Birth and Education of Children.
It may be imagined that the exigencies of savage life require that all the members of a tribe shall at all times be ready to move from one place to another—now for food, now for shelter, now to make war, now to avoid it. The sick man must rouse himself in times of trouble, even if his sickness be mortal; and as regards the females, they must obediently serve their masters in every season and under all circumstances. Certain events in their lives, however, claim the kindness even of their savage husbands, and the sympathy of their mothers and sisters. An Aboriginal woman, when she is about to give birth to a babe, if not treated in the same manner and with as much care as a civilized woman, is not neglected. The little attention she needs is given; the few comforts demanded are ordinarily provided; the help of some aged woman is not withheld.[1]
When the time of her trouble draws nigh, some one of the old women is selected to attend her, and the two withdraw from the main camp and shelter
- ↑ "When a woman is near her confinement, she removes from the encampment, with some of the women to assist her. As soon as the child is born, the information is conveyed to the father, who immediately goes to see the child and to attend upon the mother, by carrying firewood, water, &c. If there are unmarried men and boys in the camp, as there generally are, the woman and her friends are obliged to remain at a distance in their own encampment. This appears to be part of the same superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the camp at the time of her monthly illness, when, if a young man or a boy should approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to avoid her. If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to scolding, and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest relation, because the boys are told, from their infancy, that if they see the woman they will early become grey-headed, and their strength will fail prematurely.
"If the child is permitted to live (I say permitted, because they are frequently put to death), it is brought up with great care, more than generally falls to the lot of children of the poorer class of Europeans. Should it cry, it is passed from one person to another, and caressed and soothed, and the father will frequently nurse it for several hours together.
"Children that are weak, or deformed, or illegitimate, and the child of any woman who has already two children alive, are put to death. No mother will venture to bring up more than two children, because she considers that the attention which she would have to devote to them would interfere with what she regards as the duty to her husband, in searching for roots, &c. If the father dies before a child is born, the child is put to death by the mother, for the Father who provides for us all is unknown to them. This crime of infanticide is increased by the whites, for nearly all the children of European fathers used to be put to death. It is remarkable that when the children are first born they are nearly as white as Europeans, so that the natives sometimes find it difficult to say whether they are of pure blood or not. In such doubtful cases the form of the nose decides.
"When the child commences to walk, the father gives it a name, which is frequently derived from some circumstance which occurred at the time of the child's birth; or, as each tribe has a kind of
