their individual and tribal differences.’[419] Of the Eskimos about the Behring Strait Nelson says that ‘an almost continuous inter-tribal warfare’ formerly existed;[420] such a state of things is clearly uncommon; in Greenland, for instance, we are told that war is rare,[421] whereas among the Central Eskimos real wars have never happened.[422] Nevertheless a good deal of fighting seems often to occur between the Eskimos and the Tinneh, whom they hate and fear. ‘Along the line of contact with the Tinneh tribes of the Interior a bitter feud was always in existence,’ says Nelson,[423] who is confirmed by Bancroft,[424] Hall,[425] and Ellis.[426] Of the Malemutes we are told that ‘the occupants of the several islands are almost constantly at war’.[427]

It is among the American Indians both in the North and South that we find war to be more frequent and sanguinary than elsewhere. Certain tribes are more peaceful than others, but in the lives of only a few did war play an unimportant part. In addition to the evidence of actual fighting we have, what is suggestive in this connexion, many accounts of the large part which martial training played in the upbringing of these races. ‘The whole force of public opinion in our Indian communities’, says Schoolcraft, ‘is concentrated upon this point, its early Lodge teachings, its dances, its religious rites, the harangues of prominent actors made at public assemblies, all, in fact, that serves to awaken and fire ambition in the mind of the savage, is clustered about the idea of future distinction in war.’[428] ‘They are’, says an eighteenth-century traveller, ‘early possessed with the notion that war ought to be the chief business of their lives.’[429] And war does play a very large part in their lives. ‘All Indian tribes are frequently at war with one another,’ says Harmon.[430] The Thlinkeet are often at war[431] and the same applies to all the tribes of the Pacific Coast, including the Haidahs,[432] the Ahts,[433] and the Kwakiutl.[434] Among some of these tribes, however, as, for example, the Chinooks,[435] frequent as fighting may be, it is not very sanguinary. The Northern tribes of the interior we have seen to be at war with the Eskimos from time to time, and we are told that among themselves it is practically continuous.[436] The Inland tribes are perhaps somewhat less warlike,[437] though the accounts of the Shushwap,[438] Lillooets,[439] and Thompson Indians[440] give the impression of tribes among whom fighting—and fighting of a severe kind—is by no means infrequent. The Crees and the Blackfeet, for instance, waged ‘unceasing war’;[441] the warlike instinct of the Chepewayans is well known.[442] The tribes of Western Washington and Northern Oregon engaged in constant warfare, though the actual encounters did not result in any great loss of life.[443] In Central California ‘battles, though frequent, were not attended with much loss of life’.[444] In Southern California we hear of ‘frequent and deadly wars’[445] from one author and of ‘continual wars’ from another,[446] the last laying stress upon warfare as an important factor in the population question. The Seri Indians of Tiburon Island engage in practically continuous warfare,[447] and the Comanches ‘highly honour bravery on the battlefield’. From early youth they are taught the art of war.[448] ‘In consequence of continual hostilities’ the Ygauzas ‘cannot travel the country nor make many exchanges’.[449] Among the Puelches war is both common and sanguinary,[450] and the same is the case with regard to the Guaycurus[451] and the Charruas.[452] The Fuegians are ‘almost always at war with adjoining tribes; they seldom meet, but a hostile encounter is the result’.[453]

11. Passing to the consideration of feuds it is found that they originate largely from motives of blood revenge. The expression blood revenge suggests retribution for a murder actually committed, but among primitive races the origin of blood revenge is far more often the natural death of some member of the tribe. Owing to the almost universal belief among these races that death is never natural in our sense of the word, the loss of a relation or fellow-tribesman is attributed to magical influence, and the guilt fastened upon some individual by a process of magical divination. It appears that women are judged to be equally capable with men of causing death, and that therefore elimination from this cause falls equally upon both sexes.

