under him, which would be a gross familiarity, but he squats on
his knees, supporting himself with his heels in the ground. He
never shows himself before old people without his girdle. To be
without a girdle is extreme neglige."[1000] Maine[1001] says: "A
New Zealand chief, when asked as to the welfare of a
fellow-tribesman, replied, 'He gave us so much good advice that
we put him mercifully to death.'" This gives a good idea of the
two views which barbarous men take of the aged. At first they are
considered useless and burdensome, and fare accordingly; later a
sense of their wisdom raises them to a place of high honor. It
is evident that the statement here made, of the relation in time
of the two ways of treating the old, is not correct. The cases
above cited are nearly all those of savages and barbarians. The
people of higher civilization will be found amongst those of the
other mores to be cited below (see sec. 335).

+332.+ "The position of the Roman father assured him respect and
obedience as long as he lived. His unlimited power of making a will kept
his fate in his own hands."[1002] The power in his family which the law
gave him was very great, but his sons never paid him affectionate
respect. "It is remarkable that we do not hear so often of barbarous
treatment of old women as of old men. Could love for mothers have been
an effective sentiment? Under mother right the relation of child to
parent was far stronger, and the relation to the maternal uncle was
secondary and derivative with respect to that to the mother."[1003]

+333. Killing the old.+ The custom of killing the old, especially one's
parents, is very antipathetic to us. The cases will show that, for
nomadic people, the custom is necessary. The old drop out by the way and
die from exhaustion. To kill them is only equivalent, and perhaps
kinder. If an enemy is pursuing, the necessity is more acute.[1004] All
this enters into the life conditions so primarily that the custom is a
part of the life policy; it is so understood and acquiesced in. The old
sometimes request it from life weariness, or from devotion to the
welfare of the group.

+334. Killing the old in ethnography.+ The "Gallinomero sometimes
have two or three cords of wood neatly stacked in ricks about the
wigwam. Even then, with the heartless cruelty of the race, they
will dispatch an old man to the distant forest with an ax, whence