[174] Chevers, op. cit. p. 399.
[175] Macnaghten, quoted ibid. p. 397.
[176] Sleeman, op. cit. i. 132 sq.
[177] Crooke, Popular Religion of Northern India, ii. 173.
[178] Mahabharata, Vana Parva, 127 sq. (pt. vi. p. 188 sq.).
Among certain peoples it is a regular custom to kill the firstborn child, or the firstborn son.
Among some natives of Australia a mother used to kill and eat her first child, as this was believed to strengthen her for later births.[179] In New South Wales the firstborn of every lubra used to be eaten by the tribe “as part of a religious ceremony.”[180] In the realm of Khai-muh, in China, according to a native account, it was customary to kill and devour the eldest son alive.[181] Among certain tribes in British Columbia the first child is often sacrificed to the sun.[182] The Indians of Florida, according to Le Moyne de Morgues, sacrificed the firstborn son to the chief.[183] We are told that, among the people of Senjero in Eastern Africa, many families “must offer up their firstborn sons as sacrifices, because once upon a time, when summer and winter were jumbled together in a bad season, and the fruits of the field would not ripen, the sooth-sayers enjoined it.”[184] The heathen Russians often sacrificed their firstborn to the god Perun.[185] The rule laid down in Exodus[186] and Numbers,[187] that all the firstborn of men and of beasts belonged to the Lord, but that the former were to be redeemed, seems to indicate the existence of an earlier custom among the Hebrews of offering up as a sacrifice, not only the firstling of an animal, but the firstborn child. As traces of such a custom may probably be regarded the story of Abraham’s surrender of his firstborn son to God and the tradition of the origin of the Passover.[188] Among the Hindus, until the beginning of the last century, many parents sacrificed their firstborn to the river Ganges.[189]
[179] Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 17 n.* Cf. von Scherzer, Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, iii. 32.
[180] Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 311.
[181] de Groot, Religious System of China (vol. ii. book) i. 679.