SEPARATION, RETALIATION AND SUICIDE: MOURNING AND THE CONFLICTS OF YOUNG TIWI MEN

This paper describes some Tiwi conceptions of death, linking an important myth of the origins of death to an interpretation of the dynamics of Tiwi mourning. It argues that one part of the myth describes the psychological dangers of human responses to loss, in particular the dangers of destructive rage and self‐destructive withdrawal, suicide. The mourning ceremonies facilitate the overcoming of these dangers and the re‐integration of the individual into collective life in the course of a drawn‐out process, a patterned dramatization of reactions to grief in collective action. The collective process of mourning is central to processes of psychological and social integration in Tiwi life. The paper then discusses a case of pathological mourning which led to the suicide of a young man, and sketches the impact of this death on a number of the younger male kinsmen of the deceased. The suicide was followed by a number of suicide attempts by these men. These attempts can be seen partly as manifestations of individuals' conflict with their surroundings, but also as manifestations of the collective process of adjustment to the death, in a sense as the culmination of the history of mourning in a family‐group extending over more than twenty years. In conclusion, the paper briefly summarizes recent changes in Tiwi social life which have contributed to the precariousness of integration of young men, and to the emergence of the historically new pathological forms implied by the contemporary rise in the number of instances of suicide.