Category Archives: Intellectual, Religious, or Cultural Tradition

There is no record in Pukapuka of pitched battles between opposing groups, or of warfare existing within the social structure of a definite institution. The atoll was too small, the total population too few, and the amount of available land too little for institutional warfare to have developed. Informants definitely asserted that warfare was unknown on Pakapuka. They were correct in one sense, but the existence of weapons and stories about fighting shows that the island was not always at peace. Fighting incidents in stories of the fighting at Waletoa, the fighting against Yangalipule to the fighting of Tuiva against the men of Yato, the fighting against Uyo, and the fighting of Te Nana in Yayake, reveal that such fighting was caused by violation of the tapu of the reserves, quarrels over food divisions, personal rivalries, quarrels over division of the reserves, and like matters. The fighting that occurred rarely rose above the level of brawling, but where a pitched hand-to-hand contest resulted, much blood seems to have been shed for little cause. The number of deaths in these contests seems to have been increased by the fact that losers habitually committed suicide by having relatives bury them alive.

Tuiva’s regency was in general a peaceful period. He realized that much of the trouble in the time of Alatakupu was due to the fact that the old men had found time hanging heavily on their hands and invented mischief to make life more interesting. Tuiva therefore refused to admit to the old men’s age grade any person who was not “crawling with age”.

It seems, however, that the comparative abundance following recovery from the effects of the seismic wave did not long continue, because the records speak of another famine in Tuiva’s period. It is likely that the population was again increasing faster than the food supply, necessitating more stringent measures than usual to control the food that all might have a fair share in it. Again it seems that Tuiva’s assumption of the regency was not without opposition. This was centered in the person of another Ngake man, Watumoana, a priest of the god Tulikalo, who dwelt mainly in the god house attached to the sacred enclosure of this god. Watumoana was jealous of the power of Tuiva and wished to procure some of this power for himself, or alternately to become regent of the island in place of Tuiva. The bitterness between the two men, based on their rivalry, only waited for some incident to bring them to open conflict. The story of their conflict is a favorite one of the Pukapukans. The account recorded by Talainga deserves reproduction in full because of the wealth of detail bearing on every aspect of Pukapuka culture:

Tuiva was a child of Taonge, one of the eight of Ngake. Matanga was his lineage. This was in the time after the law of pule pae. It was a period without a chief. Tuliayanga was dead.

Takitini was a Loto man of the Tua lineage. He had been ordered by Tuiva to guard the point of Utupoa against the group who went out along the Ngake reef and who might be up to mischief returning from Ko. It was a time of famine. The island had not yet developed well. The men of the island were few in number; they had been finished off in the pule pae.

The children of Tuiva went to grope for fish along the reef. Takitini watched them coming from the reef. Takitini ran forth, snapped his fingers on the tops of their heads, chased them so that they would go home. Takitini said disapprovingly, “The eyes of the thieves.” The children went, told Tuiva. Tuiva did not listen. Takitini was his brother. Besides, it was he who had placed him (Takitini) to protect the point at Utupoa. These were only the words of children.

Arrived at another day, Tuiva again chased his children, saying to them, “Why do you stay doing nothing? What about us, we are hungry. Why do you not go to fetch some food for us?” The children went again to the Ngake reef. They were seen again by Takitini. Takitini again went forth. He spanked them, spearing them in the ribs with his stick. He didn’t spear them really; he merely frightened them so they would not go again. The children complained again to Tuiva, “We have been whipped by Takitini; he speared us in our ribs with his weapon.” Tuiva again did not listen to the telling of the children. He thought again as he had thought before.

Another day still came. He chased his children, “Why do you only sit around making yourselves hungry? Why have you not gone to get food for us?” The children refused, “We certainly will not go. Takitini spoils our skins.” Tuiva objected, “Why should Takitini hurt you for no reason? I guess he was only frightening you.” His children disagreed, “No, indeed, he really whips us, breaks us to pieces.”

Another day came. The children went out. Takitini watched; it was clear that they were going to the reef, going on to Ko. Takitini ran to the children. He asked them, “Where are you going? You rascals, the eyes of thieves.” The children protested to Takitini, “Not at all, Tuiva sent us to get something for us.” Takitini answered, “What is Tuiva doing? The reserve, according to him, belongs to you, to be eaten only by you. You go back. Don’t you be stubborn. I shall whip you to pieces.” Takitini snapped his fingers on the backs of their heads, sent them to return home.

They invented their strange trick. They come, talking as they walked. They arrived at Te Walatapepe. One of the children among them suggested, “You make a fake, O Wakitula (the oldest); you are the one Tuiva favors. Pretend to have broken your arms and your legs; when we reach the place where Tuiva is, you cry out, pretend to be in great pain.” Finished the discussion, they wrapped the arms and legs and body of Wakitula in the “bark” of the vavai creeper, so that it would seem that these were parts hit by Takitini with his weapon, so that Tuiva would go to kill Takintini. Finished wrapping up Wakitula, they carried him. When they drew near to the place where Tuiva was staying, Wakitula cried, raising his voice high, “Awei, my arm is broken, and my side is pierced, and my leg broken. How it hurts! You carry me carefully, don’t shake.”

When Tuiva heard, he recognized that this was the voice of Wakitula. He looked out with both his eyes, the hand was hanging, the arms and legs were wrapped up. Tuiva became stiff with shock. He got up, seized his weapon and his spear. He did not question the children. Tuiva thought Takitini had struck him, from the reports of the children on the other days. The children only said to Tuiva, who was running with the weapon, “Your reason for sending us was not this.” Tuiva ran on. Takitini was staying in the space between Utupoa and the Motu of Te Tali. Takitini looked at Tuiva, who was running with the spear. Takitini did not know the reason Tuiva ran there. But indeed it was because of the deceitful trick of the children, which they had played on Tuiva. Takitini watched the spear of Tuiva shooting towards him from above him. Takitini warded off the blow with his stick. The hurling of Tuiva was mistaken. Takitini was a skillful person. Takitini ran away.

