Citation

Willerslev R. Am. Ethnol. 2009; 36(4): 693-704.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01204.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the Siberian North, “voluntary death,” that is, a person, who—often because of illness and old age—requests to die at the hands of close relatives, has traditionally been explained as a form of suicide resulting from the region's harsh living conditions. In this article, I suggest an alternative interpretation. Drawing on ethnographic data collected among the Chukchi of northern Kamchatka, I argue that voluntary death is effectively a ritual blood sacrifice. In making this argument, I recast long-standing debates about sacrifice by suggesting that behind the triangular relationship of sacrificer, deity, and victim lies a structure of ideal sacrifice, which is the impossible act of self-sacrifice. This structure, in turn, makes it possible to conceive of voluntary death as categorically different from suicide—indeed, as a ritual inversion of suicide.