Chapter 96

16Lasch, ‘Der Selbstmord aus erotischen Motiven bei den primitiven Völkern,’ inZeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ii. 579sqq.Westermarck,History of Human Marriage, p. 503. Keating,op. cit.ii. 172 (Chippewas). Eastman,Dacotah, pp. 89sqq., 168sq.; Dodge,Our Wild Indians, p. 321sq.(Dacotahs). Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mason, inJour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Brooke Low, quoted by Ling Roth,Natives of Sarawak, i. 115 (Sea Dyaks). Kubary, ‘Religion der Pelauer,’ in Bastian,Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde, i. 3 (Pelew Islanders). Senfft, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 452 (Marshall Islanders). Codrington,Melanesians, p. 243sq.(natives of the Banks’ Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Waitz,Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 115; Malone,Three Years’ Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 72sq.(Maoris). Reade,Savage Africa, p. 554 (West African Negroes). Munzinger,Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93sq.

17Dodge,op. cit.p. 321sq.(North American Indians) Holm, ‘Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,’ inMeddelelser om Grönland, x. 181 (Angmagsaliks of Eastern Greenland). Georgi,op. cit.iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Mason, inJour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Gray, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxviii. 132 (natives of Tana, New Hebrides). Sartori, ‘Die Sitte der Alten- und Krankentötung,’ inGlobus, lxvii. 109sq.

18Perrin du Lac,Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, p. 346. Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331;Idem,Eskimo Life, pp. 170, 267 (Greenlanders). Steller,Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 294. Wilkes,U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 96; Hale,U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, p. 65 (Fijians). Diodorus Siculus,Bibliotheca historica, iii. 33.5 (Troglodytes). Pomponius Mela,De situ orbis, iii. 7 (Seres). Hartknoch,Alt- und Neues Preussen, i. 181 (ancient Prussians). Mareschalcus,Annales Herulorum ac Vandalorum, i. 8 (Monumenta inedita rerum Germanicarum, i. 191); Procopius,De bello Gothico, ii. 14 (Heruli). Maurer,Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, ii. 79, n. 48 (ancient Scandinavians).

19Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff,op. cit.p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating,op. cit.ii. 172 (Chippewas). Colenso,Maori Races, pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach,op. cit.ii. 112 (Maoris).

20Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff,op. cit.p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Haddon, inRep. Cambridge Anthr. Exped. to Torres Straits, v. 17 (Western Islanders, according to a Kauralaig folk-tale). Colenso,op. cit.pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach,op. cit.ii. 112 (Maoris).

21Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff,op. cit.p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Fawcett,Saoras, p. 17. Dieffenbach,op. cit.ii. 112 (Maoris).

22Steller,Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 293. Dieffenbach,op. cit.ii. 112 (Maoris).

23Modigliani,Viaggio a Nías, p. 473. Decle,op. cit.p. 74 (Barotse). Monrad,op. cit.p. 25 (Negroes of Accra). Donne,Biathanatos, p. 56 (American Indians).

24Wied-Neuwied,Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 349 (Mandans).

25Turner, inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mr. Dawson (Australian Aborigines, p. 62sq.) tells us of a native of Western Victoria who decided to commit suicide because, being intoxicated, he had killed his wife, and was so sorry for it. He besought the tribe to kill him, and seeing his determination to starve himself to death, his friends at last sent for the tribal executioner, who pushed a spear through him.

26Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff,op. cit.p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating,op. cit.ii. 171 (Chippewas). Dalton,op. cit.p. 206; Jickell, inJour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807 (Hos). Colquhoun,Amongst the Shans, p. 76sq.(Lethtas). Mac Mahon,Far Cathay, p. 241 (Tarus, one of the Chino-Burmese border tribes). Brooke,op. cit.i. 55 (Sea Dyaks). Chalmers,Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea, p. 227 (a woman at Port Moresby; Mr. Abel [Savage Life in New Guinea, p. 102] speaks of a New Guinea woman who was so annoyed because her old village friends had not visited her during her illness that she attempted to commit suicide). Codrington,op. cit.p. 243sq.(natives of the Banks’ Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Williams and Calvert,op. cit.p. 106 (Fijians). Tregear, inJour. Polynesian Soc.ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach,op. cit.ii. 111sq.; Collins,op. cit.i. 524; Angas,Savage Life in Australia and New Zealand, ii. 45; Colenso,op. cit.p. 56sq.(Maoris). Ward,Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 45 (Bakongo). Lasch, ‘Besitzen die Naturvölker ein persönliches Ehrgefühl?’ inZeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft, iii. 837sqq.

27See Lasch, ‘Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,’ inGlobus, lxxiv. 37sqq.; Steinmetz, ‘Gli antichi scongiuri giuridici contro i creditori,’ inRivista italiana di sociologia, ii. 49sqq.

28Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 302. The same custom is mentioned by Monrad (op. cit.p. 23sq.), Bowdich (Mission to Ashantee, pp. 256, 257, 259 n. ‡), and Reade (Savage Africa, p. 554).

29Thomson,Savage Island, p. 109.

30Krause,Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 222.

31Lebedew, ‘Die simbirskischen Tschuwaschen,’ in Erman’sArchiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, ix. 586 n. **

32Buch, ‘Die Wotjaken,’ inActa Soc. Scient. Fennicæ, xii. 611sq.

33See Lasch, ‘Religiöser Selbstmord und seine Beziehung zum Menschenopfer.’ inGlobus, lxxv. 69sqq.

34Skrzyncki, ‘Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,’ inAm Ur-Quell, v. 207sq.

35Ashe,Two Kings of Uganda, p. 342 (Wahuma). Johnston,Uganda Protectorate, ii. 610 (Bairo). Junghuhn,Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, ii. 340 (natives of Bali and Lombok).

36Westermarck,History of Human Marriage, p. 125 (Fijians). Codrington,op. cit.p. 289 (natives of Aurora Island, New Hebrides).

37Dorman,Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 211.Cf.ibid.p. 209. Of the Niger Delta tribes M. le Comte de Cardi writes (inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxix. 55):—“On the deportation of a king or a chief by the British or other European government for some offence I have seen the wives of the deported man throw themselves into the river and fight like mad women with the people who went to their rescue; I have also seen some of the male retainers both free and slaves of a deported chief attempt their own lives at the moment when the vessel carrying away their chief disappeared from their sight.”

In various other cases, besides the voluntary sacrifices of widows or slaves, the suicides of savages are connected with their notions of a future life.38The belief in the newhuman birth of the departed soul has led West African negroes to take their own lives when in distant slavery, that they may awaken in their native land.39Among the Chukchi there are persons who kill themselves for the purpose of effecting an earlier reunion with their deceased relatives.40Among the Samoyedes it happens that a young girl who is sold to an old man strangles herself in the hope of getting a more suitable bridegroom in the other world.41We are told that the Kamchadales inflict death on themselves with the utmost coolness because they maintain that “the future life is a continuation of the present, but much better and more perfect, where they expect to have all their desires more completely satisfied than here.”42The suicides of old people, again, are in some cases due to the belief that a man enters into the other world in the same condition in which he left this one, and that it consequently is best for him to die before he grows too old and feeble.43

38Cf.Steinmetz, inAmerican Anthropologist, vii. 60; Vierkandt,Naturvölker und Kulturvölker, p. 284; Lasch, inZeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ii. 585.

39Tylor,Primitive Culture, ii. 5.

40Skrzyncki, inAm Ur-Quell, v. 207.

41von Struve, ‘Die Samojeden im Norden von Sibirien,’ inAusland, 1880, p. 777.

42Georgi,op. cit.iii. 265.Cf.Steller,Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 294.

43Hale,op. cit.p. 65 (Fijians).Cf.supra,i. 390.