Tuiva chased him through the ngaya bushes of the place Te Kalele. Takitini climbed on top of the ngayu, came down in another place. He was speared by Tuiva from behind with his spear, tight in the side of the back. Takitini seized the spear, pulled it out, threw it at Tuiva. Takitini ran to Watumoana, who stayed in Te Newu.▫ He crawled up to the front of his body. Tuiva ran there, flourished his weapon, he was going to hurl it from above. Watumoana objected, “What’s the matter? You do this for no reason? That’s enough. You have come to me here. You are not showing me proper respect.” Tuiva did not listen to Watumoana, “You get out of the way, just push aside, this man did not show respect for me and my children.” Tuiva speared Takitini, hard. Takitini died. If only Takitini had turned to explain to Tuiva. I don’t know, it is not known which was the man of the two of them who would get the worst of it, Takitini was a strong and skillful person. From his having killed Te Ki and Kaleva in Uta, his mind had been made dull. Then too Tuiva did not listen to the words of Watumoana. He had known that Takitini was strong, therefore Tuiva had taken revenge; he did not show respect.

Finished, Tuiva went back to his house, to his children; they were certainly all right; it was indeed only lies of theirs. Hence the saying, “The death-bringing lies of the children.”

Finished the death of Takitini, Watumoana went to the crowd of Yato, they were going to kill Tuiva. Watumoana was a man of Matanga of the sub-lineage Angialulu. These are the names of the Yato group: Uikele, Vakaua, Vakauli, Payaka, Te Kele, and Watumoana, a Ngake man. They talked in the evening. This was their talk, they were going to kill all the men of the island, so that they were finished; the women of Pukapuka would be for themselves. This was the further decision of theirs, they were going to make Tuiva the first, he was the strong man of the time. They were going to make the rest of the men last. Finished the discussion in the evening, they went to prepare, they girt on their malos, sharpened their weapons with pala jawbone knives, and did their other things.

Uikele went away to his and Matautu’s house. Matautu was the wife of Uikele. He climbed up on the platform, prepared his things. Matautu was sleeping below. His knife fell on the breast of Matautu.

Matautu asked, “What are you doing there? Aren’t these nights for the people to sleep?” Uikele did not answer. Matautu was figuring it out of her mind, “What is the thing of this group?” Finished the doing of Uikele, he jumped down, went to the place where they were gathering. When Uikele moved outside, Matautu also went to the side of their house. This was what Matautu figured out, “Isn’t this group going to kill the group of all the men?” Tuiva was a cousin-in-avoidance of hers. Besides, Katinga, the wife of Tuiva, was a blood-sister of hers.

Matautu went to Matala, where Tuiva lived at that time. She did not get right up to the house, she stood just at the side. She threw stones to the side of the house. Tuiva and Katinga were sleeping in the deep midnight sleep of the people. Tuiva was a person who slept wakefully, the sleep of the strong. Tuiva heard the stones rattling. He wakened katinga, “Just you get up to see what are the things rattling there.” Katinga stood up to look, “Nothing.” Katinga came back inside their house. Katinga said it was nothing, “It’s nothing probably.” They listened again, rocks were being thrown. Tuiva said again, “There they are rattling again. You get up.” Katinga got up again to look. Katinga again said to Tuiva it was nothing, “Why, there’s nothing.” Tuiva said, “Just walk out to the front.”

As to the doing of Matautu, she was sheltering in the back in case Tuiva got up, because they were cousins-in-avoidance. Matautu looked, it was katinga. She showed herself to her. Matautu said to Katinga, “Tell the group of all the men there, he is going to be killed by the group of Yato.”

Katinga came, told Tuiva, “Why, you are going to be killed by the group of Yato.” Tuiva listened, he did not delay. He got up, tore the net matting. He girt on his malo. He ran to his brother, Kilika. He went to Kilika, who was making pretty his voice (singing), he was lying chanting with his mates in the young men’s house (wale lopa). Tuiva objected, “While you make happy the voice, your death is being planned. Why, we are going to be killed by the crowd of Yato.”

Kilika listened to the speech of Tuiva. Kinlika arose, told his companions to come carry their fighting sticks. His companions arose, girt on their malos. Tuiva said to one pair of them that they come with him to trap fish at night, so that they would have some food to go with their talo pudding made by Katinga in the night. They went to the small channels; they got one net full with the net of laiva and vete and some other fish. They came, brought them to Katinga, who baked them in the night.

They prepared their weapons. Their food cooked, they ate their food. The night was cut into two (half gone). It would soon be dawn. The group went to search for the Yato group.

The six of Yato: the preparing of their weapons was over. They went to tie the several stone representations of the gods with coconut leaves, so that their going-out would be lucky. They went to Te Mangamaga and Talitonganuku, and Taua, and Mataliki and the other gods. They also went to collect the weapons in the several weapon houses of the various lineages and the weapons in other places.

The preparation of their things over, they went to kill Tuiva first. They came along to the talo garden of Valua. They came on to the Moru-o-Kaikole. A Man was steeping there, Tuanunui was his name. They struck him dead. They came to the reserve at Matala, to Tuiva. The man they had killed came to life again, he was brought back to life by the gods. It was not right for him to die, he was a man of their side.

They came to the house of Tuiva. They broke into the house. They had finished arranging this plan in advance. When they reached the house of Tuiva, they climbed on top, speared, struck with the weapons from on top. They thought Tuiva was inside. Why, no indeed, he was gone. They looked for him. They said, “He will pay for this, without a doubt. Where has he gone? Come, let’s search.” They went, searched in Ngake for Kilika and his companions. They looked there, they were gone. They said, “They have gone too. Who told?”