‘No such thing as natural death is recognized by the [Australian] natives; a man who dies has of necessity been killed by another man or perhaps even by a woman.’[454] ‘If an Abipon die from being pierced by many wounds, or from having his bones broken, or his strength exhausted from extreme old age, his countrymen all deny that wounds or weakness occasioned his death, and anxiously try to discover by which of the jugglers and for what reason he was killed.’[455] I Among different races the holding of this belief has different results. With regard to Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen in the passage quoted above continue as follows: ‘sooner or later that man or woman will be attacked. In the normal condition of the tribe every death meant the killing of another individual’—the guilty person being indicated by a medicine man.[456] The avenging party is at times merely directed by the medicine man to proceed in a certain direction and after a march, it may be of a considerable distance, discovers another local group which it entirely wipes out.[457] At other times an individual near by is indicated and at once dispatched. It is obvious that if such results commonly followed upon the death of every tribesman the population would rapidly diminish, and, as a matter of fact, serious as the consequences of this belief are, there are many indications that blood revenge is not carried out with the extreme rigour that the above passage would seem to indicate. Probably most deaths go unavenged,[458] yet in spite of this blood revenge must be accounted as a factor of importance in Australia,[459] especially as it affects women as well as men.[460]

Among the races belonging to the second group we shall meet with a somewhat similar state of affairs. But, widespread as this belief is, it does not appear to provoke bloodshed among the other races belonging to this group on any large scale. We hear of feuds among the Eskimos and the punishment of witchcraft by death. Murder is also reported as occurring among the Eskimos. ‘It is not a rare occurrence that a man who is offended by another man takes revenge by killing the offender,’ and a feud then follows which may last for generations.[461] Blood feuds originating in actual murder are also recorded of various Indian tribes;[462] but it does not appear that bloodshed, owing to belief in witchcraft, occurs on any significant scale either in North or South America. Of the Haidahs we are told that ‘death is ascribed to the ill-will and malign influence of an enemy and one suspected of causing the death of a prominent individual must be ready to die’.[463] Niblack, speaking of the Coast tribes from Southern Alaska to British Columbia and thus including the Haidahs, says: ‘all severe diseases or illnesses are ascribed to the evil influence of enemies, and in the case of the death of an important personage, a victim is usually found who has presumably charmed away the life of the deceased.’[464] The implication is, of course, that a victim is only sought on rare occasions, as on the death of a prominent man.

12. The custom of killing the old and the sick is of sufficient importance to deserve mention. Among these races it is not uncommon and is connected with the nomadic nature of their existence.[465] The Tasmanians would seem to have been in the habit of abandoning the sick and infirm.[466] There is some evidence of this habit in Australia,[467] but on the whole sick and aged are well looked after in that country.[468] ‘The Bushmen frequently forsake their aged relations when removing from place to place for the sake of hunting. In this case they leave the old person with a piece of meat and an ostrich egg-shell full of water; as soon as this little stock is exhausted, the poor deserted creature must perish by hunger or become the prey of wild beasts.’[469] The aged are not treated well by the Eskimos. In the Ungava district they are put to death,[470] and among the Central Eskimos a man may kill his aged parents.[471] ‘On the East coast (of Greenland) it sometimes happens that old people, who seem likely to die are drowned, or else drown themselves.’[472] For the most part the Indians treat their sick and aged well; but there are some instances to the contrary. The Queka Indians abandon the sick and aged.[473] The Ahts,[474] the tribes of Washington,[475] and the Chepewayans[476] did the same. The Central Californians killed the old people,[477] and, according to MacGee the Seri ‘often abandoned the sick and aged who cannot keep up with them in their constant wanderings to and fro’.[478] In some of the accounts of the Fuegians similar habits are attributed to them; there is, however, some reason to doubt their accuracy.[479] These practices certainly occur among the Zaporos.[480]

