[8] Scott Robertson, Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, p. 381.
Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to be very rare,[9] or to occur only occasionally;[10] whereas among others it is represented as either common or extremely prevalent.[11] 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.”[12] 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.”[13] 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 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.[14] Among some uncivilised peoples suicide is frequently practised by women, though rarely by men.[15]
[9] 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, lxix. 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, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Ibid. p. 52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Wandrer, ibid. p. 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, Die 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 Saráwak, 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.
[10] Comte, quoted by Mouhot, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, ii. 27 sq. (Bannavs in Cambodia). Kloss, 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).
[11] 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). 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.
[12] Georgi, op. cit. iii. 133 sq. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 176.
[13] Tickell, ‘Memoir on the Hodésum,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 807. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 206.
[14] Mason, ‘Dwellings, &c., of the Karens,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. ii. 141.
[15] 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.
The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are manifold:—disappointed love or jealousy;[16] illness[17] or old age;[18] grief over the death of a child,[19] a husband,[20] or a wife;[21] fear of punishment;[22] slavery[23] or brutal treatment by a husband;[24] remorse,[25] shame or wounded pride, anger or revenge.[26] In various cases an offended person kills himself for the express purpose of taking revenge upon the offender.[27] Thus among the Tshi-speaking 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.[28] With reference to the Savage Islanders, who especially in heathen 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.”[29] 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.[30] Among the Chuvashes it was formerly the custom for enraged persons to hang themselves at the doors of their enemies.[31] 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.[32] Sometimes a suicide has the character of a human sacrifice.[33] 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.[34] 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,[35] or to demand to be buried with him;[36] and many Brazilian Indians killed themselves on the graves of their chiefs.[37]