They went to search for Tuiva and Kilika. They searched at the point of Ngake, searched on, they were missing. Then too Tuiva and Kilika were searching for them in Yato. They went to look at the several god houses. They went there. They finished tying up their coconut leaf. They tore down the coconut leaf of the eight. They had also not yet seen them. They encircled the bush in the search. Dawn was quickening.

Meanwhile the group of Yato had also thoroughly searched through Wale. They didn’t meet the group during the night. Tuiva and Kilika reached the point in Ngake.   The Yato group also arrived at Walepia. Still they hadn’t been seen. Dawn was quickening. The skin of a man could be seen. They returned in their encircling search. Tuiva and Kilika returned to the shore of Paepae. The Yato group also came to the shore of Kailia. The crowd saw each other. Tuiva and Kilka saw from Paepae. They were seen by the Yato crowd from Kailia.

The crowds ran toward each other. Tuiva and Kilika ran to Wumalolo. Tuiva stamped, both feet were firm in the ground, the coral reached to the ankles. Kilika also stamped, firm. But he didn’t stand well (his feet were not planted deep in the sand). The Yato crowd was approaching. They were aiming the spear and their koko (throwing weapons). Kilika said to Tuiva, “O Tuiva, my standing is not right. I shall be badly hurt. Is it bad if we two run to Te Wunui? Besides, we are fast-footed.” Tuiva felt sorry for his brother, lest he be hurt dead. The two of the pair ran along Waula. One of their weapon carriers fell down. Yakilia was his name. He was speared from on top by the six of Yato. One of their own men, Uikele, warded off the blow with his stick. This was why he was saved by Uikele: Yakilia was a tuanga tau of his (a person whose village membership Uikele sponsored). Tuiva and Kilika arrived at Te Wunui. Kilika stamped, firm. Tuiva also stamped, it was not right. The talo bed was soft.

Tuiva had earlier informed Kilika that when he saw Puyaka he was not to hit him, for he was a man who understood the ancient stories and the various fishing signs, and the island genealogies and other things. That was the reason the Yato group was not finished off. This was the other: if the two of them had stayed planted in the place first stamped down by Tuiva, I guess it would have been only the wink of an eye for the (Yato) crowd to be completely finished. Because they took the fight to Wunui, therefore others lived.

The group of Yato arrived there. They hurled at each other with weapons. Tuiva threw first at Watumoana, who was their strength; he died. Puyaka, Vakaua, Te Kele were Kilika’s. Watumoana, Uikele, Vakauli were Tuiva’s. They threw at each other with weapons. When Tuiva looked at the weapon of Kilika, he noticed that it was turned on its side. Tuiva said to Kilika, “Why, I guess your weapon is tilting sideways, turn it straight.” The weapon of Kilika was straightened. Tuiva ran for Vakauli, he died. The dead were two in number.

Tuiva had not seen the flying-up of the spear of Uikele. He guarded himself, he was speared in the groins. He struck his club straight at the end of the spear to deflect it, but unsuccessfully. The point was broken off inside the groin of Tuiva. Tuiva was in great pain. It made him fall, he lay with his stomach on top of Vakauli, of his man who was dead. He bit on him. He only knew that he was going to die. There was Vakaua, he was standing turned toward Tuiva. He was going to hit with his club. The thing was that Tuiva was shielded by the women who crowded on top of Tuiva. Therefore the bad thrusts of Vakaua. Kilika, on the other hand, had washed his forehead, which had been injured, in the pool at Taumalanga, bandaged it with avlo bark. The voice of Tuiva shouted out to Kilika, “Kilika, oh, I am indeed dying.” Kilika jumped over, Vakaua was feinting over Tuiva. Kilika pierced him in the heel; he fell down on the base of his skull. Vakaua died. The dead were three in number.

Meanwhile Uikele had stayed off to the side. The other three ran up: Uilele, Te Kele, and Puyaka. They went to bury themselves alive. They buried their elders who had died first. Meanwhile Tuiva and Kilika were taken by the women and their weapon bearers to take care of their injured parts so that they would be all right. They were all right. They went to look for the group who lived. When they went there, they were already finished burying themselves.

Tuiva informed the whole island, “Listen you to me, O the island. Kilika shall have charge of the back of the island, while I stay in the central island and the point of the island to protect it, so that no bad ideas grow.” The people were to increase; the number of the men reached in the time of Tuiva to a thousand and one hundred. He also made as his old men’s group, men crawling with age; they were old men. Thus it has come down to the time of light now; no other fight has arisen.

Obviously Tuiva was a hot-headed man, led astray by his excessive feelings for his children. Where their welfare was concerned he had no mercy on his brother. He was undoubtedly at fault in violating the tapu of the sacred enclosure, where Takitini had taken refuge, and Watumoana was quick to take the excuse to alarm men from Yato in an attempt to wipe out Tuiva and his supporters, and incidentally to secure the women of the island for themselves—a characteristic Pukapuan touch. However, kinship ties cut across ties based on village groupings. Tuiva was informed in advance of the plot against him and managed, with the aid of his supporters, to defeat and kill the Yato men. Those not killed in the fight committed suicide by having their relatives bury them alive, a not infrequently mentioned method of self-destruction.

The name of the sacred enclosure of the god Tulikalo.

[#13] Ernest Beaglehole and Pearl Beaglehole, “After Defeat in Fighting: Burying Oneself Alive”, Ethnology of Pukapuka (Honolulu, HI: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1938), pp. 373-398.

A very proud race, the Niueans were prone to commit suicide upon slight provocation. It was customary for the party defeated in war to jump off the cliffs, and not uncommon for the nearest relatives of a deceased person to kill themselves out of excess of grief. It is related that a father of a family having been drowned while fishing, his two sons waited until morning, and then jumped off the cliffs. Another story tells that the wife of a man named Tufonua died. His love for his wife was still strong, and he therefore determined to die so he climbed up a fetau tree thirty fathoms high. He leaped from the top, but landed unhurt on his feet. Tufonua thought that he had been saved by the interception of the gods, and he therefore went away in peace.

