The Nomadic Alternative – Page 174

question. The hunters have no milk from cows, sheep, goats or
camels, nor easily digested cereals. And they know that malnutri-
tion in infancy adversely affects the full development of the body
and the brain. "Bushmen children", writes Mrs. Marshall, "must have
strong legs and the mother's milk is what makes them strong. A
mother has not got enough to nurse two infants at the same time.
They believe a child should nurse till it is three or four years
old. We have seen six or seven year olds standing to nurse. The
'Kung have no milk from goats or cows and no cereals to feed an
infant, and they say that even if they chew their tough meat, harsh
roots and nuts and feed the baby from their own mouth (We have seen
them do this like birds.) they cannot successfully feed two babies
in this way, both may die."

Two children or twins are an impossible burden. (This will explain
why many peoples have considered twins a sinister visitation.) The
mother can neither carry them nor feed them. Hunters are usually
monogamous - except in conditions of surplus and settlement. Foster
mothers are accordingly scarce, and divorce is followed by instant
remarriage, for no man or woman can afford economically to remain
single. Large families are practical with servants, wet-nurses or
plentiful supplies of milk. The hunters have none.

Righteous-minded men have pilloried these savages for infanticide.
Missionaries have exploded with Christian indignation. Not so Cabeza
della Vaca, that mine of intelligent information, who noticed that
the hunting Yguazes of Texas deliberately spaced their children
"otherwise those who lived would be delicate, having little strength".

The Australian Aranda smothered children "whom they were unable to
feed or carry on their backs during long wanderings or drought".*

Here, if proof were lacking, was evidence that the spectre of famine
tormented the hunters. Here, if anywhere, lay a closer Christian
duty to instruct them in agriculture or animal husbandry, to spare
the mothers that ultimate degradation - the killing of their own
children. Malthus believed that human misery was the ultimate check

*Elkin, 1931, p. 64.