One woman cut
her throat because a shahman accused her of having by sorcery caused
another one's illness. A favorite mode of committing suicide is to go
out into the sea, cast away oar and rudder, and deliver themselves to
wind and waves. Sometimes they change their mind. A man, whose face
had been all scratched up by his angry wife, left home to end his
life; but after spending the night with a trader he concluded to go
home and make up the quarrel. Mrs. Eastman (48) tells of an old squaw
who wanted to hang herself because she was angry with her son; but
when, "after having doubled the strap four times to prevent its
breaking, she found herself choking, her courage gave way--she yelled
frightfully." They cut her down and in an hour or two she was quite
well again. Another squaw, aged ninety, attempted to hang herself
because the men would not allow her to go with a war-party. Her object
in wanting to go was to have the pleasure of mutilating the corpses of
enemies! Keating says that Sank men sometimes kill themselves because
they are envious of the power of others. Neill (85) records the cases
of a Dakota wife who hanged herself because her husband had flogged
her for hiding his whiskey; of a woman who hanged herself because her
son-in-law refused to give her whiskey; of an old woman who flew into
a passion and committed suicide because her pet granddaughter had been
whipped by her father.
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