The sexual jealousy of Navahos has been mentioned. Some of it is undoubtedly conventional, but undoubtedly it is often very deeply and personally felt. Occasionally a rejected spouse will deliberately overstrain himself by carrying a huge rock – – ‘he hurt himself be cause he wanted to die.’ Marital quarrels and jealousy are indeed frequently ascribed as causes for suicide, exceeded only in number by the desire to escape going to prison or to evade other consequences of past acts. Third most frequent is grief over the death of a relative; fourth, brooding over incurable illness. It is interesting to note that, of known suicides (which are not very frequent), males outnumber females more than ten to one. Shooting is the most common method, hanging next in frequency. Jumping off a cliff was most usual in the past.
[#26] Dorothea Leighton and Clyde Kluckhohn, Children of the people; the Navaho individual and his development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947, pg. 111.