CHAPTER III.

Infanticide-Mr Williams' experiences-Modes of infanticide-Motives-The Areois-Extirpation of the practice-The children's festival at Raiatea-Second despatch of the Duff-Failure of the enterprise-Arrival of the Nautilus in Matavai Bay-Illusage of the missionaries-Disruption of the party-Evil influence of European seamen-Singular mode of baptism-The missionaries' letter to the Society-Critical position-Assassination of the high priest-Murder of Mr Lewis.

AT the commencement of 1798 the missionaries had a public conference with the king, his father, and other influential personages, at which they explained, through the medium of Peter the Swede, that their object in settling at Tahiti was not only to teach the inhabitants to read and write, and instruct them in the craft of the carpenter and the blacksmith, but to give them the knowledge of divine truth, to wean them from the worship of false gods, and to show them the way to eternal happiness. In return for the benefits they were eager to confer, they implored the Tahitians to desist from human sacrifices and the destruction of infants. To render acquiescence with the latter demand more easy, they undertook to build a house for the reception of the children that should be spared, and to rear and educate them with as much care and attention as they bestowed upon their own offspring. Without accepting this benevolent offer, the chiefs at once promised that infanticide should cease, and admitted that it was a practice which could not be defended. No steps, how

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ever, were taken to insure the fulfilment of the promise, and their children continued to perish until Christianity was recognised as the only true religion. Again and again did the missionaries entreat parents to confide to their tenderness the expected babe, offering even bribes in the shape of articles valued by the islanders. Very rarely was their intercession crowned with success. Once in a way their

prayers might prevail, but in most instances the inhuman parents would meet them a few days afterwards, with as much indifference as if nothing had happened, and not a word had been said on the subject.

Although the practice of infanticide probably originated at a distant period, and may have been brought by the earliest inhabitants of these isles from their Indian homes, it could not have long prevailed to such an extent as at the time of the arrival of the missionaries. It is impossible that the population could have been so great as it was, had the children been destroyed for generations on the wholesale scale that astonished and horrified those worthy men. As a rule, the first three children were certain to be put to death, and of twins no more than one was ever permitted to live. Although the Geórgian Islanders were remarkably prolific, it seldom happened that any mother could point to more than two or three children as her own. A woman in the occasional employment of Mr Ellis had destroyed five or six, a neighbour had saved one out of eight, and some had done away with as many as nine or ten.

The crime was not less common in Raiatea than in Tahiti. Mr Williams was one day conversing on the subject with a guest who was anxious to obtain accurate information as to the extent to which it had been carried. In the room were seated three women at work upon some European

clothing-motherly, respectable-looking persons. "I have no doubt," said the missionary, "that each of these women has destroyed some of her children;" and turning to one of them, he abruptly asked, "Friend, how many children have you destroyed?" "She was. startled at my question," he continues, "and at first charged me with unkindness, in harrowing up her feelings by bringing the destruction of her babes to her remembrance; but upon hearing the object of my inquiry, she replied with a faltering voice, 'I have destroyed nine.' The second, with eyes suffused with tears, said, 'I have destroyed seven.' And the third informed me that she had destroyed five. Thus three individuals, casually selected, had killed one-and-twenty children." At that time, however, all three were consistent members of the Christian fold.

On another occasion Mr Williams was sent for in haste to afford the last consolations of religion to the wife of a chief, the sands of whose hour-glass were wellnigh run out. When he entered the apartment, he found her in a state of despondency, alternating with paroxysms of terror. She was a convert of many years' standing, had learned to read when nearly sixty, and had been active in imparting to other adults the knowledge she herself had acquired so late in life. "O servant of God!" she cried, "come and tell me what I must do." Then she wailed, "Oh, my sins, my sins! I am about to die." Shocked with her miserable condition, the good man sought to soothe and comfort her; but she cried aloud in agony, "Oh, my children, my murdered children! I am about to die, and I shall meet them all at the judgment-seat of Christ." And she confessed that she had destroyed sixteen. For a long time the words of hope fell idly upon her ear. She could only reiterate,

"Oh, my children, my children!" But by degrees she listened more calmly to the gracious promises held out to all penitent sinners, and eight days afterwards died in the hope that "her sins, though many, would be forgiven her."

If a man married a woman of superior rank, he could only hope to attain to the height of her social position by putting to death their first three or four children. We read of a father pleading for his second babe, and then for his third-but all in vain, the mother and her relatives were inexorable, and turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. It generally happened, however, that if a child were suffered to live for half an hour, it was no longer in any danger of foul play. Not unfrequently mothers with their own hands murdered their offspring, though there were persons who earned their livelihood as professional baby-killers.

One of these wretched beings was for fifteen years after her conversion in the service of Mr Williams, and more than once described the various modes practised for the extinction of the scarcely kindled spark of life. Sometimes suffocation was produced by pressing a wet cloth upon the infant's mouth, or its little throat would be pinched until animation had ceased. At other times the babe would be placed in a hole in the ground, with a board fixed over it to prevent the actual contact of the earth, which was then filled in up to the surface, when death speedily ensued.

A piteous tale is told how a man who had married. above his own rank, and had to no purpose interceded for the lives of his children, was in time to extricate his third child from its premature grave before it had

Infanticide, how Practised.

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quite ceased to breathe. The rescued one was confided to his brother and sister, who secretly brought her up in the neighbouring island of Aimeo. Years afterwards the unnatural mother was reclaimed from idolatry, and her heart being softened, bitterly bewailed her voluntary bereavement. Her husband had died without revealing the secret of their daughter's escape; but one of the neighbours was acquainted with the fact, and, moved by her passionate grief, imparted the joyous intelligence that she was not wholly bereft. Taking advantage of the first opportunity, the gladdened mother sailed across to Aimeo, and directed her hurried steps to the house of her husband's kinsfolk. There, standing in the doorway, she seemed to behold the image of herself as she was when a young girl. Throwing her arms round the wondering maiden, and pressing her to her heart, she lifted up her voice and cried aloud, "Rejoice with me, for this my daughter was dead, and is alive again."

There were yet other modes of destroying infant life. The new-born babe was stabbed to the heart with a sharp strip of bamboo-cane, or was flung on the ground and trampled under foot, or the first joints of its fingers and toes were broken, and then the second. If this did not suffice to put the little sufferer out of pain, its ankles and wrists were dislocated; and finally, if consciousness still remained, the knee and elbow joints were shattered. universal, too, was the practice of this unnatural crime, that Mr Nott assured Mr Ellis that during the thirty years he had passed in the South Sea Islands he had not met with a single woman, who had had children prior to the introduction of Christianity, who had not been guilty of it. This statement is confirmed by the experiences of both Mr

So