1. It is necessary first to explain what races will be considered. The

lower limit has already been made clear. As regards the upper limit,

some description has been given of the stage of Neolithic culture, and

the races to be considered here are those which may be in general

compared with the Neolithic races. The comparison can only be rough; as

we saw, the subsequent evolution of culture was rapid; metals came into

use, and, generally speaking, about the time of the first taking of

metals into use arose the first great empires. At this point we clearly

enter upon a new epoch and the upper limit in time is defined by the

rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization. We wish to study here the conditions

anterior to this step in the evolution of culture. It so happens that

this Eur-Asiatic culture has influenced in varying degrees many of the

races of Africa, Oceania, and Asia. The upper limit among the races to

be considered here is best defined by the degree to which they have been

influenced by this culture. America stands apart as there has clearly

been no influence of this culture upon the races in that continent. But

it should be remembered that in some places in America a degree of

culture was reached which was probably higher than that to which any

Neolithic race attained.[527] Nevertheless all the races of America not

already dealt with may be considered here. Many African races are

acquainted with the use of iron; it has been suggested that the

knowledge of the use of this metal originated in Africa; this, however,

is doubtful and the existence of this practice is probably to be

regarded as due to the spread of an element of Eur-Asiatic culture. The

use of the plough is also an example of the spread of an element of this

culture;[528] roughly speaking the use of the plough does not spread

towards the west, south of the latitude of Lake Chad; towards the east

it extends farther south, and on this account the Gallas, Somalis, and

Abyssinians can scarcely be considered as representative of the second

group of races.[529] The peculiarity of the Oceanic region is that many

of the races now found there undoubtedly migrated from some point on or

close to the Asiatic coast after Eur-Asiatic culture had reached a high

degree of development. Nevertheless they are for the most part ignorant

of the use of metal and of the plough.[530] The Dyaks are metal users

and the plough is known in parts of Borneo. We shall not on this

account, however, exclude the Dyaks from consideration here. The true

Malays on the other hand will be excluded; they are Mohammedans and,

originally located in Sumatra, spread in the twelfth century over a

large part of this area. On the fringe of Asia are a number of races

which, though in a broad survey are of no great importance, may be

noticed here. Such are the Ostiaks, Yakuts, Chuckchees, Samoyeds, and so

on.[531] What races are dealt with here may be made more clear by a

reference to those which will be considered in Chapters X and XI. In

those chapters we shall consider the ancient empires, the classical

races, mediaeval and modern Europe and its derivatives as well as the

chief races of Asia, whether pastoral such as the Arabs or existing by a

higher form of agriculture than that practised by the races to be

noticed here. In this manner we shall obtain a broad view of the

conditions both before and after the rise of Eur-Asiatic civilization.

It is obvious that we have before us a very large mass of material—too

large, in fact, to be dealt with without further subdivision. It might

seem that the only reasonable course is to distinguish between various

grades of agricultural progress, and to consider in turn those races

which fall into each grade. Such distinctions have been made by

Professor Hobhouse and his collaborators, who recognize three grades of

agriculture and two grades of pastoral nomadism. As has already been

indicated, we do not find any correlation between economic stages and

the factors bearing upon fertility and elimination. What we do find is a

certain correlation between these factors and large geographical areas,

and in what follows the races of the second group will be considered

according to the geographical areas in which they are situated, and not

according to the stage of economic progress which they have reached. The

areas selected are as follows. There is, in the first place, America;

secondly, there is Africa, and thirdly Oceania. The first two areas are,

on the whole, fairly homogeneous; though the third area is not so

homogeneous, the level of agricultural skill is fairly uniform—nearly

all these races falling into Hobhouse’s second grade. Lastly, there are

the Asiatic peoples among whom Eur-Asiatic culture has not penetrated;

many of them are inhabitants of the northern fringe of the continent. It

will be noticed that the pastoral races chiefly fall within the last

group. The so-called pastoral races of America—the Navahos, for

instance—have only acquired domestic animals since coming into contact

with Europeans. The pastoral races of Africa are with difficulty

distinguished from their neighbours, who also raise cattle but practise

some agriculture at the same time. It will thus be observed that this

mode of classification is, as a matter of fact, roughly in

correspondence with the mode of classification based upon the stage of

economic progress reached.

_America_

2. We have now to examine in turn the races of these four regions. The

procedure will be that followed when dealing with hunting and fishing

races. As before we begin with examples of intercourse before maturity.

This may take the form of marriage before puberty or of less regular

connexions. As Mr. Hartland says, ‘it would appear that sexual

intercourse before puberty is either recognized by a formal marriage or

tolerated as the gratification of a natural instinct among a great

variety of peoples in all quarters of the globe’.[532] It will be

sufficient here to note a few instances of this practice. Of the tribes

of Guatemala, Bancroft says that ‘marriages take place at an early age,

often before puberty’,[533] and the same would seem to be the case among

the Navahos.[534] Accounts of the great laxity of manners and of early

intercourse are given of some North American tribes—as, for instance, of

the Hurons and the Illinois by Charlevoix.[535] The same is also

commonly reported of the Brazilian tribes in such a manner as to leave

little doubt that intercourse before puberty is common among them.[536]

3. Generally speaking, throughout America lactation lasted two years or

more.[537] The suckling period indeed sometimes extended over several

years; thus among the Sioux it might be continued until the child was

five years old;[538] of the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco,

Hawtrey says that ‘it is customary to suckle children till five or six

years of age’;[539] Bancroft reports that a child might be suckled until

eight years old among the Chichmics.[540] Two years would appear to be

about the minimum; in Mexico[541] and Guiana[542] it was three years or

more. D’Orbigny gives three years,[543] and Forbes one or more, often

two, for the Aymara Indians.[544] In Mexico suckling was said to last

three or four years.[545]

4. With regard to postponement of marriage the facts are very similar to

those in respect to the races of the first group. As an almost universal

rule girls are married soon after puberty, if not before. There is no

postponement of marriage of a nature to affect fertility in any

noticeable manner. There is at times a certain postponement of marriage

among the male part of the population, and occasionally some evidence of

lifelong celibacy. This, however, has no bearing upon fertility; it is

of interest in another connexion, and we shall on that account return to

it later.

5. As noticed in the last chapter there are among nearly all primitive

races a number of occasions upon which sexual intercourse is prohibited.

Alone among these prohibitions, that against intercourse for some time

after the birth of a child is of importance as a factor bearing upon

fertility. We shall find that in Africa this prohibition becomes of very

great importance. The evidence as to the existence of this prohibition

in America is somewhat puzzling. In the last chapter two instances were

given in which intercourse during lactation was prohibited in two

hunting races. Both these instances are reported by authors who made

their observations many years ago when the customs of the American

Indians had been less modified by contact with white men than is the

case with most of the observations upon which we have to rely. We also

find that two other observers, who wrote more than a hundred years ago,

record the existence of this custom. It is not clear to what tribes

these remarks refer—whether to hunting peoples or to agricultural

peoples, or to both. Weld says: ‘They suckle the few children they have

for several years, during which time, at least among many of the tribes,

they avoid all connexion with their husbands.’[546] Heriot speaks of

‘the length of time employed by the women in rearing their children,

whom they nourish for three or four years, during which period they

cohabit not with their husbands’.[547] In addition to this evidence we

have the following records of the existence of this practice for various

agricultural races. Two eighteenth-century writers—Le Beau, speaking of

the Iroquois,[548] and Charlevoix of the Illinois[549]—state that

intercourse was prohibited during lactation. Speaking of the Crow tribe,

Holder mentions that abstention from intercourse during lactation was

observed.[550] In Mexico, according to Bancroft, the suckling period

lasted for three years or longer, and during this time there was often

no intercourse.[551] D’Orbigny says of the Moxos and Chiquitos that the

mother ‘invariably suckles her children for three years or more, during

which time she has no relations whatever with her husband’.[552] There

do not seem to be any denials of the existence of this practice except

in the following instance; in most individual cases there is no mention

of the practice. The exception referred to is in the case of the

Fuegians. Hyades and Deniker, referring to the statement of D’Orbigny

mentioned above, remark that sexual relations are resumed within two

months of the birth of a child among the Fuegians.[553] It is not

possible to arrive at any conclusion as to what the condition of affairs

was before the habits of the Indians had been much modified by contact

with white men. The fact, however, that the habit is definitely recorded

by various authors, who for the most part made their observations at a

time when the habits of these races were far less modified than when the

more detailed accounts were written from which these races are best

known, strongly suggests that this custom was formerly widespread.

There is no evidence of the use of any effective methods to prevent

fertilization. We are told that among the Shawnees ‘the girls drink the

juice of a certain herb which prevents conception, and often renders

them barren throughout life’.[554] But in those cases which have been

carefully investigated it would seem that such methods are not in fact

effective. Hrdlicka, for instance, referring to a number of tribes,

among whom are the Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos, Pimas, Nahua, Aztec, and

Uti, says that ‘there is a very general belief among the Indians visited

that sterility may be artificially induced’.[555] On investigation,

however, it was found that the substances used were quite ineffective.

6. Among agricultural, as among hunting and fishing races, we find

numerous references to the small average number of children in a family.

Speaking generally of the Indians of the North, Weld states that the

number of children is small,[556] and Le Beau that the number of

children born is less than in Europe.[557] Charlevoix comments on the

small size of the family among the Iroquois and attributes it to early

intercourse, abstention from intercourse during lactation, and to

prolonged lactation.[558] Catlin, whose experience was chiefly obtained

among the Mandans, has given the estimate quoted in the fourth

chapter,[559] and Holder’s estimate for the Crow tribe has also been

cited.[560] Of the Sioux we are told that ‘sterility among women is by

no means uncommon’,[561] and of the south-west Texas tribes ‘they are

not prolific—a woman seldom having more than three children’.[562] In

South America the facts are similar. Nordenskiöld visited the tribes

between Peru and Bolivia. ‘The families are not large,’ he says, ‘they

live in monogamy, and one sees in each family one to three children; in

the largest family that I saw (and that was among the Atsahuaca Indians)

there were four children.’[563] Of the Aymara Indians of the same

district we are told that ‘there seem to be but few large families—very

seldom more than four children, and often less than that number’.[564]

Spix and Martins, travelling in Brazil, ‘seldom saw more than four

children in a family’.[565] Azara was much impressed by the small number

of children that he observed in South America. He investigated the

matter among the Guaranis with particular care, and found that the

average number in a family was four.[566] Taking into account various

factors he came to the conclusion that the number of children born was

less than among the Spaniards.[567] Rengger, who also visited the

Guaranis, is of the same general opinion though he estimates the average

number in a family to be smaller than does Azara;[568] to the Guanas he

allows only two or at the most three children.[569] According to von

Martius the marriages of the Macusis ‘are not rich in children’.[570]

D’Orbigny carefully investigated the average number of children in a

family among the Moxos and Chiquitos; he found it to be roughly about

two in the case of the former and three in that of the latter. He

attributed the small number to early intercourse and also to abstention

from intercourse at certain periods.[571] Two is the average number of

children in a family of the tribes of the Upper Hualaga, and marriages

are often sterile.[572]

7. We have now to examine the extent of the practices of abortion and

infanticide; with regard to the former, we may repeat what was said

above—namely, that there is every reason to suppose the methods used are

usually effective. Among the Sioux, Keating says that ‘married females

frequently obtain miscarriages with the knowledge and consent of their

husband’;[573] this fact is confirmed by Schoolcraft.[574] It was very

common in the Crow tribe.[575] In a report upon the tribes of the

South-western United States and Northern Mexico, Hrdlicka states that

‘artificial abortion is practised by all the tribes visited’.[576] The

tribes visited include, among others, the Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos,

Pimas, Nahua, Otommi, and Aztec. The Pima Indians practised abortion if

conception took place before the previous child had been weaned; the

suckling period among these people lasted until the child was six or

seven years old.[577] The habit is recorded of the Menomini tribe and of

the Zunis, though it is rare among the latter.[578] Among the Cheyennes

‘it has long been the custom that a woman should not have a second child

until her first is ten years old’.[579] Abortion is not mentioned in

this case, but in view of the widespread prevalence of this custom,

abortion is presumably the means used to bring about this result. In

Mexico[580] and throughout South America abortion was commonly employed.

‘The use of the means of abortion is common and explains the small

number of children’, says Karl von den Steinen of the Bakairi.[581] It

is especially frequent in Brazil and among the Indians of the

Chaco.[582]

8. Compared with the prevalence of abortion, infanticide was not very

common among the agricultural tribes of the northern half of the

Continent. It was occasionally practised among the Sioux, and more girls

were killed than boys.[583] Of the Creeks it is said that ‘to destroy a

new-born infant is not uncommon’.[584] It was common among the

Pimas.[585] Infanticide is usually confined to the killing of deformed

children, and in this form it is recorded of the Apaches, Mohaves,

Navahos, Zuni, and the Tepecano.[586] Infanticide is more common in

South America. It is found in Brazil among the Guanas[587] and the

Mbayas.[588] The former are said to kill more girls than boys. It is

also practised to a considerable extent in the Chaco. ‘Infanticide is

quite common among the Lenguas, an interval of seven or eight years

being always observable between children of the same family.’[589] Grubb

states that the first child is always killed if a girl.[590] The killing

of deformed children is reported from many parts, including Dutch

Guiana[591] and Peru.[592]

9. War plays no less a part in the lives of the agricultural than of the

hunting tribes in America. It was perhaps more murderous among the

famous tribes of the Atlantic coast and the great plains than anywhere

else except possibly Brazil. ‘As all nations of the Indians in their

natural condition’, says Catlin, ‘are unceasingly at war with the tribes

that are about them, for the adjustment of ancient and never ending

feuds, as well as from a love of glory, to which in Indian life the

battlefield is almost the only road, their warriors are killed off to

that extent, that in many instances two and sometimes three women to a

man are found in a tribe.’[593] Another author, himself a member of the

tribe, describes the manner in which the young Ojebway Indian is brought

up to regard war as his chief object in life. ‘When they are young a

spirit of war is instilled into their bosom; and in order to excite them

to courage and ambition, the parents and the old wise men recount to

them the wonderful exploits of the braves in former days, such as a

single warrior stealing up secretly to a village, killing a number of

the enemy, taking off their scalps, and making his escape before the

remainder were apprised of the slaughter.’[594] So again, ‘among the

earliest songs to which a Dacotah child listens are those of war. As

soon as he begins to totter about, he carries as a plaything a miniature

bow and arrow. The first thing he is taught as great and truly noble is

taking a scalp, and he wants to perform an act which is so manly. At the

age of sixteen he is often on the warpath.’[595]

The neighbouring tribes maintained feuds that must have been the cause

of a regular and by no means inconsiderable amount of elimination. The

Crows were at war with the Blackfeet,[596] the Sioux with the

Ojebway,[597] the Minnetanes with the Shoshones.[598] The Sioux are said

to have killed women.[599] Farther south the Yuchi and other members of

the Creek Confederacy were very warlike.[600] The Pueblo Indians were

more peaceful, though they were subject to vigorous and frequent attacks

from the Apache and other neighbours.[601] The wars undertaken by the

empires of Mexico and Peru were of rather a different nature. Both

states pursued a regular policy of aggression towards the less advanced

peoples who surrounded them. These wars partook more of the nature of

raids upon the weaker nations for the purpose of robbery than of great

sporting contests, as were on the whole the wars of the northern tribes.

Throughout South America warfare seems to have been a regular feature of

inter-tribal relation. It was usually very sanguinary. According to

Wallace the Mandrucos fight with their neighbours every year.[602] Much

the same is reported by Church of the Araras, Mogos, Masas, and other

tribes of the Amazon basin,[603] and also by White of the north-western

regions of the southern half of the Continent.[604] The peoples of the

Chaco were formerly at continual war with the Guaranis.[605]

10. There are frequent references to blood feuds in the accounts of

these races. Blood feuds are only to be with difficulty distinguished

from warfare; feuds between man and man and between family and family

merge into those feuds between tribes that are called warfare. It will

be sufficient here to note that a considerable amount of elimination

must among certain tribes arise from that peculiar form of blood feud

which is connected with the belief that natural death is caused by some

enemy. In Guiana ‘a person dies and it is supposed that an enemy has

secured the agency of an evil spirit to compass his death. Some

sorcerer, employed by the friends of the deceased for that purpose,

pretends by his incantations to discover the guilty individual or

family, or at any rate to indicate the quarter where they dwell. A near

relative of the deceased is then charged with the work of vengeance....

If the supposed offender cannot be slain, some innocent member of his

family—man, woman, or little child—must suffer instead.’[606] The Uaupes

of the upper waters of the Rio Negro ‘scarcely seem to think that death

can occur naturally, always imputing it either to direct poisoning or to

the charms of some enemy, and on this supposition will proceed to

revenge it. This they generally do by poison.’[607] It is difficult to

ascertain how far these beliefs are acted upon; it seems nevertheless

clear that among certain tribes a considerable amount of elimination

must be attributed to this source.

