Note 9 — Chapter XXXV · SUICIDE

Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 267 (Greenlanders). Murdoch, ‘Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41 (Point Barrow Eskimo), von Siebold, Die Aino auf der Insel Yesso, p. 35. von Stenin, ‘Die Kirgisen des Kreises Saissansk im Gebiete von Ssemipalatinsk,’ in Globus, lxix. 230. Beltrame, Il Fiume Bianco, p. 51 (Arabs). Felkin, ‘Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Schwarz, quoted by Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). Ibid. p. 52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Wandrer, ibid. p. 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s, p. 221 (Bantu race). Sorge, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 421 (Nissan Islanders in the Bismarck Archipelago). Kubary, ‘Die Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ in Original-Mittheilungen aus der ethnol. Abtheil. d. königl. Museen zu Berlin, i. 78 (Pelew Islanders). Among the Malays suicide is reported to be extremely rare (Brooke, Ten Years in Saráwak, i. 56; Ellis, ‘The Amok of the Malays,’ in Journal of Mental Science, xxxix. 331); but Dr. Gilmore Ellis has been told by many Malays that they consider Amok a kind of suicide. If a man wishes to die, he “amoks” in the hope of being killed, rather than kills himself, suicide being a most heinous sin according to the ethics of Muhammedanism (ibid. p. 331). In Siam suicide is rare (Bowring, Siam, i. 106). Of the Western Islanders of Torres Straits Dr. Haddon says (in Reports of the Cambridge Anthrop. Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 278) that he does not remember to have heard of a case of suicide in real life, though there are some instances of it in their folk-tales.