Closely connected with the custom of doing away with decrepit parents is the habit, prevalent among certain peoples, of abandoning or killing persons suffering from some illness.

"The white man," Mr. Ward observes, "can never, as long as he may live in Africa, conquer his repugnance to the callous indifference to suffering that he meets with everywhere in Arab and Negro. The dying are left by the wayside to die. The weak drop on the caravan road, and the caravan passes on."1 Among the Kafirs instances are not rare in which the dying are carried to the bush and left to perish, and among some of them epileptics are cast over a precipice, or tied to a tree to be devoured by hyenas.2 The Hottentots abandon patients suffering from small-pox.3 The southern Tanàla in Madagascar take a person who becomes insensible during an illness, to the spot in the forest where they throw their dead, and should the unfortunate creature so cast away revive and return to the village, they stone him outright to death. In New Caledonia "il est rare qu'un malade rend naturellement le dernier soupir: quand il n'a plus sa connaissance, souvent même avant son agonie, on lui ferme la bouche et les narines pour l'étouffer, ou bien on le tiraille de tous côtés par les jambes et par les bras." 5 In Kandavu, of the Fiji Group, sick

persons were often thrown into a cave, where the dead also were deposited. In Efate, if a person in sickness showed signs of delirium, his grave was dug, and he was buried forthwith, to prevent the disease from spreading to other members of the family. The Alfura "kill their sick when they have no hope of their recovery."8 Dobrizhoffer says of the Patagonians, "Actuated by an irrational kind of pity, they bury the dying before they expire."9 In cases of cholera cases of cholera or small-pox epidemics, North American Indians have been known to desert their villages, leaving all their sick behind, of whatever age or sex.10 According to Dr. Nansen, it is not inconsistent with the moral code of the Greenlanders "to hasten the death of those

who are sick and in great suffering, or of those in delirium, of which they have a great horror." 1 Lieutenant Holm states that, in Eastern Greenland, when an individual is seriously ill, he consents, if his relatives request it, to end his sufferings by throwing himself into the sea; whereas it is rare that a sick person is put to death, except in cases of disordered intellect. At Igloolik "a sick woman is frequently built or blocked up in a snow-hut, and not a soul goes near to look in and ascertain whether she be alive or dead.” 3

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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. 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. By carrying the patient away before he dies, the survivors escape the supposed danger of touching a corpse. 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." 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. Among the North American Indians, we are told, "the custom of abandoning the infirm or sick arose

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1 Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 163. 2 East Greenland Eskimo,' in Science, vii. 172.

3 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. 4 Sartori, loc. cit. p. 127.

5 Crooke, Popular Religion and FolkLore of Northern India, ii. 169.

6 Shooter, op. cit. 239 (Kafirs of Natal). Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 247.

7 Joinville, Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon,' in Asiatick Researches, vii. 437 sq.

8 See Sartori, loc. cit. p. 110 sq.; Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, i. 110; ii. 411.

from a superstitious fear of the evil spirits which were supposed to have taken possession of them."1 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." 2

3

Whilst the regard which children owe their parents makes parricide an aggravated form of murder, the paternal power sometimes implies that, under certain circumstances, the father is allowed to kill even his grownup child. Though the Chinese Penal Code provides a slight punishment for parents who punish disobedient children with death, the crime is practically ignored by the authorities. Among the Hebrews, in early times, a father might punish his incontinent daughter with death.5 The Roman house-father had jus vitæ necisque—the power of life and death-over his children. However, this power did not imply that he could kill them without a just cause; already in pagan times a father who killed his son "latronis magis quam patris jure," was punished as a murderer. As Dean Milman observes, long before Christianity entered into Roman legislation, "the life of a child was as sacred as that of the parent; and Constantine, when he branded the murder of a son with the

1 Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 392.

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 395. 3 Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccxix. p. 347" If a father, mother, paternal grandfather or grandmother, chastises a disobedient child or grandchild in a severe and uncustomary manner, so that he or she dies, the party so offending shall be punished with 100 blows.When any of the aforesaid relations are guilty of killing such disobedient child or grandchild designedly, the punishment shall be extended to 60 blows and one year's banishment."

Douglas, Society in China, p. 78 sq.

5 Genesis, xxxviii. 24.

6 Mittermaier, 'Beyträge zur Lehre vom Verbrechen des Kindesmordes,' in Neues Archiv des Criminalrechts, vii. 4. Walter, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, § 537, vol. ii. 147. von Jhering, Geist des römischen Rechts, ii. 220. Mommsen, Römisches Strafrecht, p. 619.