11. It is not necessary to repeat here what was said in the former

chapter with regard to disease. Our conclusion was that in all

probability most diseases did not evolve until at or about the beginning

of the third period. We therefore regard this source of elimination as

of relatively small importance among the races of this group whether in

America or elsewhere. We may note a few examples of the evidence to the

effect that these races were formerly on the whole remarkably healthy

and long-lived. Catlin says that the Mandans were ‘undoubtedly a longer

lived and healthier race’ than most civilized peoples.[608] According to

Le Beau the Iroquois were ‘practically never ill’; in spite of a climate

that he himself found trying, ‘they were’ he says, ‘nearly all strong

and robust’, and had few diseases.[609] ‘On the whole, the Yuchi, men,

women, and children, are a remarkably healthy set of people.’[610] The

Shawnees are ‘very healthy and are exempt from many diseases’.[611] Spix

and Martius, with their extensive knowledge of the Indians of Brazil,

say in general that ‘the Indians are seldom sick and generally live to

an advanced age’.[612]

12. There is among the agricultural races of America as among the

hunting races, and, as we shall see, among all primitive races, a very

high rate of child mortality. As before we find the chief causes to be

lack of knowledge, lack of care, lack of suitable food and surroundings,

and certain peculiar customs.[613] It is not necessary to review the

evidence in detail. Of the Sioux we are told that ‘many die in infancy

caused by exposure’.[614] Another observer uses the same phrase, and

adds that ‘their mothers, to inure them to suffering and to strengthen

their constitution, do not take all the necessary care of them’.[615]

Lumholtz attributes child mortality in part to the eating of unsuitable

food.[616] Not only in North America but also in Brazil are new-born

children regularly dipped in cold water.[617]

_Africa_

13. Pre-puberty intercourse is common throughout Africa both in the form

of recognized early marriage and of irregular but tolerated early sexual

relations. Among the Cross River natives ‘until she reach the age of

puberty, a girl is permitted by her parents and by her betrothed to go

about freely and have as many lovers as she pleases’.[618] A

considerable proportion of marriages among the Ibo-speaking people of

Nigeria take place before puberty.[619] In the Congo districts the habit

is specially common.[620] Sexual relations commence early among the

Bushongo; after reaching the age of puberty ‘a girl is not supposed to

have further sexual relations before marriage’.[621] It is also recorded

by van Overbergh of the Mangbetu,[622] by Delhaise of the Warego,[623]

by de Rochebrune of the Onolove.[624] Speaking of the Bangala, Weeks

says that ‘above the age of five years it would be impossible to find a

girl who was a virgin’.[625] ‘The sexual morality of the Bahuana is

conspicuous by its absence; the unmarried indulge as they please from a

very early age, and the girls before puberty.’[626] Torday and Joyce,

who are responsible for this statement, speak very similarly of the

Bambala,[627] and du Chaillu of the Mpongwe.[628] The Masai and the

Nandi in East Africa have a regularized system of intercourse before

puberty.[629] It also occurs among the tribes inhabiting the Baringo

district[630] and among the Swaheli.[631] Children of the Wapagoro, in

what was German East Africa, are brought together by their parents when

about seven years of age, and are separated for a period when

menstruation begins—that is to say, about three years later.[632]

Pre-puberty marriage was formerly very prevalent among the Makonde[633]

and the Wanjamuesi[634] of the same district. ‘As regards the little

girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chastity before

puberty is an unknown condition. Before a girl is become a woman it is a

matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl

remains a virgin after about five years of age.’[635] Similar testimony

is given by Stannus[636] and by Maugham[637] for the same district.

14. The suckling period would appear to last nearer three than two years

on the average. A few examples may be given. Ewe-speaking people, two or

three years;[638] Yoruba-speaking people, three years;[639] the Tenda,

two and a half to three years;[640] in Liberia, three or four

years;[641] the Kagero, two to three and sometimes five years;[642] the

Hausa, two years;[643] the Bushongo, two years;[644] in the Congo Basin,

at least two years on the average;[645] the Mangbetu, a year and a half

or longer;[646] in West Africa, on the average two to three years;[647]

the Mayombe, two years or longer;[648] in Uganda, at least two

years;[649] the Nandi, two years;[650] the Kuku, three years;[651] the

Wamakonde, Wakaua, and Wamuera, three years;[652] the Baganda, three

years;[653] the Wadschagga, two years[654] the Wanjamuesi, two to three

years;[655] the Wazaramo, two to three years;[656] the Baronga, three

years;[657] in the Madi district of Central Africa, three years;[658] in

South Africa, two years, according to Lichtenstein,[659] frequently

until three years, according to Kidd.[660]

15. There is little or no evidence of any postponement of marriage among

girls. The facts with regard to men will be given later. According to

Denham and Clapperton, girls in Bornu ‘rarely marry until they are

fourteen or fifteen; often not so young’.[661] Among the Bangala, girls

marry at the age of sixteen to eighteen.[662] ‘In the primitive Bantu

tribe every girl gets married, some, however, sooner than others.’[663]

The average age at marriage among girls south of Lake Nyassa is

fifteen.[664] ‘For the whole of the Bantu tribes south of the Limpopo

the average [age at marriage for girls] would probably be between

fifteen and sixteen.’[665]

16. Throughout the negroid and Bantu races of Africa sexual intercourse

is almost invariably prohibited for some time after child-birth. As a

rule the prohibition holds good so long as suckling lasts, and this we

have seen to mean more nearly three than two years. In some cases the

period is shorter, and there are instances where it only endures for a

few months. There are also very rare examples of the exact

opposite—namely, of a prohibition against breaking off intercourse. As

the evidence given below shows, to this custom we must attribute very

great importance.

A Ewe-speaking woman ‘may not admit the male ... while suckling’.[666]

Among the Yoruba-speaking people ‘during the period of lactation the

wife must not cohabit with her husband’.[667] Intercourse during the

suckling period is prohibited by the Kagero,[668] the Hausa,[669] and in

Benin.[670] In the Warri district of the Niger Protectorate it is

‘customary for a woman to avoid cohabitation with her husband for nearly

three years after pregnancy’.[671] Mungo Park, who travelled through

this district, observed that ‘three years’ nursing is not uncommon, and

during this period the husband devotes his whole attention to his other

wives’.[672] Other authors record similar facts for other West African

races. The Moioa abstain for four years,[673] the Gallinas until the

child can talk and walk,[674] the Hobbés during lactation;[675] Nassau,

speaking generally of the Cameroon district, mentions three years,[676]

and Reade, speaking of Ashanti, mentions the period of lactation.[677]

With regard to the Congo district, Cureau,[678] Johnston,[679] and

Ward[680] mention prohibition during the suckling period. Among the

Bangala ‘during the suckling period the husband has no sexual relations

with his wife, or the child will become thin and weak and probably

die’.[681] Another account of the same people mentions two years as the

length of the period.[682] Prohibition during lactation is also recorded

of the Mayombe,[683] the Ababua,[684] and the Bayaka.[685] Intercourse

is only resumed among the Mandja[686] and the Warega[687] when the child

can walk. The Adio of the Upper Congo region form a curious exception;

soon after birth intercourse again takes place; if it did not, the child

would die, since the father would thereby show no affection for the

mother.[688] The Kuku only interrupt intercourse for three or four

months,[689] although suckling lasts three years,[690] and among the

Nandi prohibition only extends over a period of three months,[691] while

lactation lasts two years.[692] Similarly ‘among the Awa-Wanga many

believe that within five or six days of the birth of a child the parents

must cohabit or the child will die’.[693]

The last-mentioned cases are rare exceptions; the customs that we saw to

be normal in the west of Africa are also normal elsewhere in Africa. In

Uganda ‘a woman must live apart from her husband for two years, at which

time the children are weaned’.[694] A Baganda woman ‘lived apart from

her husband for three years while nursing her child’.[695] When a woman

in the region of the Rovuma river ‘bears a child she lives completely

apart from her husband till the child is able to speak, as otherwise it

is believed that harm, if not death, would come to the infant’.[696] A

year is mentioned as the length of the prohibited period among the

Swaheli,[697] and the duration of lactation as the period among the

tribes of the Baringo district[698] and among the Wanjamuesi.[699] On

the other hand the prohibited period is short among some of the tribes

of what was German East Africa; it is two months in Konde-land,[700]

three months among the Wapagoro,[701] and ‘a few months’ among the

Wagogo.[702] In British Central Africa the wife does not resume sexual

intercourse with her husband for two years, unless she is the only wife,

when six months to one year is allowed to elapse.[703] In the Miri

district the period is six months, although suckling lasts for two

years,[704] and the same is recorded of the Atonga.[705] Speaking of

Baronga, Junod says that there is no cohabitation until the child is

weaned, and mentions that this is so among all the Bantu races of South

Africa,[706] Kidd confirms Junod’s statement, and says that most Kaffir

women live in strict seclusion from their husbands while they are

suckling their children, which frequently lasts for three years.[707] In

Loango the suckling period is the prohibited period.[708]

17. Among the races hitherto surveyed there is no evidence of the

existence of any practice that renders sexual intercourse fruitless.

There are numerous instances of magical practices that are supposed to

have this result, but we have no reason to think that any of them are

effective. In Africa we again meet with similar magical practices, and

we must similarly account them to be without effect. In this area,

however, we also meet with for the first time practices of quite a

different nature. Many races in different parts of the Continent are

acquainted with means of preventing fertilization. It is not necessary

to describe how this end is achieved.[709] Any one who is interested in

the subject can turn to Junod’s account. The methods employed in other

parts of Africa are apparently similar to those there described.

Knowledge of these methods extends throughout South Africa,[710] the

Congo,[711] what was formerly German East Africa,[712] and probably

elsewhere. Generally speaking this practice is employed under two

different circumstances; measures may be taken to prevent conception by

those who are not married and who do not wish to be married for some

time; they may also be used by married people under certain

circumstances, as for example by parents in the Thonga tribe who may

have intercourse when the child begins to crawl, but who must avoid

conception until the child is weaned.[713] Again, young married couples

in the neighbourhood of Port Herald live in a special house so long as

they are unable to build a house for themselves, and during this time no

children must be conceived.[714]

18. Almost without exception the average number of children is

everywhere recorded as small. Mungo Park, referring apparently to the

Mandingoes, says that ‘few women have more than five or six

children’.[715] In Northern Nigeria, four to five is given as the

maximum number.[716] Talbot collected some statistics for the Ekoi

people; the average number born to sixty-one married women was 4·3.[717]

‘The marriages’, says Burton of the Egbas, ‘are not very prolific’.[718]

Assinien women very exceptionally have more than six children, according

to Mondière:[719] in Liberia families are said to be small.[720] Among

the Bangala ‘it is rare for a woman to have more than two or three

children’;[721] another observer, speaking of the same people, remarks

that ‘there was much sterility’.[722] Cureau, speaking generally of the

tribes of the Congo Basin, says that families are small.[723] Kuku women

bear three children on the average.[724] The number of children is given

as three to five for the Baholoholo,[725] three to four for the

Bambala,[726] and the same for the Warega;[727] among the Mangbetu

families are not large,[728] while ‘on an average a Bayaka woman bears

three children; families of more than four are rare’.[729] Turning to

the races of the eastern side of the Continent we find that the average

Swaheli family is given as consisting of two children.[730] Figures have

been collected concerning forty-nine families of the Akikuyu, from which

it appears that the average number of children is between three and

five.[731] The Bakene women ‘are, as a rule, strong and healthy and have

children, though few of them ever have so many as six, three being the

average number for each wife’.[732] Two or three—at the most

five—children are born to the Wanjamuesi mother.[733] Among the tribes

south of Lake Nyassa ‘the average number of children in a family is

three to five’.[734] The Makalaka ‘race is not prolific, and the

women ... seldom bear more than an average of three children.’[735]

Lastly, the Hottentots have ‘seldom more than two or three children’,

and ‘many of the women are barren’,[736] while similarly in Madagascar

the natives ‘do not, as a rule, have large families, and a considerable

portion is childless’.[737]

19. Abortion is practised by many races in various parts of Africa.

Among the Tenda people married women rarely practise abortion, unmarried

women more frequently;[738] Tremearne mentions it in speaking of some of

the Nigerian tribes.[739] It appears to be on the whole more common in

the Congo district than elsewhere in Africa. ‘The practice of provoking

abortion is a very common one throughout Congoland (though ignored, for

example, by the Bayaka), but most of all in the North and Centre.’[740]

With regard to particular races in this district, we find abortion

mentioned as common among the Bangala,[741] Bahuana,[742] Warega,[743]

Ababua,[744] and Onolove[745]; it exists but is less common among the

Mangbetu,[746] and the Bushongo.[747] In what was German South-west

Africa abortion is very frequently employed.[748] It would appear to be

less frequently practised in the eastern half of the Continent. It is

known among the Akamba[749] and the Swaheli.[750] In what was formerly

the German Nyassa district[751] and in British Central Africa it is said

to be not uncommon[752]; the same is said of the Zambezi Valley.[753]

Abortion is ‘almost universally practised by all classes of female in

Kaffir society’.[754] It is mentioned in connexion with Madagascar.[755]

20. Almost every tribe throughout Africa kills children under certain

circumstances which they believe to be unpropitious. Examples of such

circumstances are peculiarities in the process of birth, the birth of

twins, or the cutting of the upper teeth before the lower. Motherless

children are also sometimes killed. The cumulative effect of these

habits cannot be considerable, and we may disregard them. It is an

almost invariable rule that infanticide—in the sense in which we use the

term when speaking of the Australians—is unknown in Africa. The only

exceptions are to be found among the Hottentots and in Madagascar—in

both cases the races practising infanticide not being of Negroid or

Bantu stock. The former are said to have killed their female children

fairly frequently;[756] in Madagascar infanticide was very common.[757]

Among the various unpropitious circumstances mentioned above, there is

one which is widely recognized in Africa, and which is of interest to

us. Children who are abnormal or deformed are nearly always killed.

Among other instances this practice is recorded of the Hausa,[758]

Kagero,[759] the Congo tribes generally—the Fangs being especially

mentioned in this respect[760]—the Mandja,[761] the Basonge,[762] the

Ababua,[763] the Bushongo,[764] the Wanika,[765] the Wakamba,[766] in

the Lenda district,[767] in the Lind Hinterland,[768] in British Central

Africa,[769] in Portuguese East Africa,[770] among the Kaffirs[771] and

the Hottentots.[772]

21. The nature and frequency of warfare varies very greatly in different

parts of the Continent. Although among some few tribes and in some

districts war is as murderous as in America, it is on the whole far less

effective as an agent of elimination than in that country. The position

is somewhat complicated by the fact that the more northern Negroid races

have long been in contact with Hamitic and Semitic tribes; the latter

have made war on the former and greatly influenced the history of the

Negroid races. Movements have been set on foot and passed like waves

over the whole Continent.

War is not a very serious matter among the Gallinas of Sierra Leone[773]

or the Ewe-speaking people of Togoland.[774] It was very different in

Dahomey[775] and Benin;[776] the Amazons of the former region have often

been described.[777] Tremearne gives an account of the head hunters of

Nigeria, whose habits must have been the cause of a great deal of

elimination.[778] Throughout the whole of this region, especially in

Ashanti[779] and Benin, human sacrifice is practised on a large scale,

and results in a considerable loss of life.[780] Passing farther south

towards the Congo region, we find that warfare is a moderately important

factor of elimination.[781] Weeks describes family, town, and district

fights—the last two developing out of the former; considerable loss of

life and material damage appears to follow.[782] Du Chaillu describes

what he calls ‘blood feuds’ in the Shekiani tribe; ‘frequently a dozen

villages are involved, ... the killing and robbing goes on for months

and even for years’.[783] Again, ‘when war has rarely broken out in the

country [of the Bakalai] there is no rest or safety. No man or woman in

any village can take a step in any direction, day or night, without fear

of death.... At last whole districts are depopulated; those who are not

killed desert their villages.’[784] Burrows, describing the tribes of

the Upper Welle district, says that they all live ‘in a perpetual state

of internecine warfare’.[785] War and human sacrifice have a perceptible

effect upon the numbers of the Banyala;[786] fighting is frequent among

the Bambala, but is not very sanguinary.[787] Of the Bahuana we hear

that ‘wars are frequent, and in some cases last for years’,[788] of the

Bayaka that, though ‘frequent’, wars ‘do not seem to have any

appreciable effect upon the population’.[789] The Baganda are a warlike

people, and fighting occurs yearly with the neighbouring tribes. Though

a regular cause of the loss of life, such wars are not so serious as the

intermittent civil wars ‘which also broke out from time to time in

Uganda between rival princes who laid claim to the throne. These latter

wars were by far the most disastrous that could happen to the country;

and during the few weeks they lasted, untold damage was done and a great

loss of life took place.’[790] In this district the presence of the

Masai tribe was a continuous source of murderous war.[791] Among the

Akanda ‘no warriors but those who had killed a Masai were supposed to be

able to marry’;[792] between the Akikuyu and the Masai perpetual war was

waged.[793] Of the tribes of the Baringo district it is said that they

are all good fighters, and that war is a sanguinary affair.[794] The

pastoral Bahima are, on the other hand, a peaceable people.[795] ‘It is

doubtful whether (in Central Africa) great loss of life occurs in any of

the wars among the natives.’[796] In South Africa the military qualities

of the Zulus are well known; all through this region in former days

warfare was regularly waged, and was a constant source of

elimination.[797] Of the Hottentots we hear that the tribes ‘were

constantly at war with each other’;[798] from another account it would

seem that the fighting was neither very prolonged nor sanguinary.[799]

22. Belief in witchcraft as the cause of death is common throughout

Africa; furthermore as a result of this belief the supposed offender is

often slain. There seems to be no doubt that among many tribes this

factor of elimination is of some importance. Speaking of Kalabar,

Hutchinson says: ‘They cannot believe, or at least they will not try to

understand, how natural causes create diseases, but attribute them and

subsequent death to “ifod” or witchcraft. Hence a plan is adopted to

find out the perpetrator by fixing on a number of persons, and

compelling them as the alternative of the Egbo law of decapitation, to

take a quantity of a poisonous nut, which is supposed to be innocuous if

the accused be innocent, and to be fatal if guilty.’[800] Even among the

relatively advanced Baganda, ‘death from natural causes rarely presented

itself to the native mind as a feasible explanation for the end of life;

illness was much more likely to be the result of malice finding vent in

magical art’.[801] Torday mentions the Bayaka as an exception to the

general rule in that they accept illness as a cause of death, though

‘trials for witchcraft are not unknown’.[802] Though the belief is

widespread that the cause of death is to be sought in magic, the amount

of elimination varies considerably from place to place. Formerly in

British Central Africa ‘it was so general that deaths due to it were in

the larger villages matters of daily occurrence’.[803] Among the South

African tribes ‘the number of persons who perished on charges of dealing

with witchcraft was very great’.[804] In West Africa it was undoubtedly

common.[805] For the Congo district, Burrows[806] and Du Chaillu,[807]

for Central Africa, Werner[808] and Macdonald,[809] for South Africa,

Junod,[810] and for Madagascar, Parker,[811] bring similar evidence.