Shame was a common cause of suicide. Three women once made a suicide pact. One because she conceived out of wedlock, another because she was lame, and the third simply because she lived alone in the house of her brother. A young man committed suicide by eating fish which he knew to be poisonous. He did this merely because he had been “turned down” by some pretty girls. Suicide is rare at the present day.

It was a custom in the olden days to abandon the old in the bush. A temporary shelter was erected, and a small supply of food was left for the infirm person. This custom doubtless arose from the bitter necessities of warfare. This, however, is unusual. Nowadays, the old and sick are either cared for by their relatives or placed in the Governments hospital.

The Niue term for death is mate. The people usually say mate-popo (popo indicating putrefaction) since the word mate also indicates illness due to an accident or to warfare. The word gaogao also indicates sickness resulting from disease.

The mourning rites were held in a temporary house, called a fale-tulu. At the time of death all the relatives came together. This was called the putu. The relatives then held a tagi, or lamenting, which might last from fifty to one hundred days if the person lamented was of sufficient importance. During this time the relations from a distance came in and fought with the relatives close at hand.

In former times there was intense wailing and the singing of dirges and the men shaved off their long hair with a shark’s tooth. Nowadays the women have the long hair, and they often shave it off at time of mourning. Self immolation was never a custom but the people committed suicide through grief, as shown by the following story:

A man by the name of Ikihemata, in the olden days, had as wife Ligitoa. Once the man went fishing in the sea while his wife sought for snails on the reef. In the course of his fishing the husband caught a small fish [the telekihi]. This he brought up to his mouth in order to bite its head and thus kill it before placing it in his basket. But the fish managed to jump down the man’s throat, and commenced choking him to death. At this both the man and his wife lighted all their torches and attempted to relieve the situation. They were not able to do anything, and presently the husband breathed his last. Ligitoa was sorely grieved by the death of her husband, and she implored all her relatives to kill her, that she might die with her husband. Then her relatives killed her, and laid her beside her husband. It was thus that the woman showed the height of her devotion to her husband.

[#12] Edwin M. Loeb, History and Traditions of Niue. Honolulu, Hawaii, The Museum, 1926.

Another, Tuabaji, after resisting for years the teachings of the missionaries, brought about that dramatic conversion of the whole island to Christianity that seemed to the missionaries so striking an instance of divine interposition. The line was not extinct. Though Manase was governor under the king, a Finau Ulukalala lived in the person of an unwieldy man of thirty, a nobele of the House of Lords, it is true, and the king’s aide-de-camp, but in all other respects ignored by the Government. He was not a man of high moral elevation, nor could the missionaries point to him as a cheering instance of the efficacy of their work. He swore fluently in both German and English, and had a cultivated taste for strong waters. Finau was a ne’er-do-weel, but perhaps a scapegrace of the kind that is not past reform if intrusted with responsibility. There was no doubt about his being the hereditary ruler of the place: one might see that from the manner of the old men as he rode through the country. Surrounded by rowdy young boon-companions, holding no post that gave him a vestige of authority, he yet could not enter a village without holding an informal leree of all the inhabitants, while Manase the Governor might pass unnoticed. Possessed of such inherent influence, he was certainly worthy of trial as Manase’s successor if the king could be induced to dismiss so ardent a Free Churchman, and to appoint in his place the descendant of the chiefs whom he had dispossessed. Perhaps guessing my sentiments, Finau attached himself to me throughout this visit. He offered to escort me to the Liku, and as I could best enjoy the scenery of this weird place alone, I was at some pains to give him the slip. But though I rod fast Finau rode faster, and caught me up at that strange white burying-ground, hung between sky and sea at the precipice’s edge. He led me along the cliff to the open plain, whence, looking backward, one may see the hundred isles of Haafulu Hao spread out like a map. Leaving our horses, we crept together along the razor-edge that still connected a rocky pinnacle with the cliff from which it jutted. Clinging to the roots of a starving screw-pine, we knelt and felt the shaft twang as the great seas boomed into the caverns at the cliff’s base. We tried to shout against the roar of the trade-wind sweeping along the face of the rock-wall, but could not distinguish a word.

This place has been a favourite point of departure for the love-sick of Vavau who would escape their misery. Finau said that the body of a girl of Halaufuli, Who leapt hence into eternity a few months before, never reached the water, but was sucked inwards by the cliff, and so dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks at its foot. Whether the attraction of the cliff would always do this or not, death would be certain in falling from such a height, even if the body struck the water only.

And here let me digress on the subject of suicide. The rough average rate of suicide in the Pacific—the figures dealt with are too insignificant for unvarying accuracy—is about equal to the rate for the United Kingdom, viz., .006 per mille of the population; but since most of the suicides in Europe are committed under the influence of mania or extreme misery,—conditions that are generally absent in these favoured isles,—we may assume that the Pacific islanders have a predisposition towards self-destruction. The usual causes are lovers’ quarrels, and the fear of being neglected in incurable illness. In the latter case suicide is a mere survival of the old custom that constrained a sick man to importune his relations to strangle or bury him alive,—itself an evolution from an earlier time when the existence of a family depended upon its having no disabled members to protect. The lovers’ quarrels that result in suicide are quite as trivial as those of civilized communities. On the sudden impulse of some slight misunderstanding the distressed lover resorts to the picturesque but inadequate method of climbing to the top of a cocoa-nut-palm and jumping off, with the usual result of a broken limb, a reconciliation with the beloved object, and permanent lameness. Of late years the cocoa-nut-tree has became less fashionable for men who are in earnest. These generally prefer a precipice, or if their despair be of the more deliberate kind, poison, which, being a mere infusion of bark or leaves, must be drunk in such large quantity that it more often produces vomiting than death. The ancient mode of execution in Tonga—putting the condemned adrift in leaky canoes—still occasionally survives as a method of suicide. In February a schooner, bound from Niuatoburabn to Nukualofa, picked up a derelict canoe floating unharmed, with her paddles and baler in her, and a crumpled letter which ran as follows:—