The notions of savages concerning life after death also influence their moral valuation of suicide. Where men are supposed to require wives not only during their lifetime, but after their death, it may be a praiseworthy thing, or even a duty, for a widow to accompany her husband to the land of souls. According to Fijian beliefs, the woman who at the funeral of her husband met death with the greatest devotedness would become the favourite wife in the abode of spirits, whereas a widow who did not permit herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.44Among the Central African Bairo those women who refrained from destroying themselves over their husbands’ graves were regarded as outcasts.45On the Gold Coast a man of low rank who has married one of the king’s sisters isexpected to make away with himself when his wife dies, or upon the death of an only male child; and “should he outrage native custom and neglect to do so, a hint is conveyed to him that he will be put to death, which usually produces the desired effect.”46The customary suicides of the Chukchi are solemnly performed in the presence and with the assistance of relatives and neighbours.47The Samoyedes maintain that suicide by strangulation “is pleasing to God, who looks upon it as a voluntary sacrifice, which deserves reward.”48The opinion of the Kamchadales that it is “allowable and praiseworthy” for a man to take his own life,49was probably connected with their optimistic notions about their fate after death. And that the habitual suicides of old persons have the sanction of public opinion is particularly obvious where they may choose between killing themselves and being killed.50

44Westermarck,op. cit.p. 125sq.

45Johnston,Uganda Protectorate, i. 610.

46Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 287.

47Skrzyncki, inAm Ur-Quell, v. 208.

48von Struve, inAusland, 1880, p. 777.

49Steller,op. cit.p. 269.Cf.Krasheninnikoff,op. cit.p. 204.

50Supra,i. 389sq.(Fijians). Nansen,First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331. Steller,op. cit.p. 294 (Kamchadales).

Whilst in some cases suicide opens the door to a happy land beyond the grave, it in other cases entails consequences of a very different kind. The Omahas believe that a self-murderer ceases to exist.51According to the Thompson Indians in British Columbia, “the souls of people who commit suicide do not go to the land of souls. The shamans declare they never saw such people there; and some say that they have looked for the souls of such people, but could not find their tracks. Some shamans say they cannot locate the place where the souls of suicides go, but think they must be lost, because they seem to disappear altogether. Others say that these souls die, and cease to exist. Still others claim that the souls never leave the earth, but wander around aimlessly.”52So also the Jakuts believe that the ghost of a self-murderer nevercomes to rest.53Sometimes the fate of suicides after death is represented as a punishment which they suffer for their deed. Thus the Dacotahs, among whom women not infrequently put an end to their existence by hanging themselves, are of opinion that suicide is displeasing to the “Father of Life,” and will be punished in the land of spirits by the ghost being doomed for ever to drag the tree on which the person hanged herself; hence the women always suspend themselves to as small a tree as can possibly sustain their weight.54The Pahárias of the Rájmahal Hills, in India, say that “suicide is a crime in God’s eyes,” and that “the soul of one who so offends shall not be admitted into heaven, but must hover eternally as a ghost between heaven and earth,”55The Kayans of Borneo maintain that self-murderers are sent to a place calledTan Tekkan, where they will be very poor and wretched, subsisting on leaves, roots, or anything they can pick up in the forests, and being easily distinguished by their miserable appearance.56According to Dyak beliefs, they go to a special place, where those who have drowned themselves must thenceforth live up to their waists in water, and those who have poisoned themselves must live in houses built of poisonous woods and surrounded by noxious plants, the exhalations of which are painful to the spirits.57In other instances we are simply told that the souls of suicides, together with those of persons who have been killed in war,58or who have died a violent death,59are not permitted to live with the rest of the souls, to whom their presence would cause uneasiness. Among the Hidatsa Indians some people say that the ghosts of menwho have made away with themselves occupy a separate part of the village of the dead, but that their condition in no other wise differs from that of the other ghosts.60

51La Flesche, ‘Death and Funeral Customs among the Omahas,’ inJour. of American Folk-Lore, ii. 11.

52Teit, ‘Thompson Indians of British Columbia,’ inMemoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Anthropology, i. 358sq.

