The Child in Human Progress

by George Henry Payne

“There are some villages in which children absolutely swarm, but there are few large families; practically every one is married, but there are many couples who have no children, or only one or two. In many parts of the territory it is considered a disgrace for a woman to have a child until she has been married at least two years; infanticide and abortion, though rarely proved, are said to be common, and a medical expert would probably discover the existence of other checks to population. The result of all this is that in some districts the population is increasing while in others it is not; such investigations as we have been able to make lead, in the absence of definite statistics, to the conclusion that the population in that part of the territory which is under control is certainly not diminishing, though the increase, if any, is probably very small. The reason why the population does not increase as one would expect now that village warfare has ceased is, as far as I can see, simply that neither men nor women want children, which I take to be the chief cause that limits population elsewhere. The reason why they do not want them is, I think, partly because they find them a nuisance (which is a consideration that was probably effective even before the white man came) and partly that, in their present state of transition from one stage of development to another, they do not exactly see what there will be for their children to do.”

Another custom of these people is to bury children alive, when the parents or some person of importance dies; the excuse given for this practice is that the child will be needed to wait on the parent in the other world, a practice that lasted long among the civilized Egyptians.

Cannibalism is rife among these people. Mr. Murray reports that on one occasion a young man was brought before him for having murdered a man in order to please a married woman with whom he was in love—a lover who has not “killed his man” being considered lukewarm.

“On my remonstrating with him on the impropriety of paying attention to a married woman he informed me that there were no girls in the village, as they had all been killed and eaten in a recent raid. The position of a young man who found himself in a village where all the women were either married or eaten was no doubt a difficult one, and I hope that I took it into consideration in passing sentence.”[33]

How little is the feeling among these people over the murder of children, is shown from the fact that murder is the only outlet for their feelings!

“I have known cases where a man, grieving over the loss of a relative or over some slight that has been put upon him, has set fire to his house, quite regardless of whether any one was inside, with the result, occasionally, that a child is burnt to death, and I recently tried a case of murder which was the direct outcome of grief over the death of a pig. The prisoners were brothers, and their pig bore the pretty name of Mehboma; but Mehboma died, and the brothers in their unquenchable grief went forth and killed the first man they saw. The victim had nothing to do with Mehboma’s death, but the mourning brothers did not care for that—somebody had got to be killed over it. The prisoners told me that it was the custom of the village to show their grief in this way, so that their neighbours must occasionally have suffered rather severely.”[34]

As the Australians are closely allied to the Papuans and represent about the same period of culture, we may postulate their attitude toward woman and a marriage from the description of an early Victorian tribe-marriage given by Brough Smith and quoted by A. H. Keane, the latter author remarking that “a common test of a people’s culture is the treatment of their women, and in this respect the Australians must, as Prof. R. Semon shows, be ranked below the Bushman and on a level with the Fuegians.”

PRIMITIVE FAMILY LIFE AMONG THE HOPI INDIANS (COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

“A man having a daughter of thirteen or fourteen years of age,” says Mr. Smith in his description of the marriage customs in vogue among the Victorian tribes, “arranges with some elderly person for the disposal of her; and, when all are agreed, she is brought out and told that her husband wants her. Perhaps she has never seen him but to loathe him. The father carries a spear and a waddy, or tomahawk, and, anticipating resistance, is thus prepared for it. The poor girl, sobbing and sighing, and muttering words of complaint, claims pity from those who will show none. If she resists the mandates of her father, he strikes her with his spear; if she rebels and screams, the blows are repeated; and if she attempts to run away, a stroke on the head from the waddy or tomahawk quiets her. The mother screams and scolds and beats the ground with her kan-nan (fighting-stick); the dogs bark and whine; but nothing interrupts the father, who, in the performance of his duty, is strict and mindful of the necessity of not only enforcing his authority, but of showing to all that he has the means to enforce it. Seizing the bride by her long hair he drags her to the home prepared for her by her new owner. Further resistance often subjects her to brutal treatment. If she attempts to abscond, the bridegroom does not hesitate to strike her savagely on the head with his waddy, and the bridal screams and yells make the night hideous.”[35]