SAVAGE PREJUDICES.

The natives near the cataracts or raudales of the Oroonoko, up which M. de Humboldt made his way to a height little known to Europeans, are distinguished by several remarkable prejudices, among which, none are more fatal than those narrated in the following:— “Among the causes of the depopulation of the Raudales, I have not reckoned the small pox; that malady which, in other parts of America, makes such cruel ravages, that the natives, seized with dismay, burn their huts, kill their children, and renounce every kind of society.

This scourge is almost unknown on the banks of the Oroonoko.

What depopulates the Christian settlement is, the repugnance of the Indians for the regulations of the missions, the insalubrity of a climate at once hot and damp, bad nourishment, want of care in the diseases of children, and the guilty practice of mothers of preventing pregnancy by the use of deleterious herbs.

Among the barbarous people of Guyana, as well as those of the half-civilized islands of the South Sea, young wives will not become mothers.

If they have children, their offspring are exposed, not only to the dangers of savage life, but also to the dangers arising from the strangest popular prejudices.

When twins are born, false notions of propriety and family honour require, that one of them should be destroyed.

‘To bring twins into the world, is to be exposed to public scorn: it is to resemble rats, opossums, and the vilest animals, which bring forth a great number of young at a time.’

Nay more: ‘two children born at the same time cannot belong to the same family.’ This is an axiom of physiology of the Salivas; and in every zone, and in different states of society, when the vulgar seize upon an axiom, they adhere to it with more stedfastness than the better informed men, by whom it was first hazarded.

To avoid a disturbance of conjugal tranquillity, the old female relations of the mother, or the mure-japoicnei (midwives) take care that one of the twins shall disappear.

If the new born infant, though not a twin, have any physical deformity, the father instantly puts it to death.

They will have only robust and well-made children, for deformities indicate some influence of the evil spirit Ioloquiamo, or the bird Tikitiki, the enemy of the human race.

Sometimes children of a feeble constitution undergo the same fate.

When the father is asked what is become of one of his sons, he will pretend that he has lost him by a natural death; he will disavow an action that appears to him blameable, but not criminal.

‘The poor mure” (child) he will tell you, ‘could not follow us; we must have waited for him every moment; he has not been seen again; he did not come to sleep where we passed the night.’ Such is the candour and simplicity of manners, such the boasted happiness of man in a state of nature!

He kills his son to escape the ridicule of having twins, or to avoid journeying more slowly; in fact, to avoid a little inconvenience.