53Sumner, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxxi. 101.

54Bradbury,Travels in the Interior of America, p. 89.Cf.Keating,op. cit.i. 394.

55Dalton,Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 268.Cf.Sherwill, ‘Tour through the Rájmahal Hills,’ inJour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xx. 556.

56Hose, ‘Journey up the Baram River to Mount Dulit and the Highlands of Borneo,’ inGeographical Journal, i. 199.

57Wilken,Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel, i. 44.

58Brebeuf, ‘Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le pays des Hurons,’ inRelations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 104sq.Hewitt, ‘The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul,’ inJour. of American Folk-Lore, viii. 109.

59Steinmetz, inAmerican Anthropologist, vii. 58 (Niase).

60Matthews,Ethnography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, p. 49.

It is, however, hard to believe that the fate of the self-murderer, whether it be annihilation, a vagrant existence on earth, or separation in the other world, was originally meant as a punishment; for a similar lot is assigned to the souls of persons who have been drowned,61or who have died by accident or violence.62It seems that the suicide’s future state is in the first place supposed to depend upon the treatment of his corpse. Frequently he is denied burial, or at least the ordinary funeral rites,63and this may give rise to the notion that his soul never comes to rest or, possibly, even ceases to exist. Or he is buried by himself, apart from the other dead,64in which case his soul must naturally remain equally isolated. Among the Alabama Indians, for instance, “when a man kills himself, either in despair or in a sickness, he is deprived of burial, and thrown into the river.”65In Dahomey “the body of any person committing suicide is not allowed to be buried, but thrown out into the fields to be devoured by wild beasts.”66Among the Fantis of the Gold Coast “il y a des places réservées aux suicides et à ceux qui sont morts de la petite vérole. Ils sont enterrés à l’écart loin de toutehabitation et de tout chemin public.”67In the Pelew Islands a self-murderer is buried not with his own deceased relatives, but in the place where he ended his life, as are also the corpses of those who fall in war.68Among the Bannavs of Cambodia “anyone who perishes by his own hand is buried in a corner of the forest far from the graves of his brethren.”69Among the Sea Dyaks “those who commit suicide are buried in different places from others, as it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in the seven-storied heaven with such of their fellow-country men as come by their death in a natural manner or from the influence of the spirits.”70The motive for thus treating self-murderers’ bodies is superstitious fear. Their ghosts, as the ghosts of persons who have died by any other violent means or by accident, are supposed to be particularly malevolent,71owing to their unnatural mode of death72or to the desperate or angry state of mind in which they left this life. If they are not buried at all, or if they are buried in the spot where they died or in a separate place, that is either because nobody dares to interfere with them, or in order to prevent them from mixing with the other dead. So also murdered persons are sometimes left unburied,73and people who are supposed to have been killed by evil spirits are buried apart;74whilst those struck with lightning are either denied interment,75or buried where they fell and in the position in which they died.76We sometimes hear of a connection between the way in which a suicide’s body is treated and the moral opinion as regards his deed. Among the Alabama Indians his corpseis said to be thrown into the river “because he is looked upon as a coward”;77and of the Ossetes M. Kovalewsky states that they bury suicides far away from other dead persons because they regard their act as sinful.78But we may be sure that moral condemnation is not the original cause of these practices.

61Teit,loc. cit.p. 359 (Thompson Indians).

62Soppitt,Kuki-Lushai Tribes, p. 12. Anderson,Mandalay to Momien, p. 146 (Kakhyens). Müller,Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 287 (Brazilian Indians).Supra,ii. 237. The Central Eskimo believe that all who die by accident or by violence, and women who die in childbirth, are taken to the upper, happier world (Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.vi. 590). According to the belief of the Behring Strait Eskimo, the shades of shamans, or persons who die by accident, violence, or starvation, go to a land of plenty in the sky, where there is light, food, and water in abundance, whereas the shades of people who die from natural causes go to the underground land of the dead (Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering Strait,’ inAnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn.xviii. 423).

