In all the tribes of the Wotjo nation, and also the Ta-tathi and other tribes on the Murray River frontage, when a child was weak and sickly they used to kill its infant brother or sister, and feed it with the flesh to make it strong.
According to Buckley, if a family increased too rapidly in the Wudthaurung tribe, as, for instance, where 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. If the father insisted on it being spared, they did not persist in its destruction, particularly if a female.[1]
Infanticide in the Kurnai tribe arose through the difficulty in carrying a baby when there were other children, especially when the next youngest was not able to walk. According to the statements made to me by the Kurnai, it sometimes happened when a child was about to be born the father would say to his wife, "We have too many children to carry about—best leave this one, when it is born, behind in the camp." On this the new-born child was left lying in the camp and the family moved elsewhere. The Kurnai drew this distinction, that they never heard of parents killing their children, but only of their leaving newborn infants behind.
In the tribes about Maryborough (Queensland) infanticide was practised by leaving the child behind when born, either on the ground or on a sheet of bark. But infants were not killed by violence, and no difference was made between boys and girls. This leaving behind or deserting the new-born infant was because of the trouble it caused where a woman had other children, and it was almost always done as regards a girl's first child. If one saw a baby, within a day or two of its birth, to have been rubbed over with red ochre and burned bark of the Bloodwood tree, one could be quite sure that it was safe. Otherwise it would disappear, being abandoned somewhere.[2]
Cannibalism
In speaking of cannabalism in these tribes, a distinction
