[101] Curr, The Australian Race, i. 70.
[102] Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. p. xxi. Cf. Oberländer, ‘Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Victoria,’ in Globus, iv. 279.
[103] Taplin, ‘Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 13.
[104] Gason, ‘Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe,’ ibid. p. 259.
Among the Todas of India, up to the period of Mr. Sullivan’s visit to their hills, about the year 1820, only one female child was allowed to live in each family.[105] With reference to the Kandhs, or Khonds, Macpherson observes, “The practice of female infanticide is, I believe, not wholly unknown amongst any portion of the Khond people, while it exists in some of the tribes of the sect of Boora to such an extent, that no female infant is spared, except when a woman’s first child is a female, and that villages containing a hundred houses may be seen without a female child.”[106]
[105] Metz, Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 16.
[106] Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 132.
It is said that among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, in ancient times, all children, except the first-born, were killed.[107] The people of Madagascar frequently practised infanticide; but Ellis says that they were much less addicted to it than the South Sea Islanders, a numerous offspring being generally a source of much satisfaction.[108] According to Kolben, infanticide was common among the Hottentots;[109] whereas Sparrman only states that “the Hottentots are accustomed to inter, in case of the mother’s death, children at the breast alive,”[110] and Le Vaillant altogether denies the existence of customary infanticide among them.[111] Among the Swahili, according to Baumann, infanticides are very common and hardly disapproved of.[112] But the peoples of the African continent are not generally addicted to infanticide, except in such special cases as have already come under our notice.
[107] Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 259 sq.
[108] Little, Madagascar, p. 60. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 155, 160.