.[907] In German Melanesia the custom is current.
Although many Europeans live with native women, few crossbreeds
are to be seen.[908] Codrington[909] gives as reasons: "If a
woman did not want the trouble of bringing up a child, desired to
appear young, was afraid her husband might think the birth before
its time, or wished to spite her husband." Ling Roth[910] quotes
Low that the Dyaks never resort to wilful miscarriage, but this
statement must be restricted to some of them. Perelaer[911] says
that even married women do it and employ harmful means. The
Atchinese practice abortion both before marriage and in marriage.
It is a matter of course.[912] The women of Central Celebes will
not bear children, and use abortion to avoid it, lest the
perineum be torn,--"a thing which they consider the greatest
shame for a woman."[913] If an unmarried woman of the Djakun, on
the peninsula of Malacca, used abortion, she lost all standing in
the tribe. Women despised her; no man would marry her, and she
might be degraded by a punishment inflicted by her parents.
Married women practiced it sometimes to avoid the strain of
bearing children, but, if detected, they might be beaten by the
husbands, even to death. In the neighboring tribe of the Orang
Laut no means of abortion was known. "Such an abomination was not
regarded as possible."[914] These tribes on Malacca are very low
in grade of civilization. They are aborigines who have been
displaced and depressed. The people of Nukuoro are all of good
physique, large, and well formed. They have a food supply in
excess of their wants and are well nourished. The population has
decreased in recent years, by reason of the killing of children
before or after birth.[915] On the New Britain islands the women
dislike to become mothers soon after marriage. Generally it is
from two to four years before a child is born.[916] On the New
Hebrides the women employ abortion for egoistic reasons, and
miscarriage is often produced by climbing trees and carrying
heavy loads.[917] The inhabitants of the New Hebrides are
diminishing in number, especially on the coasts, because they
flee inland before the whites. Ten years ago there were at Port
Sandwich, on Mallicolo, six hundred souls. To-day there are only
half so many. In the last years there have been five births and
thirty deaths. Abortion is ver