Polynesians. Baby farming, the strangling of infants, the cruel destruction by mothers of their progeny by hiding them under fences, by laying them on cold door-steps, or throwing them into pits, are practices employed by those who enjoy the results of many centuries of civilization. At the moment I write the daily press is teeming with accounts of awful crimes of this description; and it is painful to read the leading articles in which the crime of infanticide is discussed. The white mother kills her infant in the vain hope of preserving her social position—high or low—of concealing the error or crime which preceded the birth; the black woman simply, I believe, because she is not capable of supporting her offspring, or in order to render impossible an increase of population which the food-resources of the tribe would be unable to meet. Amongst the whites this awful crime is often committed in obedience to laws made by man—amongst the natives of Australia the practice is followed in obedience to laws which necessity compels them to keep.[1]
The first name given to a child is dependent on some accident at its birth—on the sudden appearance of a kangaroo or other animal, on the birth taking place at a well-marked locality, or under a tree of a particular species.[2] And it is named also from any peculiarities that it may present.
The late Mr. Thomas says that one man in the Melbourne district was named Ber-uke (kangaroo-rat), in consequence of a kangaroo-rat running through the miam at his birth. Poleeorong (cherry-tree) was so called because he was born under the shelter of a native cherry-tree. Weing-parn (fire and water) was so denominated in consequence of the miam catching fire and the fire being put out by water at the time of his birth. Wonga, the head-man of the Yarra tribe, was born at Wonga (Arthur's Seat), and thus has the name.
- ↑ A thousand cases of infanticide, recorded in the newspapers here and in European countries, far more disgusting in the details than any known to have disgraced the Aborigines of Australia, could be cited. The author of Sybil tells us that "Infanticide is practised as extensively and as legally in England as it is on the banks of the Ganges."
- ↑ "One remarkable custom prevalent equally amongst the most ancient nations of whom any records are preserved, and the modern Australians, is that of naming children from some circumstance connected with their birth or early infancy. Thus in Genesis, ch. XXX., ver. 11.—'And Leah said, A troop cometh, and she called his name Gad;' &c., &c., &c. "Burckhardt observed the same custom among the Bedouins, and says, 'A name is given to the infant immediately on his birth; the name is derived from some trifling accident, or from some object which had struck the fancy of the mother or any of the women present at the child's birth.'"—North-West and Western Australia, by George Grey, vol. II., p. 343. The child of a Kaffir is sometimes called by the name of the day on which it is born. If a wild beast, such as a lion or a jackal, were heard to roar at the time the child was born, the circumstance would be accepted as an omen, and the child called by the name of the beast or by a word which represents its cry. "Mr. Shooter mentions some rather curious examples of these names. If the animal which was heard at the time of the child's birth were the hyena, which is called impisi by the natives, the name of the child might be either U'mpisi or U-hu-hu, the second being an imitative sound representing the laugh-like cry of the hyena. … The name of Panda, the king of the Zulu tribes, is in reality U-mpande, a name derived from impande, a kind of root."—The Natural History of Man, by J. G. Wood, vol. I., p. 88. The Kaffir, like the Australian, has a strong objection to tell his real name to strangers.
