66

among others it is represented as either common extremely prevalent.1 Of the Kamchadales we are told that the least apprehension of danger drives them to despair, and that they fly to suicide as a relief, not only from present, but even from imaginary evil; not only those who are confined for some offence, but such as are discontented with their lot, prefer a voluntary death to an uneasy life, and the pains of disease." 2 Among the Hos, an Indian hill tribe, suicide is reported to be so frightfully prevalent as to afford no parallel in any known country : "If a girl appears mortified by anything that has been said, it is not safe to let her go away till she is soothed. A reflection on a man's honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to self-destruction. In a recent case, a young woman attempted to poison herself because her uncle would not partake of the food she had cooked for him." 3 Among the Karens of Burma suicide is likewise very common where Christianity has not been introduced. If a man has some incurable or painful disease, he says in a matter-of-fact way that he will hang himself, and he does as he says; if a girl's parents compel her to marry the man she does not love, she hangs herself; wives sometimes hang themselves through jealousy, sometimes because they quarrel with their husbands, and sometimes out of mere

bodia). Kloss, In the Andamans
and Nicobars, p. 316 (Nicobarese).
Among the Bakongo cases of suicide
occur, "although much less fre-
quently than in civilised countries
(Ward, Five Years with the Congo
Cannibals, p. 45).

1 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff,
Report on Alaska, p. 158 (Atkha
Aleuts). Steller, Beschreibung von
Kamtschatka, p. 293 sq.; Krashen-
innikoff, History of Kamschatka, pp.
176, 200. Georgi, Russia, iii. 133 sq.
(Kamchadales), 184 (Chukchi), 205
(Aleuts). Brooke, op. cit. i. 55 (Sea
Dyaks). Williams and Calvert, Fiji,
P. 106.
Turner, Samoa, p. 305;
Tregear, 'Niue,' in Jour. Polynesian
Soc. ii. 14; Thomson, Savage Island,
p. 109; Hood, Cruise in the Western
Pacific, p. 22 (Savage Islanders).

Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zea-
land, ii. III sq.; Collins, English
Colony in New South Wales, i. 524
(Maoris). Reade, Savage Africa, p.
553 sq.; Idem, quoted by Darwin,
Descent of Man, p. 117, n. 33 (West
African Negroes). Monrad, Skild-
ring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 23. Decle,
Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 74
(Barotse). In Tana, of the New
Hebrides (Gray, in Jour. Anthr. Inst.
xxviii. 132) and Nias (Rosenberg,
Der malayische Archipel, p. 146)
suicides are said to be not infrequent.
Georgi, op. cit. iii. 133 sq. Cf.
Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 176.
3 Tickell, Memoir on the Hodé-
sum,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal,
ix. 807. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno-
logy of Bengal, p. 206.

2

chagrin, because they are subject to depreciating comparisons; and it is a favourite threat with a wife or daughter, when not allowed to have her own way, that she will hang herself.1 Among some uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women, though rarely by men.2

The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are manifold-disappointed love or jealousy; 3 illness or old age ;5 grief over the death of a child, a husband, or a

4

wife;1 fear of punishment; 2 slavery 3 or brutal treatment by a husband; remorse,5 shame or wounded pride, anger or revenge. In various cases an offended person kills himself for the express purpose of taking revenge upon the offender. Thus among the Tshispeaking peoples of the Gold Coast, "should a person commit suicide, and before so doing attribute the act to the conduct of another person, that other person is required by native law to undergo a like fate. The practice is termed killing oneself upon the head of another,' and the person whose conduct is supposed to have driven the suicide to commit the rash act is visited with a death of an exactly similar nature "—unless, indeed, the family of the suicide be pacified with a money compensation. With reference to the Savage Islanders, who especially in heathen

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

2

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

* Modigliani, 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).

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

Turner, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mr. Dawson (Australian Aborigines, p. 62 sq.) 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.

• Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating, op. cit. ii. 171 (Chippewas). Dalton, op. cit. p. 206; Jickell, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807 (Hos). Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 76 sq. (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. 243 sq. (natives of the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 106 (Fijians). Tregear, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 14 (Savage Islanders). Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. III sq.; Collins, op. cit. i. 524 ; Angas, Savage Life in Australia and New Zealand, ii. 45; Colenso, op. cit. p. 56 sq. (Maoris). Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 45 (Bakongo). Lasch, Besitzen die Naturvölker ein persönliches Ehrgefühl?' in Zeitschr. f. Socialwissenschaft, iii. 837 sqq. 7 See Lasch, 'Rache als Selbstmordmotiv,' in Globus, lxxiv. 37 sqq.; Steinmetz, 'Gli antichi scongiuri giuridici contro i creditori,' in Rivista italiana di sociologia, ii. 49 sqq.

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

times were much addicted to suicide, we are told that, "like angry children, they are tempted to avenge themselves by picturing the trouble that they will bring upon the friends who have offended them." 1 Among the Thlinkets an offended person who is unable to take revenge in any other way commits suicide in order to expose the person who gave the offence to the vengeance of his surviving relatives and friends.2 Among the Chuvashes it was formerly the custom for enraged persons to hang themselves at the doors of their enemies.3 A similar method of taking revenge is still not infrequently resorted to by the Votyaks, who believe that the ghost of the deceased will then persecute the offender. Sometimes a suicide has the character of a human sacrifice.5 In the times of epidemics or great calamities the Chukchi sacrifice their own lives in order to appease evil spirits and the souls of departed relatives. Among some savages it is common for a woman, especially if married to a man of importance, to commit suicide on the death of her husband, or to demand to be buried with him ; and many Brazilian Indians killed themselves on the graves of their chiefs.9

7

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.10 The belief in the new

Buch, 'Die Wotjäken,' in Acta Soc. Scient. Fennica, xii. 611 sq.

5 See Lasch, 'Religiöser Selbstmord und seine Beziehung zum Menschenopfer,' in Globus, lxxv. 69 sqq. 6 Skrzyncki, Der Selbstmord bei den Tschuktschen,' in Am Ur-Quell, v. 207 sq.

7 Ashe, 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).

8 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 125 (Fijians). Codring

ton, op. cit. p. 289 (natives of Aurora Island, New Hebrides).

Dorman, Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 211. Cf. ibid. p. 209. Of the Niger Delta tribes M. le Comte de Cardi writes (in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 55) :—" On the deportation of a king or a chief by the British ог 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 king or chief attempt their own lives at the moment when the vessel carrying away their chief disappeared from their sight."

10 Cf. Steinmetz, in American Anthropologist, vii. 60; Vierkandt,

human 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.1 Among the Chukchi there are persons who kill themselves for the purpose of effecting an earlier reunion with their deceased relatives. Among 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.3 We 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."4 The 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 5

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. Among the Central African Bairo those women who refrained from destroying themselves over their husbands' graves were regarded as outcasts. On the Gold Coast a man of low rank who has married one of the king's sisters is