widow strangling

The Kaulong people, one of the dozens of small populations living along the southern watershed of the Island of New Britain, just East of New Guinea, formerly practised the ritual strangling of widows. When a man died, his widow called upon her brothers to strangle her. She was not nurderously strangled against her will, nor was she pressured into this ritualized form of suicide by other members of her society. Instead, she had grown up observing it as the custom, followed the custom when she became widowed herself, strongly urged her brothers (or her son if she had no brothers) to fulfil their solemn obligation to strangle her despite their natural reluctance, and sat co-operatively while they did strangle her.

From The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond's latest. I'm interviewing him tomorrow so I won't be blogging until very late at least.

Anyway, should be an interesting chat.

Comments

[dick gregory]

Does Adidas Porsche Design S2 have a sole?

Stephen Corry didn't like the book.
Savaging Primitives: Why Jared Diamond’s ‘The World Until Yesterday’ Is Completely Wrong

[john malpas]

seems a fearful waste of widows especially if young

[ajay]

Yeah, I just bet the widow was entirely cooperative every time. Er, no. If it's anything like sati in India, there were a lot of cases where she was either drugged out of her mind or struggling until her last breath.

[john b]

While all ajay says is true, the weird thing about sati is that it was voluntary in a sizeable majority of cases ("drugged out of her mind" was obviously common, but not particularly relevant: if I'd decided when sober that I was going to burn myself alive, I'd still want to be as high as balls for the main event). Because indoctrination and the threat of social disapproval are more powerful tools than physical coercion.

[a3t]

I'm not sure how meaningful it is to say it was voluntary if the threat of social disapproval was a major motivation.

[john b]

Completely fair point, but one that absolutely ties in with what Diamond says and goes against what Ajay says.

[ajay]

Completely fair point, but one that absolutely ties in with what Diamond says and goes against what Ajay says.

No. What Diamond actually says is "She was not nurderously strangled against her will, nor was she pressured into this ritualized form of suicide by other members of her society." He specifically rules out social pressure.

Widows in Hindu India were treated appallingly badly, to the point where death probably did seem like a fairly acceptable alternative. And I'd like to know what happened to Kaulong widows who decided not to be strangled.

[Barry Freed]

I suspect "cake" was not on the menu.

[john b]

"Social pressure" is a bit meaningless here, since it ranges from mild disapproval to being expelled from the tribe to live as a hermit and/or die in a ditch.