The proceedings and peculiarities of this society arc veil ed in mystery ; they have never been explained, and all that can be said on the subject consists of were gleanings from transient observation. It is not proved that the mother usually suffers much distress from the death of her infant ; and so little criminality, in the opinion of the South Sea islanders, attaches to the deed, that women disclose, with out scruple, the number they have killed. Examples oc cur of mothers whose feelings are awakened, resisting eve ry importunity to murder their offspring. The ultimate object of this association always is infanticide : it is not known that any similar society exists, or has existed; for the words of Father Gobien, which have been referred to, are not sufficiently explicit to establish the reverse. lie ob serves, that in the Ladrone Islands there were young peo ple called Urrituas, who never married, and lived together in a kind of community in unbridled debauchery. They carried a certain ornamented staff as a badge of distinc tion ; and the Spaniards having attempted to destroy the public dwellings which they inhabited, some of the mis sionaries became the victims of their resentment. Inde pendent of the infanticide of the Arreoys, it seems a com mon practice among the South Sea islanders. When an Otaheitan chief has a child by a woman of the lower or der, it is never suffered to live ; and the like:seems to take place reciprocally with the higher ranks of females. All their natural children must perish. No satisfactory con jectures can be offered concerning the origin and purpose of this mysterious society. Its source has been sought in the provision of some wise lawgiver to check superabun dant population : but who has ever heard of mankind dwelling in territories, frequently fertile, destroying one another's lives to obtain a greater portion of subsistence ? Others have ascribed its contrivance to the pursuit of plea sure, which, without such restraints, might be more free ly courted ; and if we may reason from analogy, the rea sons actuating the Abiponian women will support this opi nion. During three years that children are suckled among that tribe, no conjugal intercouse subsists between the spouses: the husband sometimes takes another wife in the interval ; and to obviate these alienations, or even repudia tion itself, the mother destroys her progeny.
But we shall find a more powerful motive for infanticide than all the rest, in that unbounded ascendency which su perstition sometimes gains over the human mind. The practice of the moderns, however, is not so explicit in this respect as what we may collect from antiquity. It is said that the Kamtschadales destroy their children if born dur ing storms, though the necessity of doing so may be avert ed by conjurations. The indigenous inhabitants of Mada gascar and Ceylon are likewise accused of infanticide, should the epoch of the birth of a child be declared unfor tunate by their priests and astrologers. Certain period& of time, as the months of March and April, the last week of every month, together with every Thursday and Friday, are judged ominous. The child born at these times will either be animated by evil propensities, or occasion num berless disasters, from which exemption is purchased by the sacrifice of its life. Mankind have been prone to em brue their hands in each other's blood, to propitiate or ap pease their sanguinary deities ; but of all offerings, chil dren were deemed the most acceptable, being a sacrifice of what was the most precious to parents. The Moabites offered up their children for propitiation in desperate en terprizes. Thus, " when the King of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him 700 men that . drew swords, to break through even unto the King of Edom ; but they could not. Then he took his eldest son.
that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall." 2 Kings, iii. 27 Again, it is said that Balak, King of consultinglaam, the son of Beor of Mesopotamia, and calling on him to come and curse his enemies, exclaimed, Where%%ith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of lams, or with ten thousand livers of oil? Shall 1give my first horn for my transgressions, the fruit of my, body for the sin of my soul ?" Micah vi. 7. We read that Ilamilcar, on receiving similar intelligence, at tended with alarming circumstances, immediately seized on a boy, and offered him for a sacrifice to the deity Kro nus: while, for an opposite reason,„after Hannibal had gained the battles of Ticinus and Trcbia, it was proposed in the senate to sacrifice his infant son. On occasion of an enemy being at the gates of Carthage, Diodorus relates, that 200 children, of the most distinguished citizens, were offered up to the sanguinary deities to avert the danger. 'We read also, though with more uncertainty of the fact, that the Grecian soothsayers recommended the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, to Diana. In descending to a more modern period of history, flacon, King of Norway, offered his son to Odin to obtain a victo ry over his enemy Harold; and Harold, the son of Gunild, sacrificed two of his children to his idols, to obtain a tem pest for the dispersion of a hostile fleet. The modern Pe ruvians are said to have sacrificed their first born to re deem their own life when in a state of sickness, as Atme, King of Sweden, in older times, sought to purchase a pro longation of his with the blood of nine sons. It was with them as the Israelites, " Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils; and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sa crificed unto the idols of Canaan." Psalm cvi. 37. Thus can the powerful ascendency of superstition stifle the feel ings of nature. Nay, the mother herself, who'offered her child in sacrifice, never uttered a sigh, lest its efficacy might be impaired; and while the vital stream was flowing from a multitude of innocent victims, their screams were drowned by the noise of drums and trumpets sounding be fore the idol. " Tell me," exclaims Plutarch, " were the Typhons and the Giants to expel the gods, would they ex act such horrid rites of men?" Infanticide may therefore he traced to a feeling of shame on the part of the parent, which she has not fortitude to bear, to necessitous circumstances, to the pursuit of plea sure, and to the influence of superstition. We cannot af firm, however, that such are exclusively its sources ; but it is not probable that many others will be disclosed. Sec iElian Varia Historia, lib. i. cap. 7. ; Diodorus, lib. i. cap. SO. ; Plutarch De Sulierstitione : Opera, torn. iii. p. 321, 1603, in 8vo. Quintus Curtius, lib. ix. cap. 11 ; Justin, lib. xviii. cap. 6; Eusebius, Preposite Evangelica, lib. iv. cap. 15; Dobrizhoffer, De Abilionibus, tom. ii. p. 105 ; Mandel ‘lo's Voyages and Travels. p.170; Collins' Account of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 607 ; Peron, Voyage aux terres Aus trales, torn. i. p. 469 ; Krascheninkow's History of Kamt schatka ; Barrow's Travels in China, p. 167 ; Alissionary Transactions, var. loc.; Gilii,Saggio di Storia4mericana, Voy age d la Guiane et Cayenne, p.132 ; Cook's and Forster's Voyages, var. loc.; Moore's Hindu Infanticide ; Cormack's Female Infanticide ; Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. i. cap. 7; Koran, chap. vi. xvii. lxxxi. (c)