Speaking of the Congo region, Weeks says that three forms of death are

recognized; (1) by act of God; (2) by another’s witchcraft; (3) by one’s

own witchcraft. Thus to die by the swamping of a canoe is a case of the

first, to die by being swamped and eaten by a crocodile is an example of

the second, because ‘no crocodile will upset a canoe unless told to do

so by a witch’. Deaths from the second cause and executions following

upon them appear to be frequent.[812]

23. With respect to disease the African races are in a somewhat

different position when compared with the other races of this group.

Owing to the fact that they have never been wholly cut off from

Eur-Asiatic civilization, some diseases have penetrated among them which

are not found, for instance, among the American agricultural races who

were cut off from the rest of mankind long before the origin of the

third period. It is a very difficult matter to decide what diseases are

African in origin and what diseases have found their way into Africa

from the north. It is possible that sleeping sickness and black-water

fever are African in origin. It is certain, however, that most of the

diseases which cause a large amount of elimination among the African

races at the present time have been imported from Asia. Among the latter

are dengue fever, small-pox, bubonic plague, cholera, Asiatic relapsing

fever, dysentery, typhus, and syphilis.[813] Nevertheless in spite of

the fact that disease is of more importance in Africa than in America,

there is a considerable amount of evidence to the effect that upon the

whole before the advent of the white man the African races were healthy

and long-lived. Thus Theal says that the Bantu races of South Africa

were formerly ‘subject to few diseases’,[814] and Roscoe, that the

Baganda ‘were happy and healthy before the introduction of European

civilization’.[815] In earlier days the Basuto were remarkable for their

healthiness;[816] they lived to a great age. We are also told that the

Hottentots suffered from few diseases.[817]

24. We find many records of a high death-rate among children.

Undoubtedly this is largely due nowadays to diseases that have been

introduced into Africa within the last few hundred years. The evidence

seems to show, however, that, when we discount this factor, child

mortality is still high, and is due to ignorance and want of care on the

part of the mother. Both Harris[818] and Talbot,[819] speaking of West

Africa, remark upon the high rate of infant mortality, and connect it

with want of care. ‘As soon as an infant is able to walk, it is

permitted to run about with great freedom,’ says Mungo Park.[820]

According to Du Chaillu, ‘they know nothing scarcely of the care of

children, and lose a great proportion through mistake in treatment in

infancy’.[821] In the Congo region, ‘that a great portion of the

children die—once they are born—is evident from the Baptist Mission

records, extending over more than twenty years. This is chiefly due to

unsuitable, indigestable, or insufficient food. Grenfell has some notes

on the preposterous attempts to feed infants a few weeks old with manioc

paste.’[822] Among the Mangbetu many children die, ‘as they are left to

look after themselves at about two or three years of age’.[823]

Weeks[824] and van Overbergh[825] also record high infant mortality for

other tribes of this region. It is interesting to observe that Delhaise,

speaking of the Warega—an isolated and primitive people—says that

disease is rare among the children, though the death-rate is high.[826]

According to Gutmann, many children die in infancy among the Wadschagga,

owing to the very unsuitable methods of feeding. A mother takes food

from her mouth and presses it into that of her child.[827] Similarly a

high infant death-rate and want of care is recorded of the Zulus,[828]

Basutos,[829] and Kaffir[830] races generally.

_Oceania_

25. Intercourse before the age of puberty is not very common among the

races of Oceania. In New Zealand, however, it was frequent. ‘It often

happened that a girl would have intercourse with a youth before she

arrived at puberty. At times marriage took place and was consummated at

this early age.’[831] This state of things is confirmed by several other

authors.[832] Dumas says it formerly occurred in Hawaii,[833] and from

an account given by Kubary it seems to have been practised in the Pelew

Islands.[834] Although Brainne does not actually say so, his account

seems clearly to indicate that intercourse occurs before puberty in New

Caledonia,[835] and the same may be deduced from Codrington’s account of

Banks’s Island[836] and from Danks’s description of the marriage customs

of the New Britain group.[837] Krieger mentions pre-puberty intercourse

in British New Guinea,[838] while Murray says that among the Baru and

other tribes girls are married when between seven and ten years old,

adding that marriage is consummated immediately.[839] According to

Seligman among the Sinaugolo ‘connection often takes place before

menstruation is established’.[840] The same is reported as occurring

among the Javanese[841] and very occasionally among the Topebatos of

Celebes.[842]

26. The average length of the suckling period would seem to be at least

two years and is probably longer. A few facts may be given. In Samoa it

lasts two years,[843] in the Solomon Islands two years or more,[844] in

New Caledonia more than three years,[845] in Fiji two or three

years,[846] in the Bismarck Archipelago often up to three years,[847] in

what was German New Guinea about three years,[848] in Sarawak three to

five years,[849] among the Bontoc Igorot slightly less than two

years,[850] and among the Ainu four or five years.[851]

27. Of postponement of marriage among girls there is again practically

no evidence. In the Society Islands girls were married when between

twelve and sixteen years of age.[852] In the Western Islands of the

Torres Straits girls marry a few years younger than the men, of whom the

age of marriage is given as between twenty and twenty-five.[853] Very

occasionally, as in the above cases, there would seem to be some

insignificant postponement of marriage. In general, however, it is clear

that practically all women are married from the beginning of and

throughout the mature period.

28. The important taboo upon sexual intercourse for a period after

child-birth is common. The Maori cease to cohabit ‘after child-birth

till the child is weaned’.[854] ‘Throughout the Western Islands (of the

Torres Straits) cohabitation ceases early in pregnancy and is not

resumed for some time, the baby sleeping between the husband and wife.

This restriction is in force in Maburag until the child spontaneously

endeavours to move about. As a matter of fact another child is seldom

born until the previous one is some three or four years old.’[855] In

Savage Island ‘the child was usually suckled about twelve months, during

which period there was strict sexual abstention between the

parents’.[856] According to Kubary the prohibited period lasted ten

months in the Pelew Islands,[857] and according to Krämer, six months in

Samoa.[858] A married woman among the Sinaugola ‘is supposed to forego

cohabitation during the period of suckling’.[859] In the neighbourhood

of Finschafen in New Guinea, intercourse is not resumed until the child

can walk and speak.[860] With regard to the Solomon Islands, Ribbe

speaks of a ‘long period’ of prohibition;[861] with reference to New

Caledonia, Glaumont speaks of several months[862] and another observer

of a considerable time in this connexion.[863] ‘After the birth of a

child (in the Bismarck Archipelago) the husband was not supposed to

cohabit with his wife until the child could walk.’[864] ‘During the

whole of this time [two or three years], unless he had more than one

wife, a Fijian was obliged to lead a life of celibacy.’[865] The same

author says that ‘in Tonga and the Gilbert Islands the separation is

rigidly enforced’.[866] Another account places the length of the period

of separation in Fiji at three or ‘even four years’.[867]

29. Here, as elsewhere, we find numerous references to practices

intended to render conception impossible. A good example is found in

Seligman’s account of the Sinaugolo. ‘There is generally a woman in the

village or one of the surrounding villages who is supposed to be gifted

with a power inherited from her mother of causing women to become

“hageabani”, literally incapable of having more children. Suppose that a

woman considers that she has had enough children, she will by stealth

seize an opportunity of consulting such a woman and will pay for

services. The woman gifted with the power sits down behind and as close

as possible to her patient, over whose abdomen she makes passes while

muttering incomprehensible charms. At the same time herbs or roots are

burnt, the smoke of which the patient inhales.’[868] Such practices are

obviously purely magical, and are quite ineffective. There are many

definite statements with regard to particular races that no effective

practices are known. In a few cases it is asserted that conception can

be and is prevented. Krieger, for instance, says that in what was German

New Guinea methods of preventing conception are known.[869] Pfeil gives

a circumstantial account of a method said to be employed in New

Ireland.[870] It seems clear, nevertheless, that the prevention of

conception can be of but little importance in this region.

30. There is the same remarkable unanimity of evidence with regard to

the small average size of families in Oceania as elsewhere. In New

Zealand ‘families are usually small in number’.[871] According to

Dieffenbach, ‘families are not large; there are rarely more than two or

three children’,[872] while Brown says ‘they have very few children.

Large families are never seen among them; perhaps two would be a high

average compared with the number of marriages.’[873] There are rarely

more than three children in a family in the Western Islands of the

Torres Straits;[874] in the Eastern Islands the number varies from two

to six, leaving childless marriages out of account.[875] In the Sandwich

Islands the average is said to be three.[876] ‘There were few instances

of large families’ in Samoa; ‘four or five would be the average.’[877]

Three is said to be the average among the Aru Islanders,[878] while in

the Pelew Islands marriages are reported to be often childless.[879] ‘I

have never known’, says Melville of the Marquesas, ‘of more than two

youngsters living together in the same home, and but seldom even that

number.’[880] Tautain, who collected some figures for these islands,

found the birth-rate to be very low.[881] In the Kingsmill Islands ‘a

woman seldom has more than two children, and never more than

three’.[882] Dr. Seligman is under the impression that ‘childless

marriages are not very uncommon’ among the Koitu and Motu of New

Guinea;[883] and Stone says of the latter that ‘as a rule their progeny

is not numerous’.[884] Krieger remarks upon the small families in New

Guinea, attributing the fact to abortion and infanticide.[885] In the

Bismarck Archipelago ‘families as a rule are not very large.... A large

number of the women have no children.’[886] Three is the average number

in New Ireland; a family of four or five is considered large.[887] In

New Caledonia there are seldom more than three in a family.[888] Fijian

women are not prolific.[889] Ling Roth, surveying the literature of

Sarawak, notes that the small size of the families has often been

remarked upon, and quotes the statements of Houghton and Whitehead.[890]

According to the former, ‘in general there are more than two children in

a family; on an average three or four, very seldom only one child’. ‘The

families of the natives’, says Whitehead, ‘are very small; in one or two

instances I have known them to contain eight or more by one mother, but

many women have only three or four, most one or two children; and it is

by no means uncommon to find them childless.’ Brooke estimated ‘four or

five births to every married woman’.[891] Wallace was impressed by the

same fact, and took some pains to investigate the matter. ‘From

inquiries at almost every Dyak tribe I visited, I ascertained that the

women had rarely more than three or four children, and an old chief

assured me that he had never known a woman have more than seven.’[892]

So, too, according to Bock, ‘a Dyak family seldom consists of more than

three or four children’.[893] Hagen estimates four children born per

fertile married woman as the average among the Orang Kubu of

Sumatra;[894] while Marsden, writing in the eighteenth century, was

struck by the small average fertility; ‘women are by nature unprolific’

in Sumatra, was his opinion.[895] Two or three is the average in

Nias;[896] ‘the average number of persons in one family in Java, where

it is perhaps as large, if not larger than elsewhere, is estimated at

only four or four and a half’.[897] Kreutz has compiled some figures for

Celebes. He makes two and a half children to be the average per married

woman among the Tolage and four among the Topebatos.[898] The Ainus ‘are

not at all prolific’;[899] while according to another author, ‘not many

children are born, usually three or four’.[900]

31. Abortion and infanticide are common, and there are many places where

both practices are employed. Abortion is often spoken of among the

Maoris; it would appear to be fairly common.[901] In the Murray Islands

of the Torres Straits ‘abortion was very common’;[902] and in the

Western Islands it is very frequent according to Haddon,[903] and

similar facts are recorded of the Eastern Islands.[904] Abortion was

known in Hawaii;[905] in the Kingsmill or Gilbert Islands it was

extremely prevalent,[906] and also in Samoa.[907] It was practised at

times in Rotuma[908] and in Savage Island.[909] Abortion seems to be

fairly common in Fiji.[910] It is said to be ‘fairly frequent’ in the

New Hebrides;[911] according to Jamieson, ‘a certain proportion of women

die in endeavouring to procure abortion’.[912] There is very similar

evidence from New Caledonia[913] and the Solomon Islands; it was

probably more prevalent in the latter than in the former, especially

among the south-eastern islands of the group.[914] In the Bismarck

Archipelago it is reported to be frequently practised,[915] and so also

in the Aru Islands[916] and the island of Flores.[917] Similar evidence

comes from all parts of New Guinea.[918] It is specially mentioned for

the Gulf of Geelink,[919] among the Baru tribe,[920] near Dorej,[921]

among the Mafulu people,[922] among the Koitu and the Motu,[923] and the

Southern Massim.[924] It is also practised in Nias,[925] Central

Celebes,[926] among the Bontoc Igorot,[927] and in the Mitchell

group.[928]

32. Infanticide was very prevalent in New Zealand—far more so than

abortion. ‘Infanticide is frequent among the New Zealanders’;[929]

according to another observer ‘it was formerly very common’;[930] or

again, ‘it was formerly very prevalent’.[931] We hear of the ‘wholesale

destruction of human life through infanticide’.[932] There is evidence

that girls were more often killed than boys.[933] Infanticide occurred

in the Western Islands of the Torres Straits;[934] among the Eastern

Islanders ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding children

were destroyed’.[935] In the Gilbert Islands it is very prevalent;[936]

in Samoa and Tonga,[937] on the other hand, it is either absent[938] or

very rare.[939] It appears to have been fairly common in Savage

Island,[940] in Tikopia (Barwell Islands),[941] and in Nissau.[942]

‘Infanticide was committed on a large scale’ in Rarotonga[943] and in

Funafuti,[944] but it probably reached its greatest extent in Tahiti.