162 78982

     810 6126 74 m2 127216 m2 892 162 9812 74 m2 m274 b4 810 m2 892 16274
16m807850 892 270

1820 2m454 m8 232

The schooner’s crew connected their discovery with the disappearance of two girls from Niua a few days before; but, not knowing the cipher, tbey brought the letter to the capital and handed it to Kubu. Takuaho at once declared it to be written in a cipher known to most of the younger generation of Tongans, and called the Kandi Teja cipher. He made a table thus—

K A N E L I T O F U
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

and the letter then read—

162 78982
Kia Tofoa
810 6126 74 m2 127216 m2 892 162 9812 74 m2 m274
oku ikai   te ma kataki   ma ofa kia   Foka te ma mate

b4 810 m2 892 16274 16m807850 892 270
be oka ma ofa   kiate   kimoutolu   ofa atu

1820 2m454 m8 232
koau   amele mo ana.

Which being interpreted, ran—

To Tofoa.

We two cannot endure our love for Foka; we would rather die. We send our love to you all. Farewell.

Amele and Ana.

It was a suicide. The poor girls had stolen the canoe, and had paddled themselves out of sight of land, and then having scribbled their letter to their friend in cipher; they folded it, wrote the address on the back, and jumped overboard. I never heard what part Foka had played in the tragedy.

Persons intending suicide have also learned a lesson from the method of executions in Europe. Strangling with a cord of ngalu was common among the Polynesians of the olden time, but they seem never to have thought of hanging, and the idea at once struck them as picturesque. Moreover, a man cannot very well strangle himself without help. A pretence of hanging is much resorted to by people who imagine themselves to be misunderstood, or who wish to frighten their friends into making some concession, because a dramatic effect can be produced with the least possible personal inconvenience.

Yet whenever confederates can be found to help, the South Sea Islander appears to prefer strangling to hanging. In Fiji a few years ago, when Australia was ringing with the achievements of the Kelly gang of bushrangers, a trader in Vanualevn, with the aid of a Sydney newspaper, was entertaining a gaping circle of Fijians by trying to make their flesh creep. In the minds of two of his listeners, youth from the neighbouring village, the seed fell upon a rich soil. Why should they be condemned to this life of spiritless toil in subjection to their chiefs and the Government, compelled to drudge in the fields and the tax-plantations, while the free, glorious bush lay behind them? If these foreigners, who could not exist without tinned meats, could live in the bush, how much more they who only wanted a wild yam or kaile roasted on the embers of an open fire? They could rob all the foreigners’ stores, and with the plunder tempt the girls of the village to come and join them, and they would eat tinned meats and turkeys and fowls every day without having to pay for them or work to make money. They discreetly opened their project to one of their friends, but when he understood the full daring of the scheme he modestly withdrew, in words that were translated by the magistrate who afterwards held the inquest as, “Pardon me, but this thing is beyond my capacity.” So the three went out into the bush alone. During the first week they robbed two stores, and stabbed an elderly German in the back escaping after each exploit into the impenetrable bush. They succeeded in establishing a real panic, so that none dared to leave the village alone; and the native police nightly thanked providence that they had not stumbled across them. When the magistrate reached the place a week or two later with a force of police, he found that the outrages had ceased, and that nothing had been heard of the daring bushrangers for more than ten days. Weeks passed, and the confidence of the villagers was so far restored that they ventured armed into their gardens believing that the bushrangers had gone to another part of the island. At last an old man, whose garden lay far afield, was drawn by the evidences of corruption to look into his yam-shed. Two bodies were there, decayed almost beyond recognition. One had a masi cord tied tightly round the neck, with both the ends free; the other had been strangled by a cord tied by one end to the upright post. Further search led to the discovery of a third body hanging by the neck from a tree. It was the poor trio, who had also found bushranging beyond their capacity. They got lonely, and longed for companionship to prop their failing courage; and when they could bear it no longer, and they had to choose between giving themselves up or suicide, they chose death by their own hands rather than by the unknown terrors of the law or the foreigners. So A and B put a noose round C’s neck in the old style, and pulled at the ends till he was dead. Then B tied the end of his malo to the post, wound it round his neck,

Tutawi The Hermit.

and gave the end to A to pull. And when A was left alone with none to help him, he climbed the nearest tree, tied his neck to a branch, and died like a foreigner. Their deaths were better planned than their lives.

To return to Vavau, from which I have strayed many degrees of longitude. Our ride now lay through the wild rocks, buried in flowering creepers that in 1810 were the home of Tutawi the hermit. At the beginning of the disturbances that followed the revolution of 1799, this man, weary of the violence of men and the perfidy of women, left his home secretly to live a solitary life communing with Nature and the spirits of the hauted Liku. The great war and the siege of Feletoa had raged within a few miles of his hiding-place unheeded by him.

[#11] Basil Thomson, Diversions of a Prime Minister (Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1894).

. . . In encouraging each other, on going to battle, they said, “Well, if we die, we shall not have to die over again. It is only the death we should have to die some other day.” Suicide was common. In a fit of anger they jumped from the rocks into the ocean and were seen no more.

. . . On the neighbouring island of Aneiteum it was common, on the death of a chief, to strangle his wives, that they might accompany him to the regions of the departed. The custom has been found in various parts of the Pacific. The poor deluded woman rejoices in it, if she has any affection for her husband, and not only shows us the strength of her attachment, but also her firm belief in the reality of a future state. An old chief will say as he is dying, “Now, who will go with me?” and immediately one and another will reply, “I will.” On the island of Aneiteum this revolting custom has entirely fled before the light of Christianity. By the common consent of the chiefs and people all over the island it is strictly forbidden, but, strange to say, it has found a refuge and a resting-place still in the group on Tana. About twenty years ago they commenced there to strangle the wives of a departed chief, and the custom spread over the island—another proof of the downward tendency of heathenism, and of its usual development in the increase of human wretchedness.