13. We have now to mention certain other modes of elimination. That form of elimination, which we saw to be of great importance among animals in a state of nature whereby the young perish on a large scale because they are consumed by other species, is of little importance among men who have reached the stage of the lowest races known to us.[481]

The subject of elimination from disease can be approached from different aspects. We can ask what evidence there is regarding the prevalence of disease among primitive races when they first came under the observation of Europeans. This evidence is of somewhat doubtful value. It is also of assistance to ask how far these races were immune from diseases prevalent in Europe; for it is in general to be inferred that marked liability to disease is a sign that no immunity has been evolved against disease because it was previously absent. We can further consider the question of the evolution of disease in general and ask to what conclusions it points. The latter aspect of the matter can be taken first.

The organisms which cause disease do not belong all to one class. Some, such as the bacteria, are plants, others are animals. Further, those species which cause disease are closely related to other quite innocuous species. Non-virulent diphtheroid bacteria are, for instance, found in the throat. What has happened has been that certain species, belonging to different groups in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, have taken to a parasitic mode of life. It is not very difficult to imagine how this could occur. It is to be presumed that organisms now parasitic were once free-living and saprophytic. There is a bacillus which lives on grass; it is closely related to the tubercle bacillus but is harmless. Such an organism might be frequently swallowed; if liable to destruction, resistance might be evolved.[482] Its presence might be innocuous, or it might not be so and a new disease might be the consequence. The invasion of a host by a parasite appears usually to be followed by a struggle—on the part of the host to get rid of the parasite, and on the part of the parasite to maintain itself within the host—in the course of which struggle the parasite may develop activities noxious to the host. To this struggle there are different possible solutions. But, when we find the struggle in progress, it is a fair assumption that the association of host and parasite is recent. The very fact of disease, therefore, suggests that it is of relatively recent origin.

There are two further facts which are relevant in this connexion. Diseases are very rare among species in a state of nature. Such diseases as we know of among animals and plants occur for the most part among domesticated species. Again, there are certain conditions which favour the evolution of disease; these conditions are found among domesticated species and also among civilized man. There are many ways in which disease can be transmitted—by insects, by liquid particles in the air, by drinking water, by water used for bathing, by water introduced within the tissues, and so on. Transmission by all these means, with the partial exception of transmission by insects, is obviously very greatly favoured by the aggregation of the members of the host species. In fact only when such aggregation occurs can we understand how disease on a large scale could be evolved. The aggregation of men, such as occurred within the third period, into villages and towns, gave rise to conditions under which bacteria could flourish in close proximity to man; under these conditions there was far more opportunity for bacteria and other micro-organisms to become parasitic than before. The suggestion, therefore, is that most diseases evolved in that relatively recent period when, owing to the increase in skill, men came to live in close proximity under settled conditions.

This suggestion is supported by two other lines of evidence. It would appear that Australia and America were upon their discovery free from most of the diseases known in Europe. With regard to the former Davidson says: ‘Australia presents us with a spectacle of a continent, from the pathology of which entire classes of diseases, prevalent in other divisions of the globe, were, until comparatively recent times, completely absent. Thus the whole class of eruptive fevers—small-pox, scarlet fever, and measles—so fatal elsewhere, were unknown. Epidemic cholera, relapsing fever, yellow fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria were equally absent, as also was syphilis.... Leprosy was absent from the southern continent.’[483] The facts with regard to America are very similar. It has been asserted that the only lethal disease of importance present in America before the visit of Columbus was malaria, and it is worthy of note that malaria is an insect-born disease. The question whether tuberculosis was known in America before the discovery has been studied by Hrdlicka, who concludes that, though it cannot be affirmed that it did not exist, it is highly improbable that it did.[484] Again, the marked liability on the part of primitive races to common European diseases points strongly to the fact that no immunity had been evolved against these diseases because they were formerly unknown. Since contact with Europeans has been established, these races have been swept by epidemics, such as the epidemic of measles which carried off a large proportion of the population of Fiji in 1875.