The famous secret society known as the Areoi is said to have enjoined

the killing of all children upon its members. In any case it was very

prevalent in the island, and not confined to the Areoi.[945] ‘The first

missionaries have published it as their opinion that not less than

two-thirds of the children were murdered by their own parents.’[946]

Infanticide was not known in the Caroline Islands[947] (with the

exception of Pelew). It was apparently as common in the Sandwich Islands

as in Tahiti.[948] It was also practised in Fiji, but girls were

destroyed in preference to boys.[949] Glaumond states that it is ‘very

common’ in New Caledonia,[950] and this is confirmed by Bernard[951] and

Moncelin.[952] The last named mentions that girls are killed in

preference to boys. It is moderately common in the New Hebrides, and

again more girls are killed than boys;[953] according to Meinecke it is

not so frequent in Tala as in Fate.[954] Infanticide is ‘very common’ in

Banks’s Island,[955] in Radack,[956] in Vaitapu,[957] and in the

Marquesas.[958] It would not seem to be very prevalent in the Solomon

Islands, except in Ugi, where both Elton[959] and Guppy[960] report it

to be common. Otherwise, in the rest of the group it seems to be

rare,[961] and is absent in San Christoval.[962] It was formerly common

in the Bismarck Archipelago.[963] There is evidence of the existence of

the habit in various parts of New Guinea; according to Seligman it is

‘common’ among the Southern Massim;[964] among the Northern Massim it is

practised if there is a large family of girls.[965] The same is said of

the Mafulu people.[966] Otherwise it would seem, generally speaking,

that infanticide is somewhat rare in New Guinea. Murray suspects its

existence among the Baru tribe,[967] and Erdweg among the inhabitants of

Tumleo.[968] Newton says that he only knows one district in British New

Guinea where it is frequently practised.[969] So, too, among the Dyaks

it is decidedly uncommon.[970] Lastly, it may be noticed that there

exists ‘in some parts of the Solomons and New Hebrides a most remarkable

state of things, all the children are killed, chiefly by infanticide, it

would appear, and substitutes purchased’.[971]

33. Warfare occurs everywhere in Oceania;[972] apparently there is not a

single case in which it is definitely recorded to be absent. In some

islands it is as murderous as anywhere in America, though on the whole

it cannot be regarded as anything like such an important cause of

elimination as in that Continent. The Maories were especially skilled in

the art of war which ‘carries off a large number of their strongest men,

and has often proved so destructive to a tribe, that it has been broken

up entirely and has disappeared’.[973] In the Murray Islands there is

frequent fighting and raiding of the neighbouring islands and

coasts;[974] and the same is true of all the islands of the Torres

Straits, though it is commoner in the western than in the eastern

islands.[975] ‘A life for a life’ is, we are told, the principle

underlying warfare among these people;[976] in the Sandwich Islands

elimination from this cause must have been very considerable; we hear,

for example, of ‘the sanguinary character of their frequent wars’.[977]

It is much the same in Tahiti; ‘their wars were merciless and

destructive’;[978] ‘occasions of hostility were also at times remarkably

trivial, though not so their consequences.’[979] War seems to be equally

frequent in Samoa, though possibly less murderous.[980] Brown believes

that ‘the wars of the Samoans tended for a long time to check the

natural increase of the population’.[981] ‘There was never any

difficulty in finding a reason, if a fight was desired (in Rotuma), as

any pretext could be seized.’[982] Such fights were sometimes followed

by very considerable slaughter.[983] ‘War, either offensive or

defensive, was their continual delight [in Rarotonga]. A state of peace

was rarely known to continue long between the tribes.... These quarrels

invariably led to fighting, in which the warriors of each tribe engaged

with the utmost desperation and cruelty.’[984] War was the favourite

occupation of the Kingsmill Islanders,[985] and in the Pelew Islands it

was their ‘daily concern’.[986] Warfare is said to have been especially

developed in the Marshall Islands.[987] According to Williams, ‘Fiji is

rarely free from war and its attendant evils’;[988] ‘natural deaths are

reduced to a small number among the heathen Fijians, by the prevalence

of war and various systems of murder which custom demands.’[989] On the

other hand, it is interesting to note that Thomson thinks that the

destructive nature of warfare in Fiji is exaggerated as elsewhere in

Oceania. He gives the following account of his own experiences in

another island as an example of what he found warfare really to mean.

‘As we travelled along the coast we found that every village had its

frontier; a stream mouth, or a sapling stuck upright in the sand, beyond

which none would venture. The natives did their best to dissuade us from

crossing these boundaries by representing their neighbours as thirsting

for the blood of strangers. But on the other side of the frontier we

found a meek folk, lost in wonder that we had come through the last

stage of our journey unscathed, so cruel and ferocious were its

inhabitants. Every man lived in active terror of his neighbours, and

went armed to his plantation, but this did not prevent him from being a

most skilful and industrious husbandman, or from living to a good old

age. The fear being mutual, there was scarcely any war; an occasional

attack upon a woman or upon an unarmed man served to keep the hereditary

feud alive.’[990] It may very well be that the murderous nature of

warfare has often been exaggerated, and that as a matter of fact the

true state of affairs often approximates more closely to the picture

given by this author.

In the New Hebrides fighting is said to be fairly frequent;[991] in New

Caledonia it is certainly common, though perhaps not very serious.[992]

So too in the Solomon Islands there is ‘unceasing war’.[993] According

to Romilly, ‘in a battle the victorious party, if they can surprise

their enemies sufficiently to admit of a wholesale massacre, kill not

only the men, but also all the women and children’.[994] A very similar

general impression is gained from descriptions of New Guinea. ‘The

Western section of the Koita, especially the Arauwa and the Rokurokuna,

were formerly involved in almost continual warfare with Kabadi; apart

from this long continual struggle the Koita appear to have carried on

little inter-tribal fighting.... A considerable number of people fell in

these encounters.’[995] Other accounts of New Guinea give the impression

that, however frequent the fighting, the losses were not large.[996]

Among the Dyaks, on the other hand, warfare is not only frequent but

also sanguinary;[997] women and children are killed at times.[998]

Fighting occurs between the Ainu clans, and is the cause of much loss of

life.[999]

34. It is not necessary to discuss the prevalence of feuds in general,

as they are not to be distinguished from warfare. But in addition to the

special case of murder following upon natural death, one form of

homicide deserves mention as it is of considerable importance in this

region, though not uncommon elsewhere—especially in Nigeria. Head

hunting is popularly connected with Borneo, but it is also practised in

New Guinea and the neighbouring islands. The taking of a head is counted

a proof of manliness; in Kiwai Island, Fly River, it enables a young man

to secure a wife more easily.[1000] Thomson saw thirteen skulls over the

door of a house in an inland village in Normanby Island.[1001] Woodford

found whole villages devastated owing to the prevalence of this

habit.[1002] Speaking of the New Hebrides, Hickson says that ‘in the

olden times a fresh human head was an indispensable preliminary to any

marriage negotiations’.[1003] Among the Sea Dyaks (Ibans) it is

certainly a form of sport; the other inhabitants of Borneo are said only

to practise it as a part of warfare.[1004] It is not true to say that in

Borneo the taking of a head is indispensable for a youth who wishes to

marry,[1005] though considerable prestige clearly attaches to it.[1006]

Without doubt the practice is responsible for a large number of

deaths,[1007] and the head of a woman or child is equally valuable as

that of a man.[1008] The habit is also very prevalent among the Bontoc

Igorot. ‘For unknown generations these people have been fierce head

hunters. Nine-tenths of the men in the pueblos of Bontoc and Samoki wear

on the breast the indelible tatoo emblem which proclaims them takers of

human heads.’[1009] Women and children over five years of age are

killed.[1010]

The failure to recognize natural death as such is as prevalent in this

region as in the others which we have surveyed. Speaking of New Guinea,

Romilly says ‘in the native opinion there is no such thing as a “natural

death”. If a man escapes a violent death and dies of fever or pneumonia,

it is said that he has been bewitched and that a devil has killed

him.’[1011] So, too, von der Sande in his description of Humboldt Bay

records that ‘the opinion is generally held that death is always caused

by the evil desire of other persons’;[1012] in consequence numerous

murders follow.

35. With regard to the prevalence of disease it is sufficient to say

that disease was certainly less common than in Africa. It is probably

true that disease was of as little importance as a factor of elimination

as in America.[1013]

The evidence with regard to infant mortality shows that it is again

considerable, and due to ignorance and want of care. Speaking of New

Guinea, Newton says that ‘the rate of infant mortality is high, but it

is often due, so we suspect, to the absolute belief that a child must

have some taro to eat—where taro is the staple food—if it is to

thrive.... Infants not twenty-four hours old have had taro given

them.’[1014] Kreutz found that many more children died in the second

than in the first year; this he attributed to the fact that, whereas

while in the first year they are well looked after, in the second year,

when they begin to crawl about, they often die from want of

attention.[1015] Turner states that not less than two-thirds of the

children in Samoa died in childhood from carelessness and

mismanagement,[1016] and of the Bontoc Igorot we are told that children

are brought up without any sign of knowledge as to how they should be

treated from the point of view of health.[1017]

_Asia_

36. It is not worth while to deal at length with the remaining peoples

who are to be classed with this group. For the most part they are

herders of reindeer; the more western races have long been in contact

with Eur-Asiatic civilization; even the Chuckee were discovered in the

first half of the seventeenth century,[1018] while the Yukaghis were

converted to Christianity two hundred years ago.[1019] It is interesting

to note, however, that generally speaking the conditions among them are

similar to what we have found elsewhere.

Suckling lasts three years among the Koryak[1020] and the

Tunguses,[1021] while Yakut mothers sometimes suckle their children

until the latter are five years of age.[1022] There is no evidence of

postponement of marriage; the early age at which it takes place has been

remarked on for most of these races.[1023] As regards the number of

children, Krasheninicoff says of the inhabitants of Kamtchatka that ‘in

general these people are not fruitful’.[1024] Sograff comments on the

small number of Samoyed children.[1025] Jochelson found an average of

over five to married women above forty years old.[1026] Abortion and

infanticide are common in Kamtchatka;[1027] Stellers comments especially

on the prevalence of abortion which is very frequently employed.[1028]

The Samoyeds destroyed deformed children.[1029] There are the usual

comments on the general good health of these people. Both Ostyaks and

Samoyeds ‘enjoy the best of health and attain a very old age’.[1030]

Infant mortality is large.[1031]

IX

THE REGULATION OF NUMBERS AMONG PRIMITIVE RACES

1. We have now to ask what light these facts throw upon the quantitative

aspect of the problem. Remembering that among all the races concerning

which facts have been given there exists that form of primitive social

organization the nature of which has been referred to, we may first

examine briefly the theory of population as it applies to society in

which there is co-operation; for the existence of this primitive form of

social organization implies co-operation. We may then go on to apply

what we learn from this review of the theory of population to the facts,

so far as they concern the races of the first and second groups. We may

next ask how far we can apply what we learn from primitive races to

prehistoric races up to the opening of the third period, and finally we

may inquire how it is to be supposed that the transition took place from

the conditions under which the pre-human ancestor, lived to those under

which the earliest societies, of which we can indirectly gain any

knowledge, must be supposed to have lived.

Malthus was the first writer to set out a theory in detail and to

support it with evidence.[1032] Of the origin of his book some account

has been given in the first chapter. In this book Malthus, according to

his own account, attempted to show three things—that population was

limited by the means of subsistence, that it almost always increases

when the means of subsistence increase, and that there are three checks

upon increase—vice, misery, and moral restraint. By ‘vice’ and ‘misery’

he meant disease, war, poverty, and so on. By ‘moral restraint’ he meant

restraint from sexual intercourse. This last check was not mentioned in

the first edition of the Essay; it was introduced for the first time in

the second edition.

It is important to observe the nature of the argument put forth by

Malthus. (The whole theory is one of the comparative rapidity of the

increase of population and of the increase of food.) Population, he

said, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, food only in an

arithmetical ratio. Therefore there must always be checks at work

limiting population. He made a survey of the social conditions in

different countries, and pointed to the evidence of the existence of

various forms of vice and misery; where moral restraint was practised,

there was less vice and misery; where no moral restraint was practised,

vice and misery reached their greatest prevalence. Furthermore the

checks taken together must always be effective; it was, according to

Malthus, merely a question of what kind of checks should be in

operation. It was desirable in his view to increase ‘moral restraint’ in

order to decrease ‘vice’ and ‘misery’. It also follows that, if the

checks were always effective, there could be no such thing as

over-population. The conception of over-population, properly speaking,

did not enter into the theory at all. It belongs to the later theory,

which is based upon the productiveness of industry—an idea which finds

no place in his book.

In the later editions Malthus made certain reservations about the

impossibility of subsistence increasing faster than in an arithmetical

ratio. Facts incompatible with the theory regarding the increase of

population in America had come to light, and he admitted the possibility

of the increase of subsistence in a geometrical ratio in new countries

under certain conditions. He maintained, however, that in general

subsistence could not increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio, and

that his theory was therefore in essential features still correct. The

ratios were at the basis of his theory, and sum up the whole essence of

the argument. It has frequently been said, however, that Malthus did not

attach much importance to the ratios. Professor Nicholson, for example,

says that he used them ‘not strictly—but as the basis for a

simile’.[1033] But Professor Cannan has shown that there is no

foundation whatever for this view, and quotes a passage from Malthus

exhibiting the importance which the latter attributed to this part of

his theory.[1034]

That subsistence can only increase in an arithmetical ratio, or in other

words that the periodical additions to the average annual produce cannot

be increased, has long ago been disproved by statistics. Such figures as

caused Malthus to make his reservations about new countries have been

forthcoming for old countries also. In his own lifetime the census

showed the falsity of the arithmetical ratio for so ‘old’ a country as

England. It is not necessary to go into the facts, which are well known

and beyond dispute. It is only the result of the proof of the fallacy

contained in the arithmetical ratio part of the theory that concerns us.

The result was that the whole argument collapsed, founded as it was on

the comparative rapidity of the increase of population and of food. As

Professor Cannan says: ‘The _Essay on the Principle of Population_ falls

to the ground as an argument, and remains only a chaos of facts

collected to illustrate the effect of laws which do not exist. Beyond

the arithmetical ratio theory, there is nothing whatever in the _Essay_

to show why subsistence for man should not increase as fast as an

“unchecked population”. “With every mouth God sends a pair of hands,” so

why should not the larger population be able to maintain itself as well

as the former?’[1035]

2. The answer to this question was in process of being discovered during

the lifetime of Malthus. In the early years of the century attention was

drawn to the high price of corn, to the position of agriculture, and

especially to the fact that less rich land was being brought under

cultivation. From the discussion which ensued, and to which Malthus

contributed, there arose the idea of decreasing returns to agriculture.

It has been pointed out that it must always have been recognized in

practice that it did not ‘pay’ to employ more than a certain amount of

labour on a given area of land. In these years, however, for the first

time the principle which underlay this fact was made clear. West and

Ricardo were chiefly responsible for bringing the matter to light. The

development of the theory need not occupy us. It may be formulated

shortly here. ‘Whether we consider an acre of land or a whole country,

after a certain point is reached, the return to a given amount of labour

and capital will diminish. It will do so, however, only under the

supposition that the arts of agriculture, using the phrase in the

broadest sense, remain stationary.’[1036] The law is not limited to

agriculture. It is applicable to all industry. Whenever some agent in

production, upon which an industry is absolutely dependent, is strictly

limited, after a time equal increments of capital and labour will not

produce equal returns. In other words the returns to the same doses of

capital and labour will diminish. This, however, will only occur when,

as stated above, the supply of some agent in production is restricted;

otherwise when an industry enlarges there will, as a rule, be an

increasing return. The more labour, apart from diminishing returns, the

better.

When speaking of agriculture it was said that diminishing returns only

supervene when there are no improvements in the arts of agriculture.

This is true in general of all other industries. Any increase in the

arts of production will in general admit of more labour and capital

being profitably employed; if there are no further improvements, there

will after a time come a point when diminishing returns will again

supervene. The following out of the working of these laws in detail

would call for a long and intricate discussion. Since the problem of

quantity is only touched upon in its broadest outlines, such a

discussion is not necessary here. The broad fact which emerges, and

which alone is relevant here, is that, since the laws in general are

applicable to all industry, there will be, taking into account on the

one hand the known arts of production and on the other hand the habits

and so on of any people at any one time in any given area, a certain

density of population which will be the most desirable from the point of

view of return per head of population. There will, in fact, under any

given circumstances always be an optimum number; if the population fails

to reach that number or if it exceeds it, the return per head will not

be so large as it would be if it attained that number. This conception

is of such importance that its formulation in other words by a modern

economist may be quoted. ‘At any given time, or, which comes to the same

thing, knowledge and circumstances remaining the same, there is what may

be called a point of maximum return, when the amount of labour is such

that both an increase and a decrease in it would diminish proportionate

returns.... If we suppose all the difficulties about the measurements of

the returns to all industries taken together to be somehow overcome, we

can see that at any given time, or knowledge and circumstances remaining

the same, just as there is a point of maximum return in each industry,

so there must be in all industries taken together. If the population is

not large enough to bring all returns up to this point, returns will be

less than they might be, and the remedy is increase of population; if,

on the other hand, population is so great that the point has been

passed, returns are again less than they might be, and the remedy is

decrease of population.’[1037]

This idea of an optimum number is one which can be developed in great

detail. It is only necessary here to notice that when, as in the higher

economic stages, the arts of production on the one hand are improving

and the habits and so on of any people are on the other hand constantly

altering, the most desirable density is in consequence frequently

changing. In the lower stages, when progress in skill is slow and social

conditions more or less stationary, the optimum number may remain about

the same over long periods of time. Further, with regard to progress in

skill, inasmuch as the productivity of labour is enhanced by every

improvement in the arts of production, the result of such progress will

be that the return per head will, as a rule, increase. Such progress

will thus, as a rule, allow of a larger population which will have a

larger income per head.

This idea of an optimum density of population is wholly different to

that put forward by Malthus. To him the problem was one of the relative

increase of population and of food; with us it is one of the density of

population and of the productiveness of industry. To Malthus the

position was much the same in all ages; in his view population, except

under unusual circumstances, had in any country at any given time always

increased up to the limit of subsistence, and was in process of being

checked—chiefly by vice and misery. In the modern view increase in skill

has brought to an increasingly dense population a larger income per

head. The chief cause of the largest possible income not on all

occasions being reached is that at times the density of population

increases beyond the optimum number for the given conditions, though at

other times the failure of population to reach the desirable level may

produce the same result.

