All those who have had opportunities of observing the habits of the Aborigines in their natural state bear witness to the fact that parents are kind and indulgent to their children; and the men and women of a tribe who are not related to the infants are always forbearing and gentle in their treatment of them. They neglect them very often, however, and accidents happen to them in consequence of such neglect. The infants crawl near the camp-fires, and get burnt; they fall asleep under a tree, and get stung by insects; they labor amongst the branches of a fallen tree, and injure themselves; and they are sometimes bitten by the dogs when they endeavour to take away food from them; but deliberate cruelty is very different from neglect, which may arise, and most often does arise, from the indolence of the parents. That there are instances, occasionally, of culpable negligence should not warrant us in stating that the affection of the Australian parents for their children is less than that of the best educated amongst Europeans.[1]
The Australians do not as a rule attempt to alter or improve the appearance of the children by compressing the head or flattening the nose. Such practices may be followed in some parts, but in Victoria nothing is known of them. The infants are allowed to grow up as Nature intended that they should grow.
The flattening of the head and the squeezing of the nose as practised amongst the Tahitans, the distortions brought about by the cradle used by the tribes inhabiting the Columbia River, the Chinese mode of shortening and thickening the foot, and the European custom of compressing the ribs of females by a cruel framework of whalebone, are all unknown to the Australians.
In the treatment of their children generally they are undoubtedly superior in some respects to the more civilized races.
The concurrent testimony of many writers who have had abundant opportunities of observing the habits of the Aborigines leaves no room for doubt that the practice of infanticide is almost universal amongst the tribes in the savage and half-civilized state.
Mr. Charles Wilhelmi says that "if, as it but seldom occurs, children are born in a family quick, one after another, the youngest is generally destroyed in some out-of-the-way place, by some woman, accompanied, for this purpose, by the mother herself. From the excess of male adults alive, it may fairly be presumed that a by far greater number of girls than of boys are done away with in this manner. As an apology for this barbarous custom, the women plead that they cannot suckle and carry two children together. The men clear themselves of all guilt, saying that they are never present when these deeds are committed, and that, therefore, all blame rests with the women."
- ↑ That the Aborigines are affectionate is well known; but it is not well known that they are generally very judicious in the treatment of infants and young children. If clothing is necessary, the children are properly clothed; if any sort of covering is unnecessary, there is none given to them. European mothers in this colony very frequently put extraordinary garments on their children of a showy but unsubstantial sort. The legs, thighs, and neck, and often part of the chest, are left bare; the poor infants are taken in this wretched condition from a warm nursery, and made to wander at a slow pace in the depth of winter through what are called "gardens." The nurse-girls sit with them for hours in such places on the damp grass; and is it strange that we have, therefore, as common diseases, catarrh, diphtheria, &c.?
