[53] Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 101.
[54] Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America, p. 89. Cf. Keating, op. cit. i. 394.
[55] Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 268. Cf. Sherwill, ‘Tour through the Rájmahal Hills,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xx. 556.
[56] Hose, ‘Journey up the Baram River to Mount Dulit and the Highlands of Borneo,’ in Geographical Journal, i. 199.
[57] Wilken, Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel, i. 44.
[58] Brebeuf, ‘Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le pays des Hurons,’ in Relations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 104 sq. Hewitt, ‘The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul,’ in Jour. of American Folk-Lore, viii. 109.
[59] Steinmetz, in American Anthropologist, vii. 58 (Niase).
[60] Matthews, 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,[61] or who have died by accident or violence.[62] It 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,[63] and 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,[64] in 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.”[65] In 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.”[66] Among 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 toute habitation et de tout chemin public.”[67] In 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.[68] Among 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.”[69] Among 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.”[70] The 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,[71] owing to their unnatural mode of death[72] or 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,[73] and people who are supposed to have been killed by evil spirits are buried apart;[74] whilst those struck with lightning are either denied interment,[75] or buried where they fell and in the position in which they died.[76] We 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 corpse is said to be thrown into the river “because he is looked upon as a coward”;[77] and of the Ossetes M. Kovalewsky states that they bury suicides far away from other dead persons because they regard their act as sinful.[78] But we may be sure that moral condemnation is not the original cause of these practices.
[61] Teit, loc. cit. p. 359 (Thompson Indians).