Though the problem of diminishing returns was being discussed as the

successive editions of the _Essay_ appeared, the idea was not applied by

Malthus to the population question. This was undertaken by later

writers. The development of the modern theory need not detain us; it is

of interest, however, to observe that J. S. Mill, whose influence over

contemporary thought was so great, never shook off the deep impression

made upon him early in life by the Malthusian theory. He exhibited a

remarkable dread of over-population, and in his _Principles of Political

Economy_ seems to have regarded diminishing returns as so often arising

that only rarely could an increase in population be advantageous. He

appears in fact to have thought that after a certain stage all further

increase in population was harmful, and to have looked upon ‘the degree

of industry which is required for the maximum productiveness of industry

as something fixed once and for all’.[1038] Mill’s view, therefore,

though founded upon the productiveness of industry, differs from the

modern view to which it has given place. It has since been clearly

established that there is no maximum density desirable from the point of

view of productiveness; so long as skill increases, other things being

equal, so long will the desirable density increase. The influence of

Mill’s writings has had the effect of keeping alive in England longer

than elsewhere the pessimistic view of the problem which the teaching of

Malthus had originally given rise to.[1039] So strong were Mill’s

opinions that he regarded the limitation of the family by virtuous

restraint as one of the most desirable of social reforms. He was led in

the following passage to express views that are strongly in contrast

with those of the many who now deplore the decline of the birth-rate

among the upper social classes of to-day. ‘Little improvement’, he said,

‘can be expected in morality until the producing of large families is

regarded with the same feelings as drunkenness or any other physical

excess. But while the aristocracy and clergy are foremost to give the

example of this kind of incontinence, what can be expected of the

poor?’[1040]

3. This conception of an optimum number holds good wherever there is

social co-operation between groups of men living within definite areas.

As we have seen a primitive form of social organization exists among all

these races. This implies in itself a certain degree of co-operation. It

remains to show that these races are all, without exception, divided

into groups which are strictly limited to definite areas—contrary to the

still common notion that they wander where they please—and we may

further note that the inhabitants of these areas co-operate to a greater

or less degree in the search for food, and that there is a social

obligation upon each man to do his share. We may review the evidence,

beginning with the first point, which is of such importance that it may

be treated at some length.

It is both misleading and dangerous to apply terms carrying modern legal

conceptions to these races; unfortunately, any terms that may be used

are to some extent biased. We have, however, somehow to describe the

results of investigation into the customs of these races, and it has

been found that among all these races, without exception, groups of men

are recognized as, if not owning, then as enjoying the usufruct of

certain very clearly defined areas. According to Ling Roth it is not

clear whether the Tasmanian tribes had any definite hunting grounds or

not.[1041] Bonwick confidently asserts that it was so,[1042] and Wheeler

thinks that the conditions in Tasmania were probably the same as in

Australia.[1043] From Australia we have abundant evidence; the facts

recorded from different parts of the continent vary considerably, and we

must either believe that customs differed from place to place, which is

not at all unlikely, or that many observers are mistaken, which,

considering the positive nature of their assertions, is not very

probable. Wheeler has reviewed the evidence and sums up his conclusions

as follows: ‘Our information shows the existence in some, at any rate,

of the areas of Australia of what must be held to be private ownership

in land, but it does not follow that the whole of the tribal territory

was so allotted. The unit would generally be the individual family, but

there are a few indications that the ownership might even be vested in

single persons within the family, other than the head. The clearest

mentions of individual or of family ownership seem to come from the

south-eastern area, where the physiographic conditions are most varied,

and where, in consequence, fishing rights become important. But it seems

likewise that the rights of families or of individuals, as also those of

local groups, were, in general, subject to tribal over-rights, though we

have no clear information on this point.’[1044]

There is no doubt, in the first place, that the tribes were everywhere

restricted to clearly defined territories.[1045] Doubt only arises with

regard to the smaller groups. The usual mode of living is in small

groups of one to three families, which usually form a portion of a local

group, but which may exceptionally be actual local groups. Only in the

more fertile districts is the number of families living in contact

greater.[1046] These local groups, into which the tribes are divided,

seem generally to have their clearly defined areas within the tribal

territory. Thus Brown, speaking of the Kariera tribe of Western

Australia, says that ‘the country of a local group, with all its

products, animal, vegetable, and mineral, belongs to the members of the

group in common. Any member of the group has the right to hunt over the

country of his group at all times. He may not, however, hunt over the

country of any other local group without the permission of its

owners.’[1047]

In some parts no further subdivision of the land was recognized.

‘I could not find’, says Brown of Western Australia, ‘any evidence

of the individual ownership of any part of the soil or of any of

its products. The whole of the territory of the group and

everything in it seem to belong equally to all the members of the

group.’[1048] In other parts we hear of family ownership;

Stanbridge says of Victoria that the tribal land ‘has been from

time immemorable parcelled out among its families and transmitted

by direct descent to the present generation’.[1049] Further, some

accounts speak of individual ownership. The natives of King

George’s Sound ‘who live together have the exclusive right of

fishing and hunting upon the neighbouring grounds, which are, in

fact, divided into individual properties, the quantity of land

owned by each individual being very considerable’.[1050] Eyre

speaks of the parcelling out of territory among the individual

members of the tribe. ‘Every male has some portion of land, of

which he can always point out the exact boundaries. These

properties are subdivided by a father among his sons during his

own lifetime, and descend in almost hereditary succession.’[1051]

As further examples of the ideas held by the Australians on the

subject of property, it may be noticed that Smyth describes

individual property in trees which passes by inheritance,[1052]

while Lumholtz says that ‘if a native finds a hive of honey in a

tree, but has not an immediate opportunity of chopping it out, he

can safely leave it till some other day; the discoverer owns it,

and nobody else will touch it, if he has either given an account

of it or marked the tree, as is the custom in some parts of

Western Queensland’.[1053]

Wherever we turn we find similar evidence of the recognition of distinct

areas over which groups have more or less exclusive rights.[1054] Every

tribe certainly has its own clearly defined territory; it seems further

very probable that in most places the tribal territory is divided among

local groups, if indeed the subdivision does not go farther. The Bushmen

were formerly divided into tribes occupying ‘well defined tracts of

country, which they looked upon as their own ancestral hunting

ground’.[1055] Their respect for property is shown by the fact that,

when a man found a bees’ nest, he put his mark upon it, and

thenceforward it became ‘the sacred property of the finder’.[1056]

Klutschak describes distinct territories for the Eskimo tribes, who

confine their seasonal migrations to these definite areas.[1057]

Subdivision of land does not seem to go farther than subdivision among

the villages; the inhabitants of a village had the right to refuse to

allow any strangers to settle permanently in the neighbourhood. ‘If a

new family wished to settle at an inhabited place, the newcomers had to

await the consent of the people already settled there, which was given

by certain signs of civility or welcome, the strangers having meanwhile

put their boat ashore, but not yet begun bringing up their goods. If

these signs were not given they pushed the boat off again and went on to

look for another place.’[1058] It is so well known that the American

Indians recognized clearly defined tribal boundaries that we need not

attempt to illustrate the fact by means of references.[1059] It is

perhaps not so well known that there are also many indications of family

and even of individual property in land. In the first place we often

hear of the right of the inhabitants of a village to clearly defined

tracts. ‘Each tribe had its village sites and contiguous hunting and

fishing grounds; as long as the people lived on these sites and

regularly went to their hunting grounds, they could claim them against

all intruders.’[1060] Of the Carrier Tribes, Harmon says that ‘the

people of every village have a certain extent of country, which they

consider their own, and in which they may hunt and fish; but they may

not transcend these bounds, without purchasing the privilege from those

who claim the land’.[1061] Of the Western Tinneh, Hill Tout records that

the heads of the clan own the hunting grounds, ‘the limits of which were

always very clearly defined’.[1062] Among the more nomadic Eastern

Tinneh we hear that bands used the same hunting grounds; these areas,

however, were not regarded as belonging exclusively to them.[1063] Among

the Salish of the Interior, ‘all hunting, fishing, root and berry

grounds were common property and shared in by all alike’; whereas among

those of the coast the food grounds were the property of the septs and

local groups.[1064] From other accounts it appears that family and

individual ownership were recognized in some places. This applies

especially with regard to the fishing stations of the Pacific Coast

tribes, where ‘varying lengths of shore were held as private fishing

rights by heads of families, and these rights were passed from father to

son and were always respected’.[1065] Swanton gives an especially

interesting account of the practices of the Haidahs of Queen Charlotte

Islands. ‘Each Haidah family had its own creek or creeks, or portion of

a creek, where its smoke houses stood. Some of the smaller creeks are

said to have no owners; and, on the other hand, some families are said

to have had no land. In the latter cases they were obliged to wait until

another family was through before picking berries, and had to pay for

the privilege. Any family might pick berries on the land belonging to

another after the owners had finished picking, if it obtained the

consent of the latter and paid a certain price.’[1066] Referring to the

Sitkin Indians, Elliot says that ‘the coastline, and especially the

margins of streams and rivers, are duly divided up among the different

families. These tracts are regarded as strictly private property.’[1067]

Krause further gives an account of what can only be called individual

private property in land among the Thlinkeets.[1068] The remarkable

system in vogue among the Veddahs deserves notice. ‘The whole Veddah

country was divided into small hunting regions, of which each family

possessed one. The arrangements were most elaborate; the size of the

tracts varied in accordance with the goodness of the land, and each

included a portion of hill country to which each family thus had access

during the rainy season without trespassing upon the ground of other

families.’[1069] Cooper has very fully reviewed the evidence for the

Fuegians. It has been stated that communism existed among them. This is

not correct. ‘While all Fuegians are nomads,’ he says, ‘yet a Yaghan,

for instance, is chary of poaching on Alacalufan or Onan territory. Even

within recognized tribal territory the existence of more or less

definitely marked off family hunting grounds is explicitly attested for

the Onas by Professor Furlong and Dr. Dabbene and implicitly by Dr.

Gallardo.’[1070]

4. Passing now to the races of the second group it is everywhere found

that tribal territories are recognized, and it has been shown that,

compared with hunting and fishing races, there is an increase in the

number of cases in which land is held by smaller groups, if not by

individuals, and a corresponding decrease in the number of cases in

which communal ownership is recognized.[1071] The details of the

variation in land tenure are not relevant, and a few descriptions of the

conditions among different tribes will serve as examples of the manner

in which groups of men among these races drew their means of subsistence

from clearly defined areas. ‘Among the Navahos a section of territory

was parcelled out and held as clan land and, as descent in the tribe was

traced through the mother, was spoken of by members of the clan as “my

mother’s land”. Upon such tracts the woman worked raising maize, &c.,

and the product was recognized as their property.’[1072] Of the North

American Indians generally we are told that ‘occupancy gradually

established a claim or right to possess the tract from which a tribe or

individual derived food. This occupancy was the only land tenure

recognized by the Indian; he never of himself reached the conception of

the land as merchantable.... As long as a person planted a certain tract

the claim was not disputed, but if its cultivation were neglected, any

one who chose might take it. Among the Zuni, according to Cushing, if a

man, either before or after marriage, takes up a field of unappropriated

land, it belongs strictly to him, but is spoken of as the property of

his clan, or on his death it may be cultivated by any member of that

clan, though preferably by near relatives, but not by his wife or

children, who must be of another clan.’[1073] So, too, among the Omahas

maize was cultivated in patches of one-half to three acres in size;

property in these patches was recognized so long as cultivation was

continued. Afterwards any one could take them.[1074] In Mexico there was

an elaborate system of land tenure.[1075] Conditions in South America

were very similar to those in North America. Spix and Martius speaking

of Brazil say: ‘The savages consider the lands they have put under

cultivation to be in some measure the property of their tribe.... One or

several families unite to clear a part of the virgin forest and plant

maize, manioc, cotton, or bananas.... The same ground is cultivated

every year, because it would be too difficult every year to clear new

portions of the forest.... A field cultivated for several years is

considered to belong to a family, and the neighbours recognize these

rights.’[1076]

The rights over land are very similar in Africa. Bartle Frere says that

‘it is clear, from the accounts of early Dutch and other travellers in

South Africa, that every Hottentot tribe had its territory, into which

strangers might not intrude for pasture or hunting, without the leave of

the whole tribe; each kraal had its pasture lands distinct, over which

the people of that section of the tribe moved their mat huts, as the

need of their herds, for grass or water, rendered advisable. As each

kraal had more or less of a family constitution, it is difficult to say

how far the pasture lands were held in common, or as the property of the

individual occupant.’[1077] Of the Ewe-speaking people, Ellis says that

among most tribes there is no private property in land but that the

family in occupation of any tract cannot be disturbed.[1078] Of the

Yoruba-speaking people the same author says that land, belonging to the

community collectively, is vested in the chief, who distributes among

households and families as required. No man can be depossessed of land

once allotted to him, and the usufruct descends to his children, but the

land cannot be sold.[1079] ‘It is doubtful’, says Talbot, ‘whether any

part of the Ekoi country remains at present unowned.’[1080] According to

Scott Elliot the rights of property in land of the different families in

Sierra Leone are carefully maintained, especially in times of

famine.[1081] In Northern Nigeria a ‘man is free to mark out a farm on

any unoccupied land’, and has a claim to it as long as he cultivates

it.[1082] Among the Bangala of the Upper Congo ‘the boundaries of a town

are well defined, and the lands belonging to a town are well known to

all other towns in the neighbourhood. If an animal is killed on ground

owned by a town other than that to which the huntsman belongs, he has to

send a portion—generally the head—to the chief of the town which claims

the ground.’[1083] Further, ‘every woman had her farm, which was her

exclusive property, and not even a fellow wife had any rights over

it’.[1084] The hunting grounds of the Bushongo are well defined; the

usufruct of the soil belongs to individuals, and trees are private

property.[1085] Among the Mangbetu ‘every tribe has an accurate

knowledge of the boundary of the territory over which it can hunt, move

about, and establish its villages’.[1086] Hobley states that among the

Akamba there is individual property in land which passes on the death of

the father to the sons.[1087] The limits of the properties are very well

defined and well known among the Ababua; cultivation renders the title

good.[1088] The Baganda ‘lived in their gardens or plantations. These

gardens were often joined one to the other, and a number of people lived

in a community, often forming four or five miles of continuous garden

with families living each on their own plot.’[1089] Even the fallow land

among the Akikuyu was ‘all in private ownership’, and could not be

brought into cultivation without the owner’s consent.[1090] In British

Central Africa a man making a garden is ‘perfectly free to choose so

long as the ground is not in cultivation, or has not been bespoken by

some one else; and, once marked, no one can interfere with it’.[1091] Of

the same region we are told that ‘these negroes have clear ideas of

property. The waste land is usually considered to belong to the chief,

but plantations and enclosures belong personally to the individual who

originally made them.... Natives have clear ideas of large or small

estates, or of their kingdom; and in the case of the former they are

marked by the planting of certain trees of thick growth, while of course

streams and mountains are recognized as boundaries and natural limits of

territories.’[1092] Of the Thonga tribe in Portuguese East Africa we

hear that ‘each man has his own field which he tills’.[1093] Speaking of

the Bantu races south of the Zambezi, Theal says that ‘the chief

apportioned to each head of a family sufficient ground for a garden

according to his needs, and it remained in that individual’s possession

as long as it was cultivated’.[1094] So Conder says of Bechuanaland,

‘the land belongs to the chief. He divides it among his head men and

they in turn among their people. There is no division of grazing land.

The mealie fields are practically the property of the cultivator so long

as they are tilled. I found each patch to belong to an individual, and

to be divided generally by untilled land from the next patch.’[1095]

Among the Ovaherero the whole land is common property, but the rights of

tribes and also of individuals to particular spots are recognized so

long as they are occupied. Whoever first appropriates a spring and the

surrounding pastures can maintain his right.[1096]

The conditions in Oceania are in their main elements, which alone are

relevant, similar to those in America and Africa. In the Pelew Islands

every family had its plot of land, which was considered as private

property so long as it was occupied and cultivated.[1097] In New Zealand

‘land was held primarily by tribal rights; and within this tribal right

each free warrior of the tribe had particular rights over some

portion’.[1098] In Sarawak ‘each tribe had its limits, which have been

handed down from father to son for ages, so that every old man of a

tribe knows the exact extent of its district’.[1099] In British New

Guinea we hear of ‘properly regulated and well-defined property rights,

certainly not bounded by surveyed lines commonly used to indicate

European land claims, but marked and known by natural features such as

surface conditions afford’.[1100] It may also be noticed that rights

over certain areas are recognized by the peoples of Northern Asia, such

as the Tunguses and the Yakuts.[1101]

5. Passing to the second and third points we find that within these

areas there is evidence even among the most primitive hunters of

co-operation in the search for food and of strict rules for the division

of the available food. Coupled with this we find that there is a social

obligation which is strongly enforced for every man to do his share.

