[30] Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 486 sqq.
[31] Procopius, De bello gothico, ii. 14. Cf. Grimm, Kleinere Schriften, ii. 241.
[32] Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 84.
However cruel this custom may appear to be, something is certainly to be said in its favour. It is particularly common among nomadic hunting tribes, owing to the hardships of life and the inability of decrepit persons to keep up in the march. Mr. Morgan observes that, whilst “among the roving tribes of the wilderness the old and helpless were frequently abandoned and, in some cases, hurried out of existence as an act of greater kindness than desertion,” this practice was unknown among the Iroquois, who “resided in permanent villages, which afforded a refuge for the aged.”[33] With reference to certain tribes of Western Victoria, Mr. Dawson remarks that the old people are a burden to the tribe, and, should any sudden attack be made by an enemy, the most liable to be captured, in which case they would probably be tortured and put to a lingering death.[34] Moreover, in times when the food-supply is insufficient to support all the members of a community, it is more reasonable that the old and useless should have to perish than the young and vigorous. Hahn was told that, among the Hottentots, aged parents were sometimes abandoned by very poor people who had not food enough to support them.[35] And among peoples who have reached a certain degree of wealth and comfort, the practice of killing the old folks, though no longer justified by necessity, may still go on, partly through survival of a custom inherited from harder times, partly from the humane intent of putting an end to lingering misery.[36] What appears to most of us as an atrocious practice may really be an act of kindness, and is commonly approved of, or even insisted upon, by the old people themselves. Speaking of the ancient Hottentot custom of famishing super-annuated parents in order to cause their death, Kolben remarks:—“If you represent to the Hottentots, as I have done very often, the inhumanity of this custom, they are astonished at the representation, as proceeding, in their opinion, from an inhumanity of your own. The custom, in their way of thinking, is supported by very pious and very filial considerations. ‘Is it not a cruelty.’ they ask you, ‘to suffer either man or woman to languish any considerable time under a heavy, motionless old age? Can you see a parent or a relative shaking and freezing under a cold, dreary, heavy, useless old age, and not think, in pity to them, of putting an end to their misery by putting, which is the only means, an end to their days?’”[37] When Mr. Hooper, hearing of an old Chukchi woman who was stabbed by her son, made some remarks on the frightful nature of the act, his native companions answered him:—“Why should not the old woman die? Aged and feeble, weary of life, and a burden to herself and others, she no longer desired to cumber the earth, and claimed of him who owned nearest relationship the friendly stroke which should let out her scanty remnant of existence.”[38] Catlin tells us that, among the North American tribes who roamed about the prairies, the infirm old people themselves uniformly insisted upon being left behind, saying, “that they are old and of no further use—that they left their fathers in the same manner—that they wish to die, and their children must not mourn for them.”[39] In Melanesia, says Dr. Codrington, when sick and aged people were buried alive, it is certain that “there was generally a kindness intended”; they used themselves to beg their friends to put them out of their misery, and it was even considered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he was not buried alive.[40] In Fiji, also, it was regarded as a sign of filial affection to put an aged parent to death. In his description of the Fijians Dr. Seemann observes, “In a country where food is abundant, clothing scarcely required, and property as a general rule in the possession of the whole family rather than that of its head, children need not wait for ‘dead men’s shoes’ in order to become well off, and we may, therefore, quite believe them when declaring that it is with aching heart and at the repeated entreaties of their parents that they are induced to commit what we justly consider a crime.”[41] The ceremony is not without a touch of tragic grandeur:—“The son will kiss and weep over his aged father as he prepares him for the grave, and will exchange loving farewells with him as he heaps the earth lightly over him.”[42] One reason why the old Fijian so eagerly desired to escape extreme infirmity was perhaps “the contempt which attaches to physical weakness among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and insults which await those who are no longer able to protect themselves”; but another, and as it seems more potent, motive was the belief that persons enter upon the delights of the future life with the same faculties, mental and physical, as they possess at the hour of death, and that the spiritual life thus commences where the corporeal existence terminates. “With these views,” “says Dr. Hale, “it is natural that they should desire to pass through this change before their mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled by age as to deprive them of their capacity for enjoyment.”[43] Finally, we have to observe that in many cases the old people are not only killed, but eaten, by the nearest relatives, and that the motive, or at least, the sole motive, for this procedure is not hunger or desire for human flesh.[44] It is described as “an act of kindness” or as a “pious ceremony,” as a method of preventing the body from being eaten up by worms or injured by enemies.[45] Considering that many cannibals have an aversion to the bodies of men who have died a natural death, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, in some instances, the old person is killed for the purpose of being eaten, and that this is done with a view to benefiting him.[46] But, on the other hand, the “pious ceremony,” like so many other funeral customs which are supposed to comfort the dead, may be the survival of a practice which was originally intended to promote the selfish interests of the living.
[33] Morgan, League of the Iroqnois, p. 171.
[34] Dawson, op. cit. p. 62.
[35] Hahn, op. cit. p. 86.
[36] Tylor, ‘Primitive Society,’ in Contemporary Review, xxi. 705. Idem, Anthropology, p. 410 sq.
[37] Kolben, op. cit. i. 322.
[38] Hooper, op. cit. p. 188 sq. Cf. Sarytschew, loc. cit. vi. 50; Dall, op. cit. p. 385; von Wrangell, Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 122.