Note 37 — Chapter XXXV · SUICIDE

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.”