Thus, where hunting and fishing can only be carried out by joint

parties, strict rules exist for the division of the catch among those

who have taken part and among their dependents. This may be illustrated

by a few examples. Howitt gives many details of the rules in force in

Australia with regard to the division of food. These rules not only

differ from place to place but also for the various forms of game. Thus

among the Kurnai ‘a wombat is cooked, then cut open and skinned. The

skin is cut into strips and divided with parts of the animal thus. The

head to the person who killed the animal. His father the right rib;

mother the left ribs and backbone, which, with some of the skin, she

gives to her parents. Her husband’s parents receive some of the skin.

The elder brother gets the right shoulder, the younger the left. The

elder sister gets the right hind leg, the younger the left hind leg, and

the rump and the liver are sent to the young men in the camp.’[1102] ‘If

a man only killed enough game or procured enough food for himself, his

wife and his children, then he need not divide with others; but if he

found that his father had no food, he would give them what he had and go

out and look for more.’[1103] ‘All the males in the Chepara tribe are

expected to provide food, if not sick. If a man is lazy and stays in

camp, he is jeered at and insulted by the others.’[1104]

The principal features of the Australian customs as described above are

to be found among all hunting and fishing races, though such elaborate

rules as are usual in Australia are somewhat uncommon elsewhere. The

Bushmen may have had their rules for the division of game; all we are

told is to the effect that they shared food. ‘When one feasted they all

partook; and when one hungered they all equally suffered.’[1105] We have

evidence both of the sharing of food and of the dividing up of game

among the Eskimos. Details of the latter are given by Nansen;[1106] with

regard to the former we have frequent references to the division of food

within the villages among all who need it.[1107] Of the Eskimos we are

also told that ‘it might be considered a law that every man, as far as

he was able to do it, should practise the trade of a hunter on the sea,

until he was either disabled by old age or had a son to succeed him.

This duty neglected, he brought upon himself the reprehension not only

of the other members of his own family, but also of the wider

community.’[1108] Rules for the division of food were almost universal

among the Indians; when a hunter of the Hare tribe kills an animal, he

is only allowed the tongue and ribs; the rest is distributed according

to a system.[1109] So, too, among the Lillooet a regular partition of

the game took place, of which one of the features was ‘that the persons

who had the game had no preference over others’.[1110] Such phrases as

‘studied equity in the distribution of necessaries’,[1111] which is

applied to the Seri Indians, indicate the existence of similar

rules.[1112]

Conditions are similar among the races of the second group. In Fiji

‘public opinion took care that no man in the community shirked his

work’.[1113] In New Ireland, ‘should a man neglect his family, a mode of

punishment very similar to one practised by schoolboys among civilized

races is adopted. A double row of men, women, and children—the whole

population of the village—armed with stiff birches is formed; and at a

signal from the chief the delinquent is obliged to run a certain number

of times through the lines and receive a general castigation from the

rods of the villagers’.[1114] Of the Pawumwa Haseman says ‘all work

together.... If any one refuses to assist in planting, the chief forces

him to work. I saw one Indian with a long scar on the side of his head

and neck, the result of punishment for laziness.’[1115]

6. It is thus clear that within any group in any primitive race, the

members of which co-operate together to obtain their food from a

definite area to which they are confined, the principle of the optimum

number holds good. There is, that is to say, taking into account the

abundance of game, the fertility of the land, the skilled methods in

use, and all other factors, a density of population which, if attained,

will enable the greatest possible average income per head to be earned;

if the density is greater or if it is less than this desirable density,

the average income will be less than it might have been. Obviously it

must be a very great advantage for any group to approximate to this

desirable density. There are three possibilities open to any group. The

desirable number may be approached, it may be exceeded up to the point

where men can only just exist, or it may not be reached. Extreme

departures from the optimum number must be very disadvantageous; if

numbers increase until they are limited by starvation only, then no

benefit arises from the use of any skilled methods that may be known.

Under such circumstances all inventions in the methods of hunting,

fishing, and cultivating the ground profit nothing. Social conditions

must also inevitably be unstable where starvation alone limits numbers.

This being so, how are numbers regulated? We may observe to begin with

that there is a number of factors at work among all these races which

incidentally limit increase. This they may do either by decreasing

fertility or by increasing elimination. To the former class belong

pre-puberty intercourse and prolonged lactation, to the latter war and

lack of care of children. Two characteristics of these factors are

noteworthy. The effect they have upon the limitation of increase is

incidental; it is the chance accompaniment of the practice of certain

customs or of certain habits. In the second place the working of any

single factor, so far as it reduces fertility or increases elimination,

is fairly regular; in any primitive race at any given time such habits

as prolonged lactation and early intercourse, when they occur, cause a

certain definite reduction of fertility; and such customs as those of

war and those connected with the upbringing of children cause a certain

definite amount of elimination. The nature of the factors present and

the degree of their incidence varies considerably from race to race, but

it follows from what has been said above that in any primitive race over

a considerable length of time the amount by which fertility is decreased

and the amount of elimination which is caused remain fairly constant.

There is another class of factors the primary and not the incidental

function of which it is either to reduce fertility or to cause

elimination. These factors are prolonged abstention from intercourse,

abortion, and infanticide. The view put forward here is that normally in

every primitive race one or more of these customs are in use, and that

the degree to which they are practised is such that there is an approach

to the optimum number. With regard to this view we may first deal with

the question as to the prevalence of these customs. We may then refer to

the evidence as to the nature and origin of these practices. We shall

then be in a position to ask how it may be supposed that they are so

practised as to bring about that amount of restriction of increase which

will result in an approach to the optimum number being made.

7. The evidence regarding the practice of these customs—prolonged

abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide—has already been

given in the last two chapters. This evidence is also summed up in the

Appendix to which the reader is invited to turn. No attempt has been

made to conduct an exhaustive inquiry; but it is claimed that there is

ample evidence of the widespread prevalence of one or more of these

practices. There is no indication of the correlation of any one practice

with any one economic stage. As far as the evidence goes, any practice

may be in use in any economic stage. To the meaning of this we shall

refer later. It is further claimed that, when the influence of contact

with Europeans is taken into account, the evidence of the existence of

these customs is still more impressive; for the observations upon which

we have to rely have for the greater part been made after these races

had been in contact with Europeans, and such contact is followed by a

diminution of these practices.

One of the first changes brought about by this contact is connected with

the introduction of diseases previously unknown. These diseases are

often peculiarly fatal, causing a very high death-rate, and it is clear

that, unless the practices of abstention from intercourse, abortion, and

infanticide were largely abandoned, the race would perish. There is no

difficulty in understanding how these practices would actually be

abandoned soon after the introduction of disease. The proximate causes

of these practices are largely, as we shall see, the difficulty of

transporting many young children and the undesirability of having more

than one child during the period of lactation. If disease began to carry

off many children, the immediate causes for these practices would

largely or entirely disappear and so would the customs themselves.[1116]

Apart from the introduction of disease, the effect of contact is in

other ways to reduce the extent of these practices. Contact has often

resulted in warfare between aboriginal races and European settlers—as in

Tasmania, Australia, and America, or as between the Bushmen and the

Boers. The largely increased death-rate would, as in the case of

disease, be followed by a diminution of the extent of these practices.

Further, under other conditions, as for instance in Polynesia, the

efforts of missionaries have long been directed to putting a stop to

these customs.[1117] We may also note that there is often a bias on the

part of observers to under-estimate the extent of the employment of

infanticide and abortion. Many observers are attracted by the races who

come under their notice and seem to think that these practices are

incompatible with the kindly nature or pleasant disposition of the

people they describe—that in fact the attribution to them of such

customs as a normal feature of existence is a kind of libel—and if they

report them at all, they persuade themselves into thinking that they are

infrequent and abnormal. We have only to remember the objection taken to

the interpretation of the finds in neolithic graves in England as

evidences of infanticide—an objection based on the dislike of believing

that our ancestors could have been guilty of such a habit. Or, again, we

may remember that Tacitus, when desirous of holding up the Germanic

tribes as an example to the Romans of his day, declared that they never

committed infanticide—the implication being again that infanticide is to

be regarded as a degenerate and unworthy custom.[1118]

Nevertheless, in spite of all such tendencies working for the rapid

disappearance of these customs, and in spite of the bias against

believing in their existence, there is, as the Appendix shows, ample

evidence that one or more of these practices are recorded for almost

every people.

8. We may now consider the evidence regarding the origin and nature of

these practices. We shall find that abortion and infanticide arise owing

to the difficulty of providing for more than one child at a time. We

shall also find that these customs are practised as normal features of

social life and in such a manner as to keep the number of children at a

fairly constant average figure. There is frequently a belief that a

particular number of children is the right number of children. Further,

it will be seen that the number of children to be preserved is a matter

for consideration in which the wishes of not only the parents but also

of the relations and of the community in general have to be taken into

account, and that the practices are enforced by social pressure.

A large amount of evidence has been given to the effect that the number

of children is always small—the number, that is to say, after these

practices have taken effect. This is in itself evidence, it may be

noticed, that these practices do result in reducing the number of

children to a small constant average. Some additional evidence may now

be noted.

According to Curr infanticide in Australia ‘resulted principally from

the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of transporting several

children of tender age from place to place on their frequent

marches’,[1119] and later he observes that ‘infanticide was common among

the Bangerang.... They themselves gave as their reason for it the

impossibility of the woman carrying more than one infant in their

constant wanderings.’[1120] ‘Every child which was born before the one

which preceded it could walk was destroyed, because the mother was

regarded as incapable of carrying two,’[1121] says another observer of

the Narrinyeri tribe. Considerable information is given by Howitt for

various Australian tribes. ‘Infanticide is practised by the Mining to

some extent, the mode of killing being by starvation. After a few days

of short commons the child becomes peevish and troublesome, and in

consequence more neglected, being placed by itself away from the camp

and fires, and it is said to be afflicted with Mupurn (magic). When

death ends its sufferings Mupurn is the cause. The reason they give for

this practice is that if their numbers increase too rapidly there would

not be enough food for everybody. Yet they are very fond of their

offspring, and very indulgent to those they keep, rarely striking them,

and a mother would give all the food she had to her children, going

hungry herself.’[1122] ‘In the Tongaranka tribe the practice of

infanticide was common, because a baby was frequently too much trouble

to look after, and it was often the mother who killed it. But it was not

done until the family consisted of three or four; but after that too

much work in hunting had to be done to keep the family in food.... In

the Mukjarawaint tribe the children belonged to the grandparents, though

the parents had care of them. If, for instance, a boy was born and then

a girl, the father’s parents might take them, or the mother’s parents,

and so also with another couple of children. If, then, another child was

born and one of the grandparents took it, it would be kept. If not, it

was killed, there being too many children. The grandparents had to

decide whether a child was to be kept alive or not. If not, then either

the grandfather or father killed it, by striking it against the mother’s

knee, and then knocking it on the head.... According to Buckley, if a

family increased too rapidly in the Wadthawing tribe, as, for instance,

when a woman had a child within twelve months of the previous one, there

was a consultation in the tribe as to whether it should live or not....

Infanticide in the Kurnai tribe arose through the difficulty of carrying

a baby when there were other children, especially when the next youngest

was not able to walk.’[1123] Of the aborigines of the River Darling we

are told that ‘it seems to have been the custom to kill many of the

children directly after birth, to save trouble and privation in time of

drought, when long distances must be travelled in the search for food

and water’,[1124] and the same proximate cause of infanticide is

mentioned by Beveridge.[1125] Of the women in the Port Lincoln district

it is said that they put forward as the cause of infanticide the fact

that they ‘cannot suckle and carry two children together’;[1126] similar

reasons are said to be given by the women of Central Australia.[1127]

Speaking of the natives of Port Darwin Foelsche says that the reason for

infanticide is that ‘too many children encumber the parents in

travelling about for food’.[1128] It is also worthy of note in connexion

with Howitt’s statement about there being at times a dread of

over-population that, according to Spencer and Gillen, this is not the

case at any rate in Central Australia;[1129] according to Curr, however,

‘in many tribes there is a great fear of a want of food arising from

over-population’.[1130] Among the tribes of Port Lincoln ‘the number of

children reared by each family is ... very limited, rarely exceeding

four’, and ‘if a mother has children in rapid succession ... the young

infant is killed’.[1131] In the Dieyerie tribe about 30 per cent. of the

children are destroyed at birth.[1132] In the neighbourhood of Port

Darwin children are killed ‘where a woman has more than three or

four’.[1133] In Central Australia ‘each mother only rears, upon an

average, two children’.[1134] Among the Northern tribes of Central

Australia the number of children is kept down by infanticide to two or

three.[1135]

Similar evidence is forthcoming for other races of this group. Thus of

the Puelches Guinnard says that ‘among these almost primitive creatures,

children are not nearly so numerous as might be imagined, for the

existence of the new born infant is submitted to the judgment of the

father and mother, who decide on its life or death’.[1136] Charlevoix

says of the Abipones that ‘they seldom rear but one of each sex,

murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest

are strong enough to walk alone. They think to justify this cruelty by

saying that, as they are almost constantly travelling from one place to

another, it is impossible for them to take care of more infants than two

at a time; one to be carried by the father, the other by the

mother.’[1137]

Turning to races of the second group in Funafuti every mother was

allowed to keep alternate children, but the second, fourth, and so on

had to be destroyed.[1138] ‘A Tikopian family is usually limited to four

children, any excess of this number being killed by burying them alive

in the house or just outside it; occasionally five or six may be kept

alive but never more. If the first four children are girls one or more

of these may be killed in the hope that the succeeding children may be

boys, in which case the lives of the boys would be spared.’[1139] In New

Guinea, in the later years of marriage, abortion is used in order to

lessen the number of children, since a large family would mean too much

work for the parents.[1140] In the Kingsmill Islands ‘a woman seldom has

more than two children, and never more than three; when she discovers

herself to be enceinte for the third or fourth time, the foetus is

discharged by a midwife’.[1141] In the Sandwich Islands, ‘however

numerous the children among the lower orders, parents seldom rear more

than two or three, and many spare only one; all the others are

destroyed, sometimes shortly after birth, generally during the first

year of their age’.[1142] ‘They consider three children a burden,’ says

the same author in another passage, ‘and are unwilling to cultivate a

little more ground, or undertake the small additional labour necessary

to the support of their offspring during the helpless period of infancy

and childhood.’[1143] ‘No married pair (among the Gilbert Islanders) are

allowed by their law to have nor bear more than four children, that is

only four children get the chance of life. The woman has the right to

rear or to endeavour to rear one child. It rests with the husband to

decide how many children shall live, and this depends on how much land

there is to divide.’[1144] In Fiji ‘infanticide is more prevalent among

the poor classes than the rich’.[1145] Speaking of the Murray Islands

Hunt says that ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding

children were destroyed, lest the food-supply should become

deficient’.[1146] Codrington says of the Melanesians that ‘abortion and

infanticide were very common. If a woman did not want the trouble of

bringing up a child, desired to appear young, was afraid the husband

might think the birth before its time, or wished to spite her husband,

she would find some one to procure abortion.... Infanticide was more

prevalent in some islands than others.... The old women of the village

generally determined whether a new-born child should live; if not

promising in appearance or likely to be troublesome, it was made away

with.’[1147] Among the Mafulu of British New Guinea a woman must not

give birth to a child unless she can give a pig to a village feast, and

consequently children are often destroyed either by abortion or

infanticide, both of which are common.[1148] Of the Western Islands in

the Torres Straits we hear that ‘few women rear more than three

children, and besides most of those born before marriage are doomed to

be killed immediately after birth, unless the father—which is seldom the

case—is desirous of saving the child.... Even of other infants some,

especially females, are made away with in a similar manner when the

mother is disinclined to support it.’[1149] Of the Eastern Islands it is

said that ‘after a certain number had been born, all succeeding children

were destroyed, lest the food-supply should become insufficient’.[1150]

Rengger, who remarks upon the small number of children among the

Guaranis, traces it to the regular practice of abortion after a certain

number had been born.[1151] ‘Infanticide is quite common among the

Lenguas, an interval of seven or eight years being always observable

between children of the same family. Not only are babies, which are born

in the interval, immediately killed, but abortion is also

practised.’[1152] Among the Creek Indians ‘to destroy a new-born infant

is not uncommon in families that are grown so numerous as to be

supported with difficulty’.[1153] Of the Cheyennes it is said that ‘it

has been the custom that a woman should not have a second child until

her first is ten years old. When that age is reached, the man is likely

to go with his wife and child to some large dance or public gathering,

and there ... to announce publicly that now this child is going to have

a little brother or sister.’[1154] There is sometimes evidence, for

instance among the Sioux[1155] and the Brazilian tribes,[1156] that

abortion is committed after consultation with the husband. Among the

Pima Indians ‘sometimes a mother nursed a child until it was six or

seven years old, and if she became pregnant in the meantime she induced

abortion’.[1157] In Fiji there was no cohabitation until the child was

two years old. ‘This separation ... was in bygone times invariably

enforced’ and abortion was practised when there had been enough

children.[1158] Speaking also of Fiji Seeman says that ‘relatives of a

woman take it as a public insult if a child should be born before the

customary three or four years have elapsed, and they consider themselves

in duty bound to avenge it in an equally public manner’.[1159] Similarly

Gutmann says of the Wadschagga that it is considered most disgraceful if

a woman, who is still suckling a two years child, again becomes a

mother, and that in consequence abortion is frequent.[1160] In German

New Guinea, according to Krieger, only three children are as a rule

brought up owing to a fear of scarcity of food.[1161] In Radeck ‘every

mother is allowed to bring up only three children; every fourth and

succeeding one she is obliged to bury alive herself’.[1162] Infanticide

was ordered by law in Vaitapu and not more than two children were

allowed in a family.[1163] Of the Roro-speaking tribes of New Guinea we

are told that ‘formerly it was not customary for a woman to have

children until her garden was bearing well’.[1164] In the New Hebrides

‘infanticide was sadly prevalent. As the burden of plantation and other

work devolved on the woman, she thought she could not attend to more

than two or three children, and that the rest must be buried as soon as

born.’[1165] In the New Britain group ‘after marriage children are not

borne by the woman for a period of from two to four years. I am informed

that this is the result of a popular dislike to speedily becoming a

mother on the part of the women, who use various means to procure

abortion and use them successfully.... A considerable period elapses

between the birth of one child and the birth of another. The general

term is about three years. One child is always well out of hand before

another appears.’[1166] We may also note that, according to Rivers,

infanticide is frequent among the Todas and is practised not when food

runs short but as a regular custom.[1167]

It will be remembered that, when setting out in the last two chapters

the evidence for the extent of abortion and of infanticide, these

practices were in many cases stated to be committed when there was a

certain number of children thus corroborating the evidence given to this

effect above.

