The Indians of both North and South America were addicted
to the practice of infanticide. Among the Arabs the custom was so
inveterate that as late as our sixth century, Mohammed felt called
upon, in various parts of the Koran, to discountenance it. In the
words of Professor Robertson Smith (281):
"Mohammed, when he took Mecca and received the homage of the
women in the most advanced centre of Arabian civilization,
still deemed it necessary formally to demand from them a
promise not to commit child-murder."
Among the wild tribes of India there are some who cling to their
custom of infanticide with the tenacity of fanatics. Dalton (288-90)
relates that with the Kandhs this custom was so wide-spread that in
1842 Major Macpherson reported that in many villages not a single
female child could be found. The British Government rescued a number
of girls and brought them up, giving them an education. Some of these
were afterward given in marriage to respectable Kandh bachelors,
"and it was expected that they at least would not outrage
their own feeling as mothers by consenting to the
destruction of their offspring. Subsequently, however,
Colonel Campbell ascertained that these ladies had no female
children, and, on being closely questioned, they admitted
that at their husbands' bidding they had destroyed them.
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