It is not to be concluded that most diseases are recent in the ordinary sense of the word, but only when a broad view is taken of human history. It is known, for instance, that tuberculosis, plague, leprosy, and bilharzia existed in ancient Egypt. Where and when diseases originated we cannot say, but the fact that certain widely-spread diseases can be traced to a previously limited and localized incidence—cholera, for instance, to the Ganges Valley—suggests that such diseases originated in those places in relatively recent times and spread thence. But in spite of such indications the place of origin of most diseases is obscure; syphilis was often said to have been introduced from America; the evidence, however, that it was apparently present in Germany in 1495 is against this view.[485] It is further of great interest to note that certain diseases may have evolved in very recent days. Diphtheria may date from the beginning of the last century and trench fever may be a new disease.

Little as we may know regarding the facts concerning any one disease, the general conclusion is not doubtful. It was not until the third period, and, therefore, only among the races of the third group, that disease became a factor of the first importance in elimination. Some diseases may have reached the African races through Egypt; and to the extent to which this has occurred they are not typical representatives of the time preceding the last of the three periods.[486]

14. In further support of this conclusion some passages may be quoted regarding the races in this group when they had been little influenced by contact with Europeans. Such passages are perhaps not of great weight as evidence of the former absence of disease; they are, however, worth notice because they also bear upon another subject that will come up for discussion in the ninth chapter. According to Bonwick ‘there are strong reasons to believe that, before connexion with the whites, the aborigines [Tasmanians] were a healthy as well as a happy people’.[487] Of the Australians Curr says that ‘as a rule the health of the blacks in their wild state was excellent’.[488] Longevity may be considered as evidence of good health, and of the presence of aged people in Australia many observers speak. ‘From numerous instances it would appear that the former generations were fairly long aged. Almost every small community would have in it two or three men or women over seventy years of age, and here and there some centenarians would be met with.’[489] So, too, Burchell records having noticed many old people among the Bushmen.[490] Writing of the Eskimos in a medical journal Smith calls them ‘uncommonly healthy’.[491] This is the opinion that one gains from other accounts,[492] some of which specially mention longevity as a characteristic.[493] ‘The North Americans are in general robust and of a healthful temperament, calculated to live to an advanced age.’[494] Another author says that the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains are ‘in general subject to few diseases’.[495] Krause quotes the opinion of a doctor who lived among the Thlinkeets in the year 1836 to the effect that they were a strong, healthy people.[496] Of the Shushwap we are told that they were formerly healthy and lived to a great age.[497] Hill Tout sums up the situation with regard to the Salish as follows: ‘the great age, to which both men and women formerly lived, shows the vigour of the race and the general wholesomeness of their lives and condition.’[498] ‘The Nootkas are generally a long-lived race, and from the beginning to the failing of manhood undergo little change in appearance. Jowitt states that during his captivity of three years at Nootka Sound, only five natural deaths occurred, and the people suffered scarcely any disease except the cholic.’[499] Powers, referring to the Californians as a whole, calls them ‘a healthy, long-lived race’,[500] and Baegert speaks of them as ‘strong, hardy, and much healthier than the many thousands who live in daily abundance’[501] [in civilized countries]. Among the Abipones ‘the diseases which in Europe fill houses with sick persons and graves with the dead bodies are unknown here.... You scarce hear once in three years of any of them dying of a fever, pleurisy, or consumption.’[502] Hardt mentions the good health of the Botocudos[503] and King and Fitzroy consider the Patagonians to be very healthy.[504]

