Note 211 — Chapter XXXV · SUICIDE

See infra, on Regard for the Dead. Contact with a self-murderer’s body is considered polluting (Prexl, ‘Geburts- und Todtengebräuche der Rumänen in Siebenbürgen,’ in Globus, lvii. 30; Hyltén-Cavallius, Wärend och Wirdarne, i. 459, 460, and ii. 412). We are told that in the eighteenth century people did not dare to cut down a person who had hanged himself, though he was found still alive (Frank, op. cit. iv. 499). Among the Bannavs of Cambodia everybody who takes part in the burial of a self-murderer is obliged to undergo a certain ceremony of purification, whereas no such ceremony is prescribed in the case of other burials (Mittheil. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena, iii. 9).