9. We are now in a position to discuss the manner in which numbers are

regulated among these races, leaving until later the discussion as to

how the position among these races was derived from that among species

in a state of nature. Everywhere groups of men are, as we have seen,

confined to definite areas. Among the few things which the men composing

these groups do know with accuracy are the limits within which their

food must be obtained. Further they co-operate in the search for food.

It follows, therefore, that within any such area there is—taking all the

relevant facts into account—an optimum number. The advantages to any

group of approaching this number are immense; a wide departure from this

number can only be socially disastrous. We found that within any group

there is a number of factors—some of which reduce fertility and others

of which increase elimination—and that the average amount of restriction

of increase resulting from the action of these factors was fairly

constant. We also found that there were certain other factors—prolonged

abstention from intercourse, abortion, and infanticide—which are

everywhere present and considerably restrict increase. If, as we shall

see later, there is reason to think that some approach to the optimum is

everywhere attained, it is clear that the former factors cannot of

themselves alone sufficiently restrict increase. It is therefore to the

latter factors, the primary function of which it is to restrict

increase, that we must look when we seek for the mechanism by which

numbers are brought near the desirable level.

It is clear how these factors originate. Among more or less nomadic

peoples abortion and infanticide are practised because of the difficulty

of transporting and of suckling more than one child at a time.

Abstention from intercourse arises as a taboo. The problem we have to

face is how these practices could come to be of the necessary intensity.

Now men and groups of men are naturally selected on account of the

customs they practise just as they are selected on account of their

mental and physical characters. Those groups practising the most

advantageous customs will have an advantage in the constant struggle

between adjacent groups over those that practise less advantageous

customs. Few customs can be more advantageous than those which limit the

number of a group to the desirable number, and there is no difficulty in

understanding how—once any of these three customs had originated—it

would by a process of natural selection come to be so practised that it

would produce an approximation to the desirable number. There would grow

up an idea that it was the right thing to bring up a certain limited

number of children, and the limitation of the family would be enforced

by convention.

Though, however, adjustment is understandable as the result of a natural

selection of customs, the evidence shows that there is even among the

most primitive races at times at least some deliberation as to whether a

child shall be allowed to live. In the more advanced races there is

increasing evidence of deliberation. It cannot be supposed that in

deliberation of this kind there is any grasp of the true position

regarding the importance of the optimum number, but it may be supposed

that under these circumstances the actual position at the moment as to

whether there are too many or too few in the group does weigh when

taking the decision. To all members of such a group, confined as they

are within the knowledge of them all to a limited area, the

disadvantages of too many mouths must be obvious. Therefore even among

the more primitive races there may be some semi-conscious adjustment of

numbers by means of one of these methods. However this may be, it is

clear that, even if there is no semi-conscious deliberation among the

lower groups, there is to some extent an automatic adjustment to the

needs of the moment. Suppose disease or severe weather, for instance, to

produce a higher rate of infant mortality, then abortion and

infanticide, inasmuch as they are practised because of the difficulty of

transporting more than one child, will be less practised.

10. Leaving aside for the moment the evidence that an approximation to

the desirable number is in this manner attained, we may note that in

order that the system should be effective, something more is necessary.

The conception of an optimum number involves the idea of a standard of

living. The attainment of the optimum number indicates that the highest

standard, which is possible taking all the circumstances into account,

has been reached. In order that the standard of living may be

maintained, it is not merely enough that numbers should be restricted;

the younger generation must become proficient in the skilled methods

which make this standard possible of attainment, and in particular it is

important that the young men should not marry unless they are both

energetic and skilful—unless, that is to say, they are both willing to

keep up and are capable of keeping up the standard of living previously

attained. There is abundant evidence to the effect that pressure is

exerted upon the younger generation. It is commonly recognized that

among primitive races the girls marry at or soon after puberty. It is

not so often recognized that the young men not infrequently do not marry

until some years later. The inefficient and the physically incapable

sometimes do not marry at all. In such facts we may see evidence of the

pressure exerted by social conditions and conventions. We find also that

not only are young men carefully instructed in the skilled methods, but

that the parents of the bride anxiously inquire as to the bridegroom’s

energy and capability of supporting a family. The conditions regarding

marriage have been much studied, and in marriage by service and marriage

by purchase we can observe the pressure which forces a young man to show

himself proficient in the skilled methods which are in use among his

people. Obligations on the would-be bridegroom to work and save up the

purchase money or to serve his future parents-in-law make it necessary

for the young man to learn skilled methods and to exhibit energy and

competence before marriage, whereby it is in any case rendered unlikely

that new families will be set up which will adopt a lower standard of

living than that of the previous generation. At the evidence for these

facts we may now glance.

In Australia betrothals generally take place in infancy and marriage

follows later; these betrothals are usually arranged as exchanges, but

the system shows some features of marriage by purchase.[1168]

Considerable postponement of marriage is often observed, especially

among the less skilled members of the community; thirty is mentioned as

a not uncommon age for marriage.[1169] Among the Eskimos there is a very

strong feeling that a boy must show himself proficient in the difficult

arts of hunting and fishing as practised by them. A young man seldom

marries until he is over twenty, though often betrothed when an

infant.[1170] Before that age he cannot learn all the methods of hunting

game, managing a kayak, and so on. Marriage is considered impossible

because he would not be in a position to maintain his family, and it is

the necessity of showing that he is in this position before marriage is

allowed which is remarked upon by all observers of Eskimo life.[1171]

The usual form of marriage in America is by purchase.[1172] As a rule,

the amount to be paid is relatively large, and the boy must either spend

some time in getting it together or else obtain it from his father. At

other times marriage is by service. Thus among the Kenai the bridegroom

performs a year’s service,[1173] and among the Haidahs boys were often

betrothed at an early age and went to live with the girl’s family and

worked for them until marriage.[1174] A Seri bridegroom leaves his own

family and enters that of the bride for a year; ‘he must display and

exercise skill in turtle fishing, strength in the chase, subtlety in

warfare and all other physical qualities of competent manhood’.[1175]

Among the Jakun a husband ‘is expected to provide a hut, cooking pots

and other necessary articles such as will suffice to enable

house-keeping to be started with reasonable comfort’.[1176] Among the

Fuegians ‘as soon as a youth is able to maintain a wife by his exertions

in fishing and bird catching, he obtains the consent of her relations,

and does some piece of work, such as helping to make a canoe, or

preparing sealskins’.[1177]

In this connexion it may be noticed that we often hear of the scorn

poured upon the weak and unsuccessful; it appears to be the case that

such men sometimes never marry.[1178] Among the Kutchins ‘poor men,

whose abilities as hunters are small, and who have been unable to

accumulate herds, remain bachelors’.[1179] One of the most difficult

things an Eskimo has to learn is how to catch seals. ‘The poor wretch’

that cannot do so ‘is despised to the last degree, and is obliged to

subsist on women’s diet, such as scolpings, which he can fish for on the

ice, mussels, periwinkles, dried herrings, &c.’[1180] With regard to

postponement of marriage, from twenty-three to twenty-five is the usual

age of marriage for men among the Thompson Indians,[1181] from

twenty-one to twenty-five for men among the Lillooets,[1182] and

twenty-five among the Abipones.[1183]

With regard to the races of the second group, among the Topebatos men

marry when about eighteen. They have both to present gifts to, and to do

work for, their future parents-in-law.[1184] The bridegroom also works

for his future parents-in-law among the Bontoc Igorot.[1185] In Fiji

‘young men of the lower orders married rather late in life for a

primitive people, rarely, it appears, before the age of

twenty-five’.[1186] Later the same author says that ‘marriages were

often delayed for years when the bridegroom’s family were too poor to

acquire property commensurate with their pride’.[1187] In the Maldive

Islands ‘although a man is allowed four wives at a time, it is only on

condition of his being able to support them’.[1188] In the Caroline

Islands ‘a suitor serves for his wife in the house of his father-in-law

elect as Jacob did with Laban and frequently has his pains for

nothing’.[1189] Marriage by purchase is common in New Guinea and often

results in a postponement of marriage while the purchase money is being

collected.[1190] Speaking of the New Britain Group, Danks says ‘some I

have met who have never married, but the cause lay in their inability to

raise the shell money with which to purchase a wife’.[1191] In Sumatra

marriage by purchase is said to constitute a certain hindrance to

marriage, in spite of which, however, there are few celibates.[1192]

Among the Negritos of Zambala the amount of the purchase money is large

and ‘there is no doubt that the gifts made represent almost all the

wealth of which a young man and family can boast’.[1193] In the Western

Islands of the Torres Straits men marry when between twenty and

twenty-five years old,[1194] marriage being by purchase.[1195] In

certain cases where head hunting is practised prowess in this art must

be shown before marriage.[1196] In certain parts of Borneo ‘it is a rule

among all the tribes that no youth can regularly wear a mandan, or be

married or associate with the opposite sex, till he has been on one or

more head hunting expeditions’.[1197]

Marriage by purchase is often found in Africa. The necessity of

collecting the purchase money frequently involves some postponement of

marriage. Formerly among the Thonga a man generally married when about

twenty-five years old,[1198] but there was some variation in the age

owing to the varying difficulty experienced in getting together the

necessary cattle.[1199] Sooner or later nearly all the men among this

tribe get married;[1200] and this is true of all Bantu peoples. ‘The

kind of individual called a bachelor does not abound among the Bantu.

The wretched, the invalids, the weak-minded only, are deprived of the

legal marriage which for the black man is and remains the one object in

life.’[1201] Sometimes in South Africa ‘a young man too poor to acquire

a wife by the transfer of cattle would make an arrangement with the

father of the girl to live with her and serve him’.[1202] Among the

Baronga young men do not marry for several years after puberty.[1203]

Werner’s description of marriage among the Zulus is of particular

interest. ‘The price paid by the Zulus (under the name of Lobola) and

others cannot properly be called purchase, being rather in the nature of

a settlement or guarantee that the suitor is able to support a wife; it

is held by her family in trust for her and her children.’[1204] The same

author, speaking generally of British Central Africa, says that ‘young

men may have to wait for some years, owing to lack of means or other

reasons. In the country under the Angoni chiefs they are called on ...

to “serve their time”, herding the chief’s cattle, and later, perhaps,

going to war.’[1205] The men of the Akikuyu are described as ‘not

marrying very young’.[1206] Roscoe enumerates the various articles

required to make up a bride’s price among the Baganda, and adds that

‘they were difficult to obtain and represented a large sum to a poor

person, so that it took him a long time to collect them; a man

frequently spent twelve months begging among his relatives and friends

the amount asked; for though as a rule he had secured some of the things

before he went to ask for the lady, there would still be a balance to

find’.[1207] Among the Wapagoro regular sexual intercourse is practised

by children. At puberty they are separated and the boy must then begin

to collect the purchase money, and not until he has finished may

intercourse be resumed.[1208] Plas notes postponement of marriage among

the Kuku owing to the amount of the purchase money.[1209] An interesting

account of the Akamba is given by Dundas. ‘During his lifetime a man so

divides his stock that he allots a portion to each of his wives. On his

death the portion of each wife goes to her son or sons.... If the cattle

left are not numerous enough to buy a wife for each son they are left

with the eldest son until the increase suffices for the purchase of a

wife for him. When the increase is again large enough it is given to the

second son to buy a wife, and so on until each has a wife.’[1210]

According to Johnston, ‘the Masai warrior is not allowed by the elders

of his tribe to marry until he has reached about thirty years of age and

has accumulated a fair amount of property or else so distinguished

himself by his bravery as to merit an early retirement’.[1211] Among the

Bangala, if a man is accepted by a girl he has to pay the ‘bespoke’

money, after which ‘the girl is reserved for him until such time as he

can pay the whole or larger part of the marriage money’, and, while he

is collecting this money, he will build a house if he does not already

own one.[1212] Further, ‘a man can marry as many women as he can afford

to pay marriage money for, but to each he must give a house’,[1213] and

as a result of the high marriage price, if his family cannot help him, a

man ‘cannot save enough to procure a wife until he is thirty or even

older’.[1214] Cureau states that in the Congo basin a bride’s relatives

are much interested in estimating a suitor’s capabilities of supporting

a family and of, in general, doing well.[1215] Among the Ekoi people,

‘by a native custom if a man wishes to marry an Ekoi maiden he must

serve her people for some considerable time, usually from two to three

years. His work mostly consists in helping to clear bush for next

season’s farms, but other services may be required of him. During this

time he is expected to make presents to the relations of his future

wife.’[1216]

Very similar institutions are found in America. Among the Nandowensis,

‘when one of their young men has fixed upon a young woman he approves

of, he discovers his passion to her parents, who give him an invitation

to come and live with them in their tent. He assiduously accepts the

offer, and by so doing engages to reside in it for a whole year, in the

character of a married servant. During this time he hunts, and brings

all the game he kills to the family, by which means the father has an

opportunity of seeing whether he is able to provide for the support of

his daughter and the children that might be the consequence of their

union.’[1217] Among the Ojebway Indians marriage is also by service and

the future father-in-law is described as being anxious that the suitor

should be a good hunter.[1218] Of the Natchez it is said to be ‘rare for

young men to marry before they be five-and-twenty. Till they arrive at

that age they are looked upon as too weak, without understanding and

experience.’[1219] According to Dorsey, men of the Omaha tribe did not

marry formerly until between twenty-five and thirty.[1220] Among the

Attakapas, ‘if a savage desires to marry a girl whose father is still

living, he approaches the latter; the latter then inquires if he is a

brave warrior, a good hunter’, if he can make weapons, and so on.[1221]

In Mexico men married about twenty.[1222] In British Guiana marriage is

by service, and the bridegroom must show that he is capable of taking a

man’s part; within a certain time he must clear a piece of land of a

given area.[1223] Another author gives further details: ‘Before he is

allowed to choose at all he must prove that he is a man and can do a

man’s work.’ There are various tests. Among others ‘he clears a space in

the forest to be planted with cassaba, and brings in as much game and

fish as possible, to show that he is able to support himself and

others’.[1224] In Peru a man had to be twenty-four years old before he

could marry.[1225] Von Martius states that the system of marriage by

purchase in Brazil is to be regarded as a symbol that the bridegroom can

support a family.[1226] Men among the Guanas marry when over

twenty.[1227]

11. The evidence so far adduced shows that the mechanism whereby numbers

may be kept near to the desirable level is everywhere present. When

inquiring into the nature of the mechanism, we found certain indications

that it was effective. The regularity with which certain customs are

practised, the small average number of children, and other facts afford

strong but not conclusive evidence that an approach is normally made to

the optimum number. We may now ask what further evidence there is as to

the position in this respect.

Conclusive evidence is not available. It is only when we are able, as

among some of the races in the third group, accurately to measure the

average income over a period of years during which numbers are changing

that we can arrive at a definite result. With regard to other races we

have to adopt methods which, though less precise, nevertheless afford

important evidence. We may inquire into the general conditions of life

and ask whether there are indications of the approach to the highest

standard of living within reach, or whether living is more usually

reduced to the bare level of subsistence. We may ask whether famine and

starvation frequently occur, what the average physical condition of the

people is, whether old age is often reached, whether, in short, the

conditions are such as we should expect to find them when the optimum

number was approached, or as we should expect to find them when the

numbers reached the maximum which could just be kept alive.