63See Lasch, ‘Die Behandlung der Leiche des Selbstmorders,’ inGlobus, lxxvi. 63sqq.

64Ibid.p. 65.

65Bossu,Travels through Louisiana, i. 258.

66M‘Leod,Voyage to Africa, p. 48sq.I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to this and a few other statements in the present chapter.

67Gallaud, ‘A la Côte d’Or,’ inLes missions catholiques, xxv. 347.

68Kubary, inOriginal-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin, i. 78.

69Comte, quoted by Mouhot,op. cit.ii. 28. See also ‘Das Volk der Bannar,’ inMittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena, iii. 9.

70St. John,Life in the Forests of the Far East, i. 69.

71Lasch, inGlobus, lxxvi. 65.Cf.Liebrecht,Zur Volkskunde, p. 414sq.

72Lippert,Der Seelencult, p. 11. Kubary, inOriginal-Mittheil. aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin, i. 78.

73Rosenberg,Der malayische Archipel, p. 461 (Papuans of Dorey).

74Hodson, ‘Native Tribes of Manipur,’ inJour. Anthr. Inst.xxxi. 305sq.

75Burton,Mission to Gelele, ii. 142sq.(Dahomans).

76La Flesche, inJour. American Folk-Lore, ii. 11 (Omahas).

77Bossu,op. cit.i. 258.

78Kovalewsky,Coutume contemporaine et loi ancienne, p. 327.

It is comparatively seldom that savages are reported to attach any stigma to suicide. To the instances mentioned above a few others may be added. The Waganda, we are told, greatly condemn the act.79Among the Bogos “a man never despairs, never gives himself up, and considers suicide as the greatest indignity.”80The Karens of Burma deem it an act of cowardice; but at the same time they have no command against it, they “seem to see little or no guilt in it,” and “we are nowhere told that it is displeasing to the God of heaven and earth.”81The Dacotahs said of a girl who had destroyed herself because her parents had turned her beloved from the wigwam, and would force her to marry a man she hated, that her spirit did not watch over her earthly remains, being offended when she brought trouble upon her aged mother and father.82In Dahomey “it is criminal to attempt to commit suicide, because every man is the property of the king. The bodies of suicides are exposed to public execration, and the head is always struck off and sent to Agbomi; at the expense of the family if the suicide were a free man, at that of his master if he were a slave.”83On the other hand, it is expressly stated of various savages that they do not punish attempts to commit suicide.84The negroes of Accra see nothing wrong in the act. “Why,” they would ask, “should a person not beallowed to die, when he no longer desires to live?” But they inflict cruel punishments upon slaves who try to put an end to themselves, in order to deter other slaves from doing the same.85Among the Pelew Islanders suicide “is neither praised nor blamed.”86The Eskimo around Northumberland Inlet and Davis Strait believe that any one who has been killed by accident, or who has taken his own life, certainly goes to the happy place after death.87The Chippewas hold suicide “to be a foolish, not a reprehensible action,” and do not believe it to entail any punishment in the other world.88In his sketches of the manners and customs of the North American Indians, Buchanan writes:—“Suicide is not considered by the Indians either as an act of heroism or of cowardice, nor is it with them a subject of praise or blame. They view this desperate act as the consequence of mental derangement, and the person who destroys himself is to them an object of pity.”89

79Felkin, inProceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723.

80Munzinger,Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93.

81Mason, inJour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.

82Eastman,op. cit.p. 169.

83Ellis,Ew̔e-speaking Peoples, p. 224.

84Leuschner, in Steinmetz,Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Nicole,ibid.p. 135 (Diakité-Sarracolese). Lang,ibid.p. 262 (Washambala). Rautanen,ibid.p. 343 (Ondonga). Sorge,ibid.p. 421 (Nissan Islanders). Senfft,ibid.p. 452 (Marshall Islanders).

85Monrad,op. cit.pp. 23, 25.

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