No, the Aborigines of Australia are not proud of cannibalizing their young. According to George Taplin in The Narrinyeri, “This terrible crime of infanticide is covered up and concealed from the observation of the whites with extreme care.” Supporting this, George Bennett in Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, pedir coast, singapore… said “one redeeming quality, however, was, that they displayed a sense of shame when acknowledging the fact, and gave the reason for which they had committed so barbarous an act. It is seldom they will confess having destroyed their offspring”

Ultimately, the sources stress, these practices were shrouded in extreme secrecy, with the “bush life” providing ample facility to conceal them from outside observation.

Yes, there are historical records of cannibalism involving murdered children among the Aborigines of Australia. According to anthropologist Carl Lumholtz, infanticide was ‘especially common… when there is a scarcity of food,’ and he reported that under these dire circumstances, the child might be consumed.

Lumholtz’s account from Western Queensland illustrates a horrific scene in which a three-week-old half-caste child was choked to death, then roasted and eaten by the community—despite their long contact with white settlers.

 

Furthermore, William Buckley witnessed the brutal killing of a deformed child; afterward, an older boy was forced to eat the remains to ward off evil, a practice linked to the mother’s mental state and the moon’s influence. Bennett also recorded a case where a ‘weak and sickly’ child was killed and eaten simply because the hungry parents found it too troublesome.

No, the practice of infanticide by the Aborigines of Australia does not indicate that they do not care about their young. Rev. George Taplin in his account of the Narrinyeri states that a child permitted to live “is brought up with great care, more than generally falls to the lot of children of the poorer class of Europeans.” The community worked together to soothe the child, passing it from person to person to be caressed, with the father frequently nursing it for several hours together.

According to Richard Sadleir in The Aborigines of Australia, women would retire for seclusion during confinement, attended by other women. Following the birth, the husband would personally attend to his wife and would often take on the role of nursing the infant himself. A child that was spared was then “most affectionately watched over.”

 

This paradox is further confirmed by George Bennett in Wanderings in New South Wales…, who notes that although “addicted to infanticide,” they displayed in other instances “an extraordinary degree of affection for their dead offspring.” He describes this affection as being evidenced by acts of grief that “almost exceed credibility,” acts which were nevertheless witnessed repeatedly among the tribes.

According to D.V. Lucas in Australia and Homeward, the aboriginals believe that children are not supposed to have souls before they are five years old. This is further detailed in the works of Spencer and Gillen. In The Native Tribes of Central Australia, they note the belief that upon a child’s death, its spirit part “goes back at once to the particular spot from whence it came, and can be born again at some subsequent time even of the same woman.”

Scholars like Mr. M’Lennan, posited that “female infanticide”—the systematic killing of female children—was a universal practice among “primary hordes” of savages.  However, the evidence from Australian tribes, particularly the Kamilaroi and Kurnai as discussed by Fison and Howitt, challenges this theory at its core. They argue that the motives for a preferential killing of female infants simply did not exist among the “lower savages.”

Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen’s work with Northern tribes confirmed that infanticide was practised “in all of the tribes” but that “there is no difference made in respect of either sex.” The authors note that in Mota, male children were sometimes killed rather than female because the family line and inheritance passed through women.

However, a contradictory account from John Wrathall Bull, citing Dr. Wyatt, presents a clear case of gender-based infanticide, where a tribe was prepared to kill a female infant.

The overall conclusion from the primary analysis is that while infanticide was practised, the idea of a widespread, systematic preference for killing female infants among Australian tribes is not well-supported since the economic and social structures of these societies valued women highly. The reasons for infanticide were more often rooted in the immediate practical challenges of survival rather than a calculated devaluation of female life.

Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen provide a crucial insight that helps define the distinction in these methods: timing and nurture. They state that, with one exception, children were killed immediately after birth. However, they establish a critical threshold: “If once the mother has suckled it, then… it is never killed.” This rule shows the profound change in status that occurs once the bond of nurturing is established, separating a newborn that may be a perceived burden from a suckling child who is part of the community. This distinction explains why desertion and violence were reserved almost exclusively for the newborn, and why the death of a nurtured child was met with practices of profound, prolonged grief.

Notably, in Carl Lumholtz’s account from Western Queensland, a three-week-old half-caste child was choked to death, roasted, and eaten by the community. This act, occurring after the nurturing period, stands in direct contrast to the practices described by Spencer and Gillen.