15. There remains one other matter to be mentioned. There is abundant evidence that the rate of child mortality is very high amongst all these races. The causes of death are various; disease is seldom mentioned, and death is most often due to exposure as the result of improper treatment or of certain customs, or to want of suitable food. In Tasmania it was difficult to rear children largely owing to the fact that suitable food was not available.[505] Turner says of the Eskimos of the Ungava District that ‘many die in early childhood’,[506] and this would seem to be generally true of this race. The reason usually given is the absence of proper food;[507] and it is not difficult to understand that the peculiar Eskimo diet should be unsuitable for children. Child mortality is heavy among the Indians, ‘only a small proportion coming to maturity’.[508] The reason given in this case is generally the absence not only of knowledge with regard to the simplest requirements of children, but of any reasonable care of them.[509] To this we may add—as the evidence will show—the practice of extraordinary customs which seem designed to eliminate all but those with the strongest constitutions. ‘With all the affection of the mother, the women are almost completely ignorant of ordinary sanitary rules as to feeding, exposure, &c., with the result that infant mortality is something terrible in almost every tribe.’[510] Heriot speaks of ‘incredible fatigues, whose excess occasions the death of many long before the age of maturity’.[511] According to Domenech: ‘many Indians die in infancy; their mothers, to inure them to suffering and to strengthen their constitution, do not take all the necessary care of them.... Till the age of ten or twelve years they are kept quite naked, having only in winter a garment which we would hardly call such in the warmest summer.’[512] Throughout America it is a common custom to bathe even new-born children in cold water at all seasons of the year, and to this Krause attributes the high child mortality that he records among the Thlinkeet.[513] ‘Many children [of the Eastern Tinneh] die at an early age,’ according to one author,[514] whilst from another we hear that ‘the infant is not allowed food until four days after birth, in order to accustom it to fasting in the next world’.[515] Nootka mothers ‘roll their children in the snow to make them hardy’,[516] and the Thompson Indians take small care of their children, allowing them to run about without any protection.[517] Of the Californians the Jesuit missionary Baegert, who dwelt long among them when they were almost uninfluenced by European culture, says: ‘that many infants die among them is not surprising: on the contrary, it would be a great wonder if a great number remained alive. For when the poor child first sees the light of day, there is no other cradle provided for it but the hard soil, or the still harder shell of a turtle, in which the mother places it, without much covering, and drags it about wherever she goes. And in order to be unencumbered and enabled to use her limbs with greater freedom while running in the fields, she will leave it sometimes in charge of some old woman, and thus deprive the poor creature for ten hours or more of its natural nourishment. As soon as the child is a few months old the mother places it, perfectly naked, astraddle on her shoulders, its legs hanging down on both sides in front, and it has consequently to learn how to ride before it can stand on its feet. In this guise the mother roams about all day, exposing her helpless charge to the hot rays of the sun and the chilly winds that sweep over the inhospitable country.’[518] Conditions seem to be much the same in South America. Dobrizhoffer tells us that the Abipones plunge their new-born babies into a cold stream,[519] and Guinnard says that very few diseases occur among the children of the Puelches, though child mortality is high.[520] ‘Few [Fuegian] women save all their children; most die in early infancy.’[521] So, too, among the Andamanese child mortality is said to be excessive[522] and is ascribed to injudicious management on the part of the parents.[523] According to the Sarasins it is the high death-rate that is the cause of the small size of the Veddah families which they observed.[524] New-born Ghiliak children are bathed ‘often when it is 40° below zero. The children who can survive such an experience are necessarily very strong.’[525] ‘According to Schrenck, the Ghiliak woman never dares “to give birth to a child at home; she must, in spite of severity of season or of stormy weather, go out of the hut for the purpose. In late autumn or in winter they build a special hut for the woman, but a very uncomfortable one, so that the mother and the child suffer the cold and feel the wind”.’[526]

This concludes our survey of the races of the first group. Before we consider what conclusions are to be drawn from these facts, we have to deal in the same fashion with the races of the second group. This will form the subject-matter of the next chapter.