1 Digesta, xlviii. 9. 5. Orosius, Historia, v. 16. Mommsen, Kömisches Strafrecht, p. 618.

name of parricide, hardly advanced upon the dominant feeling. Nor is there any reason to suppose that, among savages, the father possesses an absolute right of life and death over his children. On the contrary, among many of the lower races the existence of such a right is expressly denied.o

But whilst a father only in rare cases, and then merely as a measure of justice, is allowed to put to death his grown-up child, he very frequently has the right of destroying a new-born infant. Nay, in many instances infanticide is not only permitted, but enjoined by custom. Among a great number of uncivilised peoples it is usual to kill an infant if it is a bastard, or if its mother dies,* or if it is deformed or diseased, or if there is anything unusual or uncanny about it, or if it for some reason or other is regarded as an unlucky child. In some parts of

1 Milman, History of Latin Christianity, ii. 25.

2 Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien, p. 224 (Washambala). Desoignies, ibid. p. 271 (Msalala). Marx, ibid. p. 349 (Amahlubi). Kohler, Recht der Hottentotten,' in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. XV. 347. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, i. 52 sq.

3 Turner, Samoa, p. 304 (Savage Islanders). Elton, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xvii. 93 (some Solomon Islanders). Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 145 (Beduan). Dyveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, p. 428 (Touareg). Burton, Sindh, p. 244 (Belochis). Haberland, 'Der Kindermord als Volkssitte,' in Globus, xxxvii. 58. The natives of Australia often kill half-caste children (Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, p. 184. Curr, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, p. 252. Haberland, loc. cit. p. 58).

Collins, English Colony in New South Wales, i. 607 sq. (aborigines of Port Jackson). Dale, 'Natives inhabiting the Bondei Country,' in Jour. Anthr. Inst. XXV. 182. Comte de Cardi, Ju-Ju Laws and Customs in

3

the Niger Delta,' ibid. xxix. 58. Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 330; Holm, Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in Meddelelser om Grönland, x. 91 (Greenlanders). Haberland, loc. cit. p. 28 sq. Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 252, 254, 258 sq. Chamberlain, Child and Childhood in FolkThought, p. 110 sqq.

5 Dawson, op. cit. p. 39 (tribes of Western Victoria). Kicherer, quoted by Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa, p. 15 (Bushmans). Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 89. Chapman, Travels in the Interior of South Africa, ii. 285 (Bananijua). Reade, Savage Africa, p. 244 (Equatorial Africans). New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 118; Krapf, Travels, p. 193 sq. (Wanika). Georgi, Russia, iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Sarytschew, loc. cit. vi. 50; von Wrangell, op. cit. p. 122 (Chukchi). Simpson, quoted by Murdoch, 'Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 417 (Eskimo). Powers, Tribes of California, p. 382 (Yokuts). Guinnard, Three Years' Slavery among the Patagonians, p. 144. Haberland, loc. cit. p. 58 sq. Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 252, 254, 255, 258.

Africa, for instance, a child who is born with teeth,' or who cuts the upper front teeth before the under, or whose teeth present some other kind of irregularity, is put to death. Among the natives of the Bondei country a child who is born head first is considered an unlucky child, and is strangled in consequence. The Kamchadales used to destroy children who were born in very stormy weather; 5 and in Madagascar infants born in March or April, or in the last week of a month, or on a Wednesday or a Friday, were exposed or drowned or buried alive." Among various savages it is the custom that, if a woman gives birth to twins, one or both of them are destroyed. They are regarded sometimes as an indication of unfaithfulness on the part of the mother-in accordance with the notion. that one man cannot be the father of two children at the same time-sometimes as an evil portent or as the result of the wrath of a fetish. Miss Kingsley observes, "There is always the sense of there being something uncanny regarding twins in West Africa, and in those tribes where they are not killed they are regarded

183.

Krasheninnikoff, History of Kamschatka, p. 217.

6 Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 257. Cf. Little, Madagascar, p. 60.

7 Dawson, op. cit. p. 39 (tribes of Western Victoria). Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 52. lidem, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 609. Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 70 (Solomon Islanders). Kolben, op. cit. i. 144 (Hottentots). Shooter, op. cit. p. 88 (Kafirs of Natal). Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 577. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 160 (Matabele). Chapman, op. cit. ii. 285 (Banamjua). Baumann,

Usambara, p. 131 (Wabondei). New, op. cit. pp. 118 (Wanika, formerly), 458 (Wadshagga). Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 84. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, p. 472 sqq. Schoen and Crowther, Journals, p. 49 (Ibos on the Niger). Comte de Cardi, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 57 sq. (Negroes of the Niger Delta). Nyendael, quoted by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 35 (people of Arebo). Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 267 sq. (African peoples), 274 (some South American Indians). Schneider, Die Naturvölker, i. 305 sq. (some South American Indians). Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 217 (Kamchadales).

Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 394, 480 (South American Indians), Dapper says (Africa, p. 473) that no twins are ever found in the country of Benin, because the people considered it a great dishonour to give birth to twins.

* Allen and Thomson, op, cit, i, 243. Baumann, Usambara, p. 131 (Wabondei),