Suicides And Bachelors

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_ Hearts are not likely to be broken by a refusal under such circumstances, which bears out Williams's remark that no distinctive preference is apparent among these men and women. Under such circumstances it may appear strange that some widowers should commit suicide upon the death of a wife, as Seernan assures us they do. Does not this indicate deep feeling? Not in a savage. In all countries suicide is usually a sign of a weak intellect rather than of strong feelings, and especially is this the case among the lower races, where both men and women are apt to commit suicide in a moment of excitement, often for the most trivial cause, as we shall see in the next chapter. Williams tells us of a chief on Thithia who was addressed disrespectfully by a younger brother and who, rather than live to have the insult made the topic of common talk, loaded his musket, placed the muzzle at his breast, and pushing the trigger with his toe, shot himself through the heart. He knew a similar case on Vanua Levu.

"Pride and anger combined often lead to self-destruction.
... The most common method of suicide in Fiji is by jumping
over a precipice. This is, among the women, the fashionable
way of destroying themselves; but they sometimes resort to
the rope. Of deadly poisons they are ignorant, and drowning
would be a difficult thing; for from infancy they learn to
be almost as much at home in the water as on dry land."

In his book on the Melanesians Codrington says (243) that

"a wife jealous of her husband, or in any way incensed at
him, would in former times throw herself from a cliff or
tree, swim out to sea, hang or strangle herself, stab
herself with an arrow, or thrust one down her throat; and a
man jealous or quarrelling with his wife would do the like;
but now it is easy to go off with another's wife or husband
in a labor vessel to Queensland or Fiji."

There is one class of men in Fiji who are not likely to commit suicide. They are the bachelors, who, though they are scorned and frowned on in this life, must look forward to a worse fate after death. There is a special god, named Nangganangga--"the bitter hater of bachelors"--who watches for their souls, and so untiring is his watch, as Williams was informed (206), that no unwedded spirit has ever reached the Elysium of Fiji. Sly bachelors sometimes try to dodge him by stealing around the edge of a certain reef at low tide; but he is up to their tricks, seizes them and dashes them to pieces on the large black stone, just as one shatters rotten fire-wood. _

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