VIII
PRIMITIVE AGRICULTURAL RACES

1. It is necessary first to explain what races will be considered. The lower limit has already been made clear. As regards the upper limit, some description has been given of the stage of Neolithic culture, and the races to be considered here are those which may be in general compared with the Neolithic races. The comparison can only be rough; as we saw, the subsequent evolution of culture was rapid; metals came into use, and, generally speaking, about the time of the first taking of metals into use arose the first great empires. At this point we clearly enter upon a new epoch and the upper limit in time is defined by the rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization. We wish to study here the conditions anterior to this step in the evolution of culture. It so happens that this Eur-Asiatic culture has influenced in varying degrees many of the races of Africa, Oceania, and Asia. The upper limit among the races to be considered here is best defined by the degree to which they have been influenced by this culture. America stands apart as there has clearly been no influence of this culture upon the races in that continent. But it should be remembered that in some places in America a degree of culture was reached which was probably higher than that to which any Neolithic race attained.[527] Nevertheless all the races of America not already dealt with may be considered here. Many African races are acquainted with the use of iron; it has been suggested that the knowledge of the use of this metal originated in Africa; this, however, is doubtful and the existence of this practice is probably to be regarded as due to the spread of an element of Eur-Asiatic culture. The use of the plough is also an example of the spread of an element of this culture;[528] roughly speaking the use of the plough does not spread towards the west, south of the latitude of Lake Chad; towards the east it extends farther south, and on this account the Gallas, Somalis, and Abyssinians can scarcely be considered as representative of the second group of races.[529] The peculiarity of the Oceanic region is that many of the races now found there undoubtedly migrated from some point on or close to the Asiatic coast after Eur-Asiatic culture had reached a high degree of development. Nevertheless they are for the most part ignorant of the use of metal and of the plough.[530] The Dyaks are metal users and the plough is known in parts of Borneo. We shall not on this account, however, exclude the Dyaks from consideration here. The true Malays on the other hand will be excluded; they are Mohammedans and, originally located in Sumatra, spread in the twelfth century over a large part of this area. On the fringe of Asia are a number of races which, though in a broad survey are of no great importance, may be noticed here. Such are the Ostiaks, Yakuts, Chuckchees, Samoyeds, and so on.[531] What races are dealt with here may be made more clear by a reference to those which will be considered in Chapters X and XI. In those chapters we shall consider the ancient empires, the classical races, mediaeval and modern Europe and its derivatives as well as the chief races of Asia, whether pastoral such as the Arabs or existing by a higher form of agriculture than that practised by the races to be noticed here. In this manner we shall obtain a broad view of the conditions both before and after the rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization.

It is obvious that we have before us a very large mass of material—too large, in fact, to be dealt with without further subdivision. It might seem that the only reasonable course is to distinguish between various grades of agricultural progress, and to consider in turn those races which fall into each grade. Such distinctions have been made by Professor Hobhouse and his collaborators, who recognize three grades of agriculture and two grades of pastoral nomadism. As has already been indicated, we do not find any correlation between economic stages and the factors bearing upon fertility and elimination. What we do find is a certain correlation between these factors and large geographical areas, and in what follows the races of the second group will be considered according to the geographical areas in which they are situated, and not according to the stage of economic progress which they have reached. The areas selected are as follows. There is, in the first place, America; secondly, there is Africa, and thirdly Oceania. The first two areas are, on the whole, fairly homogeneous; though the third area is not so homogeneous, the level of agricultural skill is fairly uniform—nearly all these races falling into Hobhouse’s second grade. Lastly, there are the Asiatic peoples among whom Eur-Asiatic culture has not penetrated; many of them are inhabitants of the northern fringe of the continent. It will be noticed that the pastoral races chiefly fall within the last group. The so-called pastoral races of America—the Navahos, for instance—have only acquired domestic animals since coming into contact with Europeans. The pastoral races of Africa are with difficulty distinguished from their neighbours, who also raise cattle but practise some agriculture at the same time. It will thus be observed that this mode of classification is, as a matter of fact, roughly in correspondence with the mode of classification based upon the stage of economic progress reached.

_America_