Prehistory & Primitive Peoples

Who I Am

Who I Know

Where I've Been

Suicide Baby, I Love You

Miscellaneous Spewage

cscm@toast.net

Even now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a great many primitive societies still exist. Their attitudes toward suicide differ not only from continent to continent, but from tribe to tribe. In other words, there is no one paradigm of suicide that will fit all primitive societies. The same, therefore, can be assumed of prehistoric societies. The job of the anthropologist, then, is to match aspects of one or more modern primitive societies with what we know about a particular prehistoric population. Inferences can then be made about that population which were not originally obvious from the archeological record. No-one has yet undertaken this project in reference to suicide, and so I can only offer examples of the attitudes and methods of modern primitive peoples.

It was thought at one time that suicide was unknown to primitive man, and that only the effects of civilization could cause a person to desire death. In the 1700s Jean-Jacques Rousseau put forth the conceit of the "happy" or "noble savage": that man in his natural state was inherently good, and that it was the placing of man into the context of society that made him evil. He may have been suggesting a Utopian ideal when he wrote about this "natural state" of absolute individual isolation, but most people applied the idea to the primitive groups that were known at the time. The problem was, these people were just as social as those who were studying them -- the theoretical isolated unsocialized individual just did not exist. Psychiatrists in the 1800s claimed that primitive peoples lacked the complex emotional foundation required to move one to take his own life [**]. Since then, suicide has been found in many isolated groups, various aboriginal tribes in India, the many Eskimo groups of the Arctic, and sundry African tribes. During the era of African slavery, despite their classification as little more than animals, thousands of Negro slaves ended their lives rather than endure the torturous journey to the New World.

Malinowski wrote that the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands had at least three methods of committing suicide: leaping from the top of a tall pine tree, ingesting the poisonous gallbladder of the globefish or swallowing a poisonous vegetable abstract normally used to stun fish. This last method is reversible with the administration of an emetic and so was used mostly by persons seeking attention.

For the Trobrianders, suicide was an action that was required in certain situations, such as being publicly and legitimately accused of adultery or incest. For them, suicide, while outwardly disapproved of, was the expected reaction to such an accusation. The Trobriand suicide inflicted his own punishment upon himself, but he was also accorded the opportunity to punish his accuser, by calling upon his kinsmen to avenge his death.

La Fontaine notes that the Gisu peoples of Uganda were extremely superstitious about suicides. To them, everything connected with a suicide was imbued with evil. This was reflected in the elaborate lengths to which they would go to erase all trace and memory of the act, even to the point that no child could be named after the deceased. The spot where the suicide occurred was felt to be dangerous and was avoided lest suicidal impulses overtake a new victim. Even so, La Fontaine claims that Gisu suicides were committed often enough to be statistically significant. Hanging was the preferred method: out of 68 suicides noted by La Fontaine, 64 were accomplished in this manner.

The Netsilik Eskimos of Greenland also have many taboos and superstitions connected with death, according to Rasmussen. In their case, they are not themselves afraid of death or the spirits of the deceased, but they believe the animals they hunt are. Therefore it is in their best interests to observe certain rituals to assure the spirits lay quietly. In keeping with this attitude, suicide is an acceptable way for the aged and infirm to shrug off the burden of life. In any case, because they face death every day -- from the elements, from predators, from starvation -- death is accepted as an inevitable part of life. Again, the most common method of suicide is hanging. In such a barren land, the rafters of their huts are adequate to their needs. Other Eskimo groups also employ drowning and, these days, shooting. Motives include illness or old age, unhappy love affairs and depression.

In direct contrast to these examples, there are places where suicide seems to be unknown. The Andaman Islanders, the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, and various Australian aboriginal tribes all have been found to lack this particular human behavior.

So, what have we learned? That suicide may have existed in some prehistoric societies, but not in others. Pretty earth-shattering.

* Man began making his own tools around 2.5 million years ago. At that time and until about 8000 BC, when farming was developed, he lived in small nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers. Around 3000 BC the Sumerians developed the first useful written language. It is at this point that history, or the recording or human experience, can be said to have begun. [Back]

** It may well be that these attitudes were used to separate primitive from so-called "civilized" man in order to justify their treatment as a lower form of humanity. As in war, where the enemy is dehumanized so that he'll be psychologically easier to kill, the primitive is dehumanized in order that he may be taken advantage of or discriminated against. It's much easier to throw a man into slavery when you believe he doesn't feel in the same way you do.

Rousseau's followers probably didn't think this way, however. Their reason for wanting to believe that "savages" didn't commit suicide was that it bolstered their hope for a perfect world to which man might one day retire. If it existed in a small village in South America, then it was possible it might be created in the future in France, or England, or anywhere. [Back]

Durkheim, Emil. Suicide. Translated by J. Spaulding & G. Simpson. New York: The Free Press, 1951 (1897).

Evans & Farberow. The Encyclopedia Of Suicide. New York: Facts On File, 1988.

Flanders, Stephen A. Suicide. New York: Facts On File, 1991.

La Fontaine, J. S. The Gisu Of Uganda. London: International African Institute, 1959.

Leakey & Lewin. Origins. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. Crime & Custom In Savage Society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1926.

Rasmussen, Knud. The Netsilik Eskimos: Social Life & Spiritual Culture. New York: AMS Press Inc., 1976.

Weyer, Edward Moffat. The Eskimos: Their Environment & Folkways. ?: Archon Books, 1969.

Wilkins, Robert. The Bedside Book Of Death. New York: Citadel Press, 1990.

World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corp., 1974.

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