[57] Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 163.
[58] ‘East Greenland Eskimo,’ in Science, vii. 172.
[59] Lyon, Private Journal, p. 357. For other instances, see Sartori, in Globus, lxvii. nr. 7 sq.; von Martius, op. cit. i. 126, 127, 393 (Brazilian tribes); Steller, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, p. 354; Dawson, op. cit. p. 61, quoted supra, [p. 271].
These and similar facts are largely explained by the pitiful condition of the invalid, the hardships of a wandering life, and the superstitious notions of ignorant men. In some cases the practice of killing a dying person seems to be connected with a belief that the death-blow will save his soul.[60] In 1812, a leper was burnt alive at Katwa, near Calcutta, by his mother and sister, who believed that by their doing so he would gain a pure body in the next birth.[61] By carrying the patient away before he dies, the survivors escape the supposed danger of touching a corpse.[62] In the poorer provinces of the kingdom of Kandy, when a sick person was despaired of, the fear of becoming defiled, or of being obliged to change their habitation, frequently induced those about him to take him into a wood, in spite of his cries and groans, and to leave him there, perhaps in the agonies of death.[63] But the most common motive for abandoning or destroying sick people seems to be fear of infection or of demoniacal possession, which is regarded as the cause of various diseases.[64] Among the North American Indians, we are told, “the custom of abandoning the infirm or sick arose from a superstitious fear of the evil spirits which were supposed to have taken possession of them.”[65] In Tahiti, says Ellis, “every disease was supposed to be the effect of direct supernatural agency, and to be inflicted by the gods for some crime against the tabu, of which the sufferers had been guilty, or in consequence of some offering made by an enemy to procure their destruction. Hence, it is probable, in a great measure, resulted their neglect and cruel treatment of their sick.”[66]
[60] Sartori, loc. cit. p. 127.
[61] Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, ii. 169.
[62] Shooter, op. cit. 239 (Kafirs of Natal). Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 247.
[63] Joinville, ‘Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon,’ in Asiatick Researches, vii. 437 sq.
[64] See Sartori, loc. cit. p. 110 sq.; Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, i. 110; ii. 411.
[65] Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 392.