[36] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, p. 125 (Fijians). Codrington, op. cit. p. 289 (natives of Aurora Island, New Hebrides).
[37] 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 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.[38] The belief in the new 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.[39] Among the Chukchi there are persons who kill themselves for the purpose of effecting an earlier reunion with their deceased relatives.[40] 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.[41] 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.”[42] 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.[43]
[38] Cf. Steinmetz, in American Anthropologist, vii. 60; Vierkandt, Naturvölker und Kulturvölker, p. 284; Lasch, in Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ii. 585.
[39] Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 5.
[40] Skrzyncki, in Am Ur-Quell, v. 207.
[41] von Struve, ‘Die Samojeden im Norden von Sibirien,’ in Ausland, 1880, p. 777.
[42] Georgi, op. cit. iii. 265. Cf. Steller, Beschreibung von Kamtschatka, p. 294.
[43] Hale, 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.[44] Among the Central African Bairo those women who refrained from destroying themselves over their husbands’ graves were regarded as outcasts.[45] On the Gold Coast a man of low rank who has married one of the king’s sisters is expected 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.”[46] The customary suicides of the Chukchi are solemnly performed in the presence and with the assistance of relatives and neighbours.[47] The Samoyedes maintain that suicide by strangulation “is pleasing to God, who looks upon it as a voluntary sacrifice, which deserves reward.”[48] The opinion of the Kamchadales that it is “allowable and praiseworthy” for a man to take his own life,[49] was 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]