The conception of savage life which formerly prevailed was that

primitive races were always in a condition of semi-starvation.[1228] In

this connexion it has to be remembered that the conception of the

optimum number has regard to all the conditions, and that among these

races, taking the degree of skill, social customs, and so on into

account, there would be, even if the optimum number was attained, times

of scarcity, if not of famine. The existence of times of scarcity,

therefore, is no evidence that, so far as numbers are concerned, these

races have not attained the best conditions possible for them. It is

undoubtedly the fact that they are physiologically adapted to withstand

periods of scarcity in a manner that civilized men are not adapted, and

it is interesting to observe that, according to the results of certain

experiments, occasional periods of semi-starvation are far less harmful

than is continual under-feeding.[1229]

Descriptions of the Australians suggest the picture of anything but an

emaciated people in a condition of semi-starvation. In one place Spencer

and Gillen speak of them as well nourished;[1230] in another place they

describe a typical Arunta as ‘by no means poor in physique; in fact he

might often serve a sculptor for a model, and, when walking behind a

native, you are continually struck with his proportions and beautiful

carriage’.[1231] These authors go on to say, however, that ‘there are

times when he is hard pressed and during a long continuance of drought

his life is not a happy one’.[1232] So, too, Schürmann says of the

tribes of Port Lincoln: ‘the male sex exhibits a great deal of unstudied

natural grace in their deportment, their walk is perfectly erect and

free, motions of the body easy and gestures natural under all

circumstances.’[1233] Further, we are told that ‘their food, if of

indifferent quality, was at least wholesome and readily procurable, six

hours a day abundantly sufficing for that purpose, so that hunger was

little known’,[1234] and that ‘in most of the districts with an

indigenous population game is so abundant compared to the number of

inhabitants, as to enable every one to procure for himself and his

family as many pounds of meat a day as his heart desired’.[1235] Perhaps

this is too optimistic a view; there are certainly many references to

lean times when food is difficult to procure. ‘In few parts of

Australia’, says Thomas, ‘can the native count on anything like regular

supplies of food’,[1236] and we hear of those powers of enduring hunger

and thirst so common among these races and so incomprehensible to

Europeans.[1237]

Burchell is enthusiastic about the Bushmen; ‘as we rode onwards, I could

not cease admiring the beautiful symmetrical form of our Bushman guide,

who walked and sometimes ran before us, with a gait the most easy and

free that I ever beheld. All the limbs, unshackled by clothing, moved

with a grace never perhaps seen in Europe. The contemplation of his

well-proportioned, although small and delicate figure, his upright manly

port, his firm and bold step, and the consciousness of liberty which

beamed in his countenance afforded us indescribable pleasure.’[1238]

Nevertheless the Bushmen had ‘periods of fasting’[1239] and were ‘often

destitute of food for several successive days during seasons when both

roots and game were scarce’.[1240] They were also ‘capable of remaining

a long time without food, and could then devour immense quantities of

meat without any ill effect’.[1241]

In most countries a lean season occurs periodically once or more every

year. Such lean seasons are more exacting in some regions than others.

The Australians manage to subsist for the most part without storing up

food;[1242] in other countries the storing of food becomes a

necessity.[1243] We often find that where food has to be stored up the

stock runs low towards the end of the lean season. The Eskimos have to

depend for many months upon the food they have preserved, and if for any

reason, as for instance the late formation of the floe, their

calculations are upset, they may be placed in a very trying

situation.[1244] Of them we hear stories, as of other races, regarding

their powers of withstanding hunger; ‘a man who has eaten nothing for

three days, at least nothing but sea grass, can manage his little kayak

or canoe in the most furious waves’.[1245]

Of the Kutchins of the Peel River we are told that they are ‘an athletic

and fine-looking race, considerably above the average stature, most of

them being upwards of six feet in height and remarkably well

proportioned’.[1246] ‘The Indians north of the Columbia are, for the

most part, good-looking, robust men, some of them having fine,

symmetrical forms. They have been represented as diminutive; with

crooked legs and uncouth features. This is not correct; but, as a

general rule, the direct reverse is the truth.’[1247] The Montagnais are

described as ‘tall, strong, erect, well-proportioned and agile’;[1248]

on the other hand, we hear that they are liable to shortages of food,

are able to go without food for three days together at a time, and are

guilty of great excesses of eating and drinking when food is

plentiful.[1249] Hardisty says that the Loucheux can always obtain food

except under very unfavourable circumstances.[1250] ‘It sometimes

happens that the Ahts are in straits for want of food, when the fish do

not appear until late in the spring,’[1251] but ‘they can bear the want

of food a long time without becoming exhausted’.[1252] The account of

the Californians given by the acute Jesuit missionary Baegert is of

particular interest. ‘Notwithstanding the barrenness of the country, a

Californian hardly ever dies of hunger, except perhaps now and then an

individual that falls sick in the wilderness and a great distance from

the mission, for those who are in good health trouble themselves very

little about such patients, even if these should happen to be their

husbands, wives or other relations, and a little child that has lost its

mother or both parents is also occasionally in danger of starving to

death.... The food of the Californians is certainly of a mean quality,

yet it keeps them in a healthy condition, and they become strong and

grow old in spite of their poor diet.’[1253] ‘Californians can endure

hunger easier and much longer than other people; whereas they will eat

enormously if a chance is given.’[1254] Three days without food appeals

differently to an observer in a mission station on the one hand and to a

prisoner among the Indians on the other. ‘So protracted was the hunger

we experienced,’ says Cabeça de Vaca, ‘that many times I was three days

without eating anything. The natives also endured as much, and it

appeared to me a thing impossible that life could be so prolonged.’ The

same author goes on to say, however, that ‘they are a merry people

considering the hunger that they suffer; notwithstanding they never

cease to dance nor to observe their festivities and ceremonies. To them

the happiest part of the year is the season of eating prickly pears; for

then they have hunger no longer, and pass all the time in dancing and

they eat day and night.... It occurred to us many times while we were

among this people, and there was no food, to be three or four days

without eating, when they, to revive our spirits, would say to us not to

be sad, that soon there would be pears and we should enjoy plenty, and

drink of the juice, and that our bellies would be very big, and we

should be content and joyful, having no hunger.’[1255]

It is submitted that the conditions indicated by the type of evidence of

which examples have been given above are not compatible with the state

of existence on the bare means of subsistence.[1256] With this evidence

there should be considered the facts given in the sixth chapter

regarding the good health and advanced age to which these races

generally attain.

Turning to races of the second group, in the Eastern Islands of the

Torres Straits ‘nutritious food is generally very scarce at the end of

the dry season’.[1257] The Dyaks usually experience a season when it is

difficult to procure food.[1258] We are told that famine was unknown in

Fiji,[1259] but that from November to February there was sometimes a

scarcity when the last yam crop had been consumed and the next crop had

not ripened.[1260] So too among the Baganda ‘no one ever went hungry

while the old customs were observed’,[1261] but there are at times lean

seasons. ‘When food is abundant they have their three meals daily; when

it is scarce they content themselves with two, and hope for the rain and

a plentiful supply of fruit.’[1262] Cureau, describing the races of the

Congo Basin, gives a general description of the conditions which

corresponds very closely with that just quoted for the Baganda.[1263] In

British Central Africa “the time of hunger” comes after the rains, when

the last year’s corn is eaten, and the new is not yet ripe—about

March’.[1264] Of the Kagero of Northern Nigeria we are told that the

‘people are naturally more healthy and better conditioned in December,

say, than in August’, because towards the end of the year there is

plenty of food from the harvest whereas later in the wet season there is

usually a scarcity.[1265] So of the Mandja of the Northern Congo we are

told that ‘generally by the month of October, the Mandja family has

consumed its reserves of food; thereupon follows want for two

months’.[1266] In North America Catlin describes times of scarcity among

the Mandans[1267] and im Thurm describes similar conditions in

Guiana.[1268]

Of the fine development of physical form there is abundant evidence. The

inhabitants of Timor Laut are ‘handsome-featured fellows, tall, erect,

and with splendidly formed bodies’.[1269] One of the earlier travellers,

Kotzebue, was very much struck with the physical features of the

inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands[1270] and of Radeck.[1271] So, too,

in Africa the Akikuyu are ‘exceedingly strong, muscular, healthy and

well set up’.[1272] ‘The Damaras, generally speaking, are an exceedingly

fine race of men. Indeed it is by no means unusual to meet with

individuals six feet and some inches in height, and symmetrically well

proportioned withal. Their features are, besides, good and regular; and

many might serve as perfect models of the human figure.’[1273] As in the

case of the races of the first group, we are told that formerly these

people lived to a great age. ‘Under natural conditions the Bantu were a

longer lived people than the Europeans.’[1274] Catlin was greatly

impressed with the physical fitness of the North American Indians. He

never saw ‘a more hardy and healthy race of men’, while the women were

‘exceedingly healthy and robust’.[1275] According to Heriot, ‘the North

Americans are in general robust, and of a healthful temperament,

calculated to live to an advanced age’.[1276] Du Pratz speaks highly of

the physical characteristics of the Natchez and much similar evidence

could be quoted.[1277] Azara, for instance, says that the Payaguas lived

to an advanced age[1278] and also mentions especially the fine physical

features of the Mbayas[1279] and of the Charruas.[1280] Of the Mandrucos

Wallace says that ‘their figures are generally superb; and I have never

felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest statue, as at the living

illustrations of the beauty of the human form. The development of the

chest is such as I believe never exists in the best formed Europeans,

exhibiting a splendid series of convex undulations, without a hollow in

any part of it.’[1281] Humboldt remarks of the Chaymas that both men and

women ‘are very muscular, but fleshy and plump’.[1282] So, too, Spix and

Martius, speaking of Brazilian tribes, say that ‘the Indians are seldom

sick and generally live to an advanced age’.[1283]

Lastly it may be observed as evidence of some weight that, as between

different races, the higher the skill and the greater the natural

richness of the surroundings, the higher, so far as we can judge, is the

return per head. Though the return cannot be measured, all that we know

of the conditions of life point to this conclusion, whether we contrast

the agricultural races in general with the hunting and fishing races, or

whether we contrast such hunting and fishing races as those of the

north-west coast of America with the Fuegians.

12. The conclusions derived from a study of the first two groups are

therefore to the effect that an approximation to the desirable number is

normally attained by the practice of one or more of the three customs

mentioned. As a result, the small average size of the family is arrived

at—the size being just about that which allows for the average mortality

from various causes later in life, so that in the next generation there

will be as nearly as possible the same number of adults as in the former

generation. It may be that, as an occasional coincidence, just that

amount of reduction of fertility and just that amount of elimination

necessary to bring about approximation are effected by means of those

factors which were described as having incidentally these results. But

such a coincidence must be very rare and the evidence shows that the

practice of one or more of the other class of factors is widespread, if

not universal. Further, it has been shown that a more or less automatic

adjustment is attained by means of variations in the intensity of the

operation of these latter factors, whereas it is difficult to see how it

could come about by variations in the former factors only, and, however

unprogressive social organization and general conditions may be, some

adjustment must be necessary from time to time.

It has been observed that there is no apparent connexion between the

practice of any of these customs and the different economic stages, and

it may be stated that an investigation undertaken to see if any

connexion could be detected was without result. This conclusion is not

surprising. The problem of how to control numbers is one which is

presented to all races at all times. We have grouped races according to

their economic status; but there is no reason to expect that under any

one economic system a particular method of controlling population would

be adopted more than any other method—no reason, for instance, why

infanticide rather than abortion should be practised under one system

rather than under another. As has been said, the problem is always

present, and the method adopted must originally have depended upon some

factor quite independent of the economic stage; abortion, for instance,

might have been practised in one country because of the presence of some

herb which experience showed to be effective, while in another country a

taboo upon sexual intercourse for magical reasons might have been

developed into a taboo during lactation.

This survey of primitive races is limited to the elucidation as to what

is normally the position as regards the regulation of numbers. The

evidence is not sufficiently detailed to allow us to judge whether in

any one particular instance there was or was not a close approximation

to the desirable number before contact with Europeans had changed their

conditions. It is merely suggested that there was in general a tendency

for such an approximation to occur and it may further be deduced that,

since the desirable number remained the same over a great length of

time, rendering the approximation, so to speak, easy of attainment, the

adjustment to the optimum number normally came about. And in this

connexion the limitation to clearly defined areas may be borne in mind.

The very fact of the universal recognition and careful maintenance of

these areas is an indication that such was the normal condition.

Migration is abnormal, and this fact is apt to be forgotten for two

reasons. First, when reviewing the course of history, migrations stand

out as the chief, if not the only, known facts and the huge intervals of

time between one movement and another are forgotten. Secondly, our

knowledge of primitive races is largely derived from observations made

when migration had been set on foot owing to contact with Europeans, as,

for instance, in America. Migration may be a disturbing factor,

upsetting the adjustment of numbers; but it is an abnormal condition and

hence it is disregarded here.

And here, in answer to the objections that a greater prevalence of

infanticide and so on is assumed than there is evidence for, we may,

bearing in mind the many reasons why the evidence is deficient, reply

that this assumption is not unreasonable. If such an assumption is not

made, the position among these races is not comprehensible. It may be

granted, for instance, that there is evidence of the practice of

infanticide on a large scale among certain Australian tribes; but it may

be pointed out that similar evidence is lacking in the case of other

tribes. Allowing that a far more detailed examination of the evidence is

desirable than there is space for here, especially with regard to the

nature of the evidence and the date to which it refers, we may ask what

it is supposed was going on among those tribes who did not, as it may be

alleged, practise infanticide—abortion and abstention from intercourse

being uncommon or unknown in Australia. The fecundity of all Australians

is presumably very similar; it would be very remarkable indeed if it

were not. The factors tending to lessen fertility and to produce

elimination do not differ so very much from one tribe to another. It

must follow that, if one tribe practised infanticide on a large scale

and maintained its numbers nevertheless, another tribe which did not do

so must have been rapidly increasing. This rapid increase is not

compatible with the strict maintenance of well-defined territories and

with all that we know of normal inter-tribal relations, and it is

submitted that the assumption made here, namely that infanticide or some

other custom was almost always practised, provides the only explanation

of the position.[1284]

Lastly it may be recalled that there are many indications that fecundity

is somewhat less among these races than among modern races. However this

may be, it has always to be remembered that the power of increase is

nevertheless huge. It has been, for instance, calculated that between

the years 1906 and 1911 the population of the world was increasing at

such a rate that it would double itself in about sixty years. At this

rate of increase the estimated population of the world in 1914—namely,

1,694,000,000—would be produced by the progeny of a single pair in 1,782

years.[1285] Furthermore, this is occurring under conditions in which

the increase is everywhere obviously and severely checked in very many

ways; therefore, even if the fecundity among these races is less than

among civilized races, it must not be thought that there is thereby

brought about any considerable alleviation of the problem as to how

numbers should be controlled.

13. We have now to ask how far the conclusions to which we have come

regarding primitive races are applicable to prehistoric races. In the

first place, they are clearly only applicable to races among whom social

organization has become established; for it is only when men begin to

reap the advantages of co-operation that the conception of the optimum

number arises. As we have seen, it is not possible to say when primitive

social organization arose. It must certainly have been present in the

Upper Palaeolithic; the evidence of the presence of a large body of

tradition is otherwise incomprehensible. As suggested, it may very well

be that we should look for the origin of social organization in the

Lower Palaeolithic. Among the Tasmanians, whose skill was not much in

advance of that of Acheulean man, there was a primitive form of social

organization. Nevertheless, wherever the beginnings of social

organization are to be placed, we must suppose that a long period of

time elapsed before it assumed that rigid form characteristic of

primitive races. Giving all due weight to this consideration, we must

assume that in, and perhaps before, the Upper Palaeolithic era the

position with regard to numbers was in all essentials similar to that

among primitive races. It is not uncommon to meet with statements to the

effect that man was a wanderer until he began to practise agriculture.

This is a mistake if it implies that after social organization had

arisen definite areas for different groups of men were not recognized.

There can be no direct proof of this; but the fact that, wherever we

look, absolutely without exception we find among all primitive races the

recognition and careful maintenance of such areas, just as much among

hunting and fishing as among agricultural races, must lead us to suppose

that among the more skilled hunters of pre-history similar conditions

normally obtained. It is altogether unreasonable and without foundation

to suppose that the recognition of areas is a development subsequent to

the separation of primitive races from the main line of social

evolution. If then the recognition of areas, which probably arose with

the development of social organization, was a characteristic of the

later prehistoric races, we are led to conclude that the desirability of

attaining to and maintaining the optimum number must have had the same

consequences as among primitive races. It must, in other words, have

resulted in the practice of infanticide, of abortion, or of abstention

from intercourse. For there is no reason to assume that the factors

bearing upon fertility and elimination reached a considerably greater

intensity than among primitive races. We have, however, no reason to

assume that any one of these habits was practised rather than another,

for there is, as we have seen, no correlation between these factors and

stages in economic development. All that we assume is that in one way or

another adjustment was brought about, and in corroboration of this we

may note, as will be pointed out in the next chapter, that as

prehistoric races emerge into the light of history there is abundant

evidence of the practice by them of one or other of these customs.