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of their species which is not an object of their anger or their fear. Savages have shown themselves capable of tender feelings towards suffering and harmless strangers.1 The sensibility of little children sometimes goes beyond the circle of the family; Madame Manacéine tells us of a girl two years old who, in the Zoological Gardens at St. Petersburg, began to cry bitterly when she saw an elephant walking over the keeper's body, although the other spectators were quietly watching the trick.2 In mankind altruism has been narrowed by social isolation, by differences in race, language, habits, and customs, by enmity and suspicion. But increased intercourse has gradually led to conditions favourable to its expansion. As Buckle remarks, ignorance is the most powerful of all the causes of national hatred; "when you increase the contact, you remove the ignorance, and thus you diminish the hatred." 3 People of different nationalities feel that in spite of all dissimilarities between them there is much that they have in common; and frequent intercourse makes the differences less marked, or obliterates many of them altogether. There can be no doubt that this process will go on in the future. And equally certain it is that similar causes will produce similar effects that altruism will continue to expand, and that the notion of a human brotherhood will receive more support from the actual feelings of mankind than it does at present.

1 See supra, i. 570-572, 581.

2 Manacéine, Le surmenage mental dans la civilisation moderne, p. 248.

See also Compayré, op. cit. p. 323.

3 Buckle, History of Civilization in England, i. 222.

CHAPTER XXXV

SUICIDE

IN previous chapters we have discussed the moral valuation of acts, forbearances, and omissions, which directly concern the interests of other men; we shall now proceed to consider moral ideas regarding such modes of conduct as chiefly concern a man's own welfare. Among these we notice, in the first place, acts affecting his existence.

Suicide, or intentional self-destruction, has often been represented as a fruit of a higher civilisation; Dr. Steinmetz, on the other hand, in his essay on 'Suicide among Primitive Peoples,' thinks it probable that "there is a greater propensity to suicide among savage than among civilised peoples.' The former view is obviously erroneous; the latter probably holds good of certain savages as compared with certain peoples of culture, but cannot claim general validity.

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Among several uncivilised races suicide is said to be unknown. To these belong some of the lower savagesthe Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,3 the Andaman Islanders,*

1 Steinmetz, 'Suicide among Primitive Peoples,' in American Anthropologist, vii. 60.

2 Paulitschke, Ethnographie NordostAfrikas, p. 205 (Danakil and Galla). Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, P. 532 (Barca and Kunáma). New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 99 (Wanika).

Felkin, Notes on the For Tribe of Central Africa,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 231. Lumholtz (Unknown Mexico, i. 243) thinks it is doubtful whether a pagan Tarahumare ever killed himself.

3 Bridge, in South American Mis sionary Magazine, xiii. 211.

4 Man, Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. III.

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and various Australian tribes; whilst as regards most other tribes at about the same stage of culture information seems to be wanting. Of the natives in Western and Central Australia Sir G. Grey writes, "Whenever I have interrogated them on this point, they have invariably laughed at me, and treated my question as a joke." When a Caroline Islander was told of suicides committed by Europeans, he thought that he had not grasped what was said to him, as he never in his life had heard of anything so ridiculous. The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, though they have no intense fear of death, cannot understand suicide; "the idea of a man killing himself strikes them as inexplicable."

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Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to be very rare, or to occur only occasionally; whereas

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1 Grey, Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 248. Curr, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, p. 277 (Bangerang). Among the tribes of Western Victoria described by Mr. Dawson (Australian Aborigines, p. 62) suicide is not unknown, though it is uncommon; "if a native wishes to die, and cannot get any one to kill him, he will sometimes put himself in the way of a venomous snake, that he may be bitten by it."

2 Grey, op. cit. ii. 248.

3 von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea, iii. 195.

4 Scott Robertson, Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 381.

5 Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 267 (Greenlanders). Murdoch, Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41 (Point Barrow Eskimo). von Siebold, Die Aino auf der Insel Yesso, p. 35.

von Stenin, Die Kirgisen des Kreises Saissansk im Gebiete von Ssemipalatinsk,' in Globus, Ixix. 230. Beltrame, Il Fiume Bianco, p. 51 (Arabs). Felkin, Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,' in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Schwarz, quoted by Steinmetz, Rechtsverhält nisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Ibid. p. 52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Wandrer, ibid. p. 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, Die

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Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's, p. 221
(Bantu race). Sorge, in Steinmetz,
Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 421 (Nissan
Islanders in the Bismarck Archipelago).
Kubary, Die Verbrechen und das
Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,'
in Original-Mittheilungen aus der
ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu
Berlin, i. 78 (Pelew Islanders).
Among the Malays suicide is reported
to be extremely rare (Brooke, Ten
Years in Sarawak, i. 56; Ellis, 'The
Amok of the Malays,' in Journal of
Mental Science, xxxix. 331); but Dr.
Gilmore Ellis has been told by many
Malays that they consider Amok a
kind of suicide. If a man wishes to
die, he "amoks" in the hope of being
killed, rather than kills himself, suicide
being a most heinous sin according to
the ethics of Muhammedanism (ibid.
P. 331). In Siam suicide is rare
(Bowring, Siam, i. 106). Of the
Western Islanders of Torres Straits
Dr. Haddon says (in Reports of the
Cambridge Anthrop. Expedition to
Torres Straits, v. 278) that he does not
remember to have heard of a case of
suicide in real life, though there are
some instances of it in their folk-
tales.

6 Comte, quoted by Mouhot, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, iì. 27 sq. (Bannavs in Cambodia). Kloss,

among others it is represented as either common extremely prevalent. 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

In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 316 (Nicobarese). Among the Bakongo cases of suicide occur, "although much less frequently 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.; Krasheninnikoff, 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).

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Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 111 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, Skildring 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.

2 Georgi, op. cit. iii. 133 sq. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 176.

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Tickell, Memoir on the Hodéin Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 206.

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. Among some uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women, though rarely by men.2

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

1 Mason, Dwellings, &c., of the Karens,' in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.

2 Keating, Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, i. 394 (Dacotahs); ii. 171 sq. (Chippewas). Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 87 (Dacotahs). Brooke Low, quoted by Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 117 (Sea Dyaks). Munzinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93.

3 Lasch, Der Selbstmord aus erotischen Motiven bei den primitiven Völkern,' in Zeitschrift für Socialwissenchaft, ii. 579 sqq. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 503. Keating, op. cit. ii. 172 (Chippewas). Eastman, Dacotah, pp. 89 sqq., 168 sq.; Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 321 sq. (Dacotahs). Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mason, in Jour. 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. 243 sq. (natives of the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides). Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 115; Malone, Three Years' Cruise in the Australasian Colonies, p. 72 sq. (Maoris). Reade, Savage Africa, p. 554 (West African Negroes). Munzinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 93 sq.

Dodge, op. cit. p. 321 sq. (North American Indians). Holm, 'Ethno

logisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in Meddelelser om Grönland, x. 181 (Angmagsaliks of Eastern Greenland). Georgi, op. cit. iii. 134 (Kamchadales). Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Gray, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxviii, 132 (natives of Tana, New Hebrides). Sartori, 'Die Sitte der Alten- und Krankentötung,' in Globus, lxvii. 109 sq.

5 Perrin 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, Altund 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 21m Christenthume, ii. 79, n. 48 (ancient Scandinavians).

6 Veniaminof, 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).

7 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, op. cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Haddon, in Rep. 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).

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