[#10] George Turner, “Who Will Go With Me?” Samoa: A Hundred Years Ago and Long Before (London: Macmillan, 1884), pp. 305, 324-25.

While the lineage or other kin group provides a large degree of economic and undoubtedly psychological security for the individual, the possibility of rejection by the members of such groups must be a source of very serious anxiety. We have seen this strongly implied in the marked desire for conformance to expected patterns of behavior and the suppression of any behavior which might result in a disruptive or hostile episode. This anxiety over being rejected by a kinsman reaches its most dramatic expression in suicide. The threat of suicide is often made in other situations and is frequently effective, as in the case of the thwarted lovers; Theodore finally forced acceptance of his resignation as chief by this means also. But in the four cases actually recorded (one of them observed) where a genuine attempt was made to commit suicide, the precipitating factor was always harsh and unkind words from a close relative. One man had a bitter argument with his wife, finally walked out of the house, down to the beach, and swam off into the open sea; this is a recognized means of suicide but at the same time appears to permit a maximum opportunity for rescue. In this case a “brother” and his wife’s father went out in a canoe and after a brief struggle hauled him aboard. A number of years ago my elderly informant was practicing fighting techniques with several of his “brothers” when another “brother” came up and asked to join in; he was told derisively that he did not know anything about it. He left abruptly, climbed a coconut tree, and jumped off, landing on a rock and breaking an arm and leg, although he did not die. In the remaining two cases the man climbed a coconut tree after a violent argument wit his parents; in the earlier of these episodes the would-be suicide landed on soft ground, barely missing several rocks, and was only slightly injured. The case observed involved Andy, who got into a trivial argument with his mother over the repair of a pillow. Voices rose and angry words were spoken; his father’s sister, Rachel, was present and accused him of being a bad son to his mother. With this he left the house with a look of almost hysterical desperation on his face; after picking up and dropping a steel bar he took a large stick and beat the side of the house a couple of times. Then he dropped the stick and ran quickly to the top of a fairly tall coconut tree, followed by my old informant who was distantly related. He was able to make Andy pause, but then Andy went on and reached out to swing himself onto a frond of the tree. At this point I abandoned my observer role and stood under the tree, a move I was justified in believing would prevent Andy from jumping. My informant withdrew and Andy remained for perhaps twenty minutes in the tree, sobbing openly, and was finally persuaded to come down by another older relative.

Although in none of these cases did the man die, there is little doubt that the effort, particularly on the part of those who jumped from coconut trees, was genuine. It is also interesting to note in respect to the relative security felt by men and women within their kin groups that all of these cases were by men; my informant, in fact, stated that women never respond by suicide to the harsh words of their relatives. The only possibility for suicide by a woman, then, is in company with her lover if they are refused permission to marry, and only one actual case of this could be remembered by any informant for all of Truk.

[#9] Thomas Gladwin and Seymour Bernard Sarason, Truk: Man in Paradise (New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1953).

One evening during my stay on Fano Island, another man was severely reprimanded by his mother on the suspicion that he had stolen some hoarded household funds and gambled them away. The noisy argument that ensued, which took place next door to my home on Fano, was the culmination of a long series of the mother’s complaints about what she felt was her son’s profligate behavior. On this occasion, after an exchange of shouting accusations, the young man stormed out of the house. Later that night he took a length of rope to the village church, and tried to hang himself from the rafters.

Fortunately he was cut down by a passerby shortly after, and his life was saved.

The following day three of the woman in the young man’s lineage, the only females with small babies, all arranged to have their infants treated with the medicine for “Sea spirit spasms.” Since the young man’s attempted suicide had frightened and upset the mothers, according to the theory, their children’s lives were endangered. By taking this action the members of his lineage were not only protecting the children; they were also informing the young man that he was not responsible to himself alone. His foolish action constituted a threat to the continuity of the entire lineage, and to the health and lives of its members.

When I talked to the young man about his suicide attempt a few days later, he observed that it had been a very stupid thing for him to do and indicated he would never do anything like that again in the future.

[#8] Frank Joseph Mahony, A Trukese Theory of Medicine. Ph. D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1969.

The nobles were strictly forbidden not only to ally themselves with the mangatchang girls, but even to take them as concubines. Still, instances of the breaking of that rule are cited. In such a case, though, the matua who was guilty took great pains to conceal himself from his own family, who, if they knew of the situation, would have inflicted capital punishment on him. In reality, the delinquent noble had no alternative, if he wished to avert pursuit, but to renounce his rank and class and to join another group, as an atchaot. It is interesting, incidentally, that the lowborn girl received no punishment at all. We were told that, after the arrival of the Spanish on Guam, a certain matua of the village of Gnaton fell in love with a young and pretty mangatchang girl and fled with her. He found no asylum among another native group, however, as he refused to part with her. Pursued by his relatives, the young lovers wandered for some time in the most inaccessible woods and rocky areas; but so precarious and wretched an existence reduced them to despair. Determined to put an end to it, they built a tomb of stones and placed in it the infant that was the sad fruit of their love. Then, lost and distracted, they climbed to the very summit of a high, steep-sided peak beside the sea. Binding themselves together by the hair, and clasping one another, they cast themselves from that peak into the waves below. The cape in question has since been named, by the Spanish, Cabo de los Amantes (Lovers’ Cape).

Source

[#7] Freycinet, Louis-Claude de, trans. Glynn Barratt, [“A Tale of Two Lovers Tying their Hair Together”], An Account of the Corvette L’Uraine’s Sojourn at the Mariana Islands, 1819 (Saipan: N. M. I. Division of Historic Preservation and the RTF Micronesian Area Research Center University of Guam, 2003) pg. 126-127.

