Suppose this young wife had saved the opossum for her husband. He
would then have eaten it and, in accordance with their universal
custom, have thrown her the bones to share with the dog. After that he
might have rubbed her with grease and indulged in sensual caresses.
Would that have proved his capacity for affection? Would you call a
mother affectionate who fondled her child, but allowed it to starve
while she gratified her own appetite? The only sure test of affection
lies in disinterested actions of self-sacrifice; and even actions may
sometimes mislead us. Thus several authors have been led into absurdly
erroneous conclusions by a horrible custom prevalent among the
natives, and thus described by Curr (I., 89):
"In some cases a woman is obliged by custom to roll up
the remains of her deceased child in a variety of rags,
making them into a package, which she carries about
with her for several months, and at length buries. On
it she lays her head at night, and the odor is so
horrible that it pervades the whole camp, and not
unfrequently costs the mother her life."
Angas (I., 75) refers to this custom and exclaims, rapturously, "Oh!
how strong is a mother's love when even the offensive and putrid clay
can be thus worshipped for the spirit that once was its tenant"(!!).
Angas was an uneducated scribbler, but what shall we say on finding
his sentimental view accepted by the professional German
anthropologists, Gerland (VI., 780) and Jung (109)? Anyone familiar
with Australian life must suspect at once that this custom is simply
one of the horrible modes of punishment devised for women. Curr says
the woman is "_obliged by custom_" to carry her dead child, and he
adds: "I believe that this practice is insisted on when a young mother
loses her first born, as the death of the child is thought to have
come about by carelessness." To suppose that Australian mothers who
usually kill all but two of their six or more children could be
capable of such an act for sentimental reasons is to show a logical
faculty on a par with the Australian's own. This point has already
been discussed, but a further instance related by Dr. Moorehouse (J.D.
Wood, 390), will bring the matter home:
"A female just born was thus about to be destroyed for
the benefit of a boy about four years old, whom the
mother was nourishing, while the father was standing
by, ready to commit the deed. Through the kindness of a
lady to whom the circumstances became known, and our
joint interference, this one life was saved, and the
child was properly attended to by the mother, although
she at first urged the necessity of its death as
strenuously as the father." "In other parts of the
country," Wood adds, "the women do the horrible work
themselves. They are not content with destroying the
life of the infants, but they eat them."