A good death—or a bad one—may be either voluntary or involuntary. Volition is not enough in itself to be definitive. Involuntary deaths, like those that have an external cause, may be either good or bad, while, with the exception of suicide, voluntary deaths are good ones. Widows who were ritually killed, for instance, died voluntarily and were considered to have had good deaths.

The quality of death is determined by the related conditions of whether the process of dying takes place slowly enough to permit the dying person and his or her kin to control the situation and prepare for the break, and of whether the death results in social disruption. Ideally, a person who perceives death approaching begins, in concert with kin and friends, to bring closure to the set of social relations that entangle him or her in the society of the living. The person has time to terminate ongoing business, to take leave of loved ones, and to withdraw from active participation in mundane life. He or she controls the beginning of the transition from the category of living being (iavava), to the category of recently dead ghost which may be seen by and interact with human beings (anunu), to the most remote category of spirit being, distant ancestors who may not be seen by humans and who seldom become involved in human affairs (antu). When a dying person does not have the opportunity to set in motion this process of withdrawal and transition, it must be done for him or her ritually by the survivors, and it is especially important that the termination of relationships with the living be completed through elaborate and dramatic mortuary ceremonies.

In general terms, for the Kaliai a good death is not socially disruptive. It is foreseen, there is time for the dying person and his or her kin to prepare for it and to publicly conclude any outstanding business, and there is public participation in the first stage of the transitional process that is death. If, however, the death is socially disruptive, the survivors suffer the agony of unanticipated parting, and they react with anger and a desire for vengeance. There is no peace either for the living or for the dead, for the spirit of the person who dies a bad death wanders and appears to his or her kin until the death is avenged. If the death was a suicide, the spirit never joins ghostly society but remains eternally separate and alone, perhaps to become the familiar of a conjuring sorcerer.. . . .  

. . .Obviously suicide is not a good death for the Kaliai. It is a death which permits neither the dead person nor his relatives peace, it is untimely and unforeseen by the community, it is socially disruptive, and it results in the eternal alienation of the suicide’s spirit from the society of the dead as well as of the living. Why, then, would a person voluntarily choose such a death?

There is no clear answer to this question. Kaliai informants almost always explained that a person who killed him or herself either had suffered intolerable shame or had been enchanted by sorcery. Another explanation given was that by controlling his or her death, the suicide re-establishes some control over the social environment. . . .

. . .It is recognized in anthropological literature that suicide may be committed to punish someone else. This kind of suicide, termed revenge suicide or samsonic suicide by Jeffreys, is part of the cultural pattern of Kaliai.

. . .While suicide is not an everyday happening, it has great emotional impact on the community when and where it occurs. It is also a recurrent theme in the oral literature of northwest New Britain. Whether it takes place in story or in fact, the pattern is the same. Both men and women kill themselves during a period of strife between sexual partners or cowives, or directly following an episode in which they were shamed or abused by their affines. The act follows known rules and can be expected to have predictable results within the community where it happens. Customarily, suicides choose one of two methods; they either hang themselves or drink tuva, ‘fish poison’ made from the derris plant. When the Kaliai speak of self-killing they say ipamatei ‘he killed himself’; they describe the method by which death was caused (he hanged himself; he drank tuva); or they attribute responsibility for the death—tipamate eai ngani posanga “they killed him with talk.”

A person who contemplates suicide has the reasonable expectation that his or her kin and neighbors will respond to this act in certain predictable ways. The phrase “they killed him with talk,” and the cry of Agnes’s father “why did you kill my child?” are evidence that the Kaliai consider self-killing to be a form of homicide, an act for which another party is culpable. A person may expect kin and friends to hold someone else responsible for his or her death. The suicide places on his or her kin the obligation to avenge the person, and they expect that his or her spirit will continue to appear to them (as does the spirit of any victim on homicide or sorcery) until the obligation is met. There is no notion that the spirit itself has any malevolent power. In death, as in life, the suicide must wait for others to act on his or her behalf.

Revenge suicide is a political strategy available to otherwise powerless persons because of the element of culpability associated with it. The suicide makes certain that others know why he or she has taken his life and who is to be held responsible for the unbearable situation. Once they are apprised of these facts, the suicide may expect that his or her shamed, grieving, angry kin will avenge the death upon the tormentor. Note that the kin of the suicide are themselves shamed by the death. . . .

Source

[#6] David R. Counts and Dorothy Ayers Counts, “The Kaliai: Good Death, Bad Death”, “Aspects of Dying in Northwest New Britain,” Omega 14(2), 1983-84, pp. 101-110.

Suicide as an Act of Justice

There are three classes—death as the result of evil magic, death by poison, and death in warfare. There are also three roads leading to Tuma, and Topileta indicates the proper road according to the form of death suffered. There is no special virtue attached to any of these roads, though my informants were unanimous in saying that death in war was a “good death,” that by poison not so good, while death by sorcery is the worst. These qualifications meant that a man would prefer to die one death rather than another; and though they did not imply any moral attribute attached to any of these forms, a certain glamour attached to death in war, and the dread of sorcery and sickness seem certainly to cause those preferences.

With death in warfare is classed one form of suicide, that in which a man climbs a tree and throws himself down (native name, lo’u). This is one of the two forms of suicide extant in Kiriwina, and it is practised by both men and women. Suicide seems to be very common. It is performed as an act of justice, not upon oneself, but upon some person of near kindred who has caused offence. As such it is one of the most important legal institutions among these natives. . .

Expiation and Insult: Jumping from a Palm

. . .One day an outbreak of wailing and a great commotion told me that a death had occurred somewhere in the neighbourhood. I was informed that Kima’i, a young lad of my acquaintance, of sixteen or so, had fallen from a coco-nut palm and killed himself.. . .

I hastened to the next village . . .I found that another youth had been severely wounded by some mysterious coincidence. And at the funeral there was obviously a general feeling of hostility between the village where the boy died and that into which his body was carried for burial.

Only much later was I able to discover the real meaning of these events: the boy had committed suicide. The truth was that he had broken the rules of exogamy, the partner in his crime being his maternal cousin, the daughter of his mother’s sister. This had been known and generally disapproved of, but nothing was done until the girl’s discarded lover, who had wanted to marry her and who felt personally injured, took the initiative. This rival threatened first to use black magic against the guilty youth, but this had not much effect. Then one evening he insulted the culprit in public—accusing him in the hearing of the whole community of incest and hurling at him certain expressions intolerable to a native.

For this there was only one remedy; only one means of escape remained to the unfortunate youth. Next morning he put on festive attire and ornamentation, climbed a coco-nut palm and addressed the community, speaking from among the palm leaves and bidding them farewell. He explained the reasons for his desperate deed and also launched forth a veiled accusation against the man who had driven him to his death, upon which it became the duty of his clansmen to avenge him. Then he wailed aloud, as is the custom, jumped from a palm some sixty feet high and was killed on the spot. There followed a fight within the village in which the rival was wounded; and a quarrel was repeated during the funeral.

…Let us now pass to suicide. Though by no means a purely juridical institution, suicide possesses incidentally a distinct legal aspect. It is practised by two serious methods lo’u (jumping off a palm top) and the taking of irremediable poison from the gall bladder of a globefish (soka); and by the milder method of partaking of some of the vegetable poison tuva, used for stunning fish. . . .

The two fatal forms of suicide are used as means of escape from situations without an issue and the underlying mental attitude is somewhat complex, embracing the desire of self-punishment, revenge, re-habilitation, and sentimental grievance. . . .

. . .Two motives must be registered in the psychology of suicide: first, there is always some sin, crime or passionate outburst to expiate, whether a breach of exogamous rules, or adultery, or an unjust injury done, or an attempt to escape one’s obligations; secondly, there is a protest against those who have brought this trespass to light, insulted the culprit in public, forced him into an unbearable situation. One of these two motives may be at times more prominent than the other, but as a rule there is a mixture of both in equal proportions. The person publicly accused admits his or her guilt, takes all the consequences, carries out the punishment upon his own person, but at the same time declares that he has been badly treated, appeals to the sentiment of those who have driven him to the extreme if they are his friends or relatives, or if they are his enemies appeals to the solidarity of his kinsmen, asking them to carry on a vendetta (lugwa).

Suicide is certainly not a means of administering justice, but it affords the accused and oppressed one—whether he be guilty or innocent—a means of escape and rehabilitation. It looms large in the psychology of the natives, is a permanent damper on any violence of language or behaviour, on any deviation from custom or tradition, which might hurt or offend another. Thus suicide, like sorcery, is a means of keeping the natives to the strict observance of the law, a means of preventing people from extreme and unusual types of behaviour. Both are pronounced conservative influences and as such are strong supports of law and order.

Source

[#5] Bronislaw Malinowski, “Suicide as an Act of Justice,” in “Baloma; the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 46 (London: 1916). Republished by Forgotten Books, 2008, pp. 9-10; “Expiation and Insult: Jumping from a Palm,” Crime and Custom in Savage Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1926), pp. 77-78, 94-98.

Tikopia attitudes toward suicide are closely connected with their attitudes toward death in general. Summarily stated, these attitudes express regret concerning death rather than fear of it; . . .the timing of the moment of cessation of bodily functioning is not necessarily treated as a matter of critical importance. To take one’s own life is merely to anticipate the inevitable end. In some circumstances, death has an aesthetic attraction. . . .[T]he normal Tikopia ways of committing suicide are three, differentiated broadly according to age and sex; hanging (mainly by middle-aged and elderly people); swimming out to sea (women only, especially young women); putting off to sea by canoe (men only, especially young men). Hanging (noa na, tying the neck) is usually fatal.. . . . . .In swimming out to sea (kau ki moana), the women, though good swimmers, soon seem to be overcome by heavy seas or by sharks that are common off the coast, and mortality from such suicide attempts appears frequent. … the fate of many unmarried young women. . . .But resort to putting off to sea in a canoe (forau) is more difficult to interpret. The Tikopia term in general indicates a sea voyage, and any canoe voyage from Tikopia is a hazardous undertaking. Tikopia is a mere dot in 40,000 square miles of ocean, with the nearest land, Anuta, equally isolated—only half a mile across and 70 miles away; larger land is more than 100 miles away and in some directions many hundreds of miles. With the alternation of storm and calm, especially in the monsoon season, to try to make landfall from Tikopia is a great risk. . . .In many cases it is difficult to separate an attempt to escape from Tikopia to see the world, with a serious chance of not surviving, from an attempt to escape from Tikopia society with an intent to perish or an attitude of not caring whether one perishes or not.

. . .social factors are clearly apparent both in the choice of method and in the attendant circumstances. In suicide at sea, an almost complete sex differential is manifested: a woman swims to her death, a man takes a canoe. Yet Tikopia men in ordinary circumstances swim as well and as freely as do women. Again, by report a curious fastidiousness is sometimes displayed in committing suicide. A person dying by hanging, it is said, excretes freely. If the deed is committed without premeditation, the interior of the house is in a mess: in the person’s dying struggles mats and the interior of the house become covered with excrement. People coming to release him are disgusted, and before mourning begins women must clean up the disorder. For this reason, I was told, a person who is thinking of suicide by hanging may refrain from food for a day or so, in order “that his excrement may not be laughed at’. It may seem to us unnecessary to be so finicky about the manner of dying, yet this has a crude logic. If part of the reason for destroying the body is to preserve the social personality intact—by safeguarding it from disintegrating despair or shame—then the person does not want his reputation to suffer by his death. Suicide in Tikopia is thought to merit certain dignity.

Source

[#4] Raymond Firth, “Tikopian Attitudes Towards Suicide,” Tikopia Ritual and Belief (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), pp. 120-124.