Native’S Suicide

Unusual Incident in Rarotonga

From Our Own Correspondent

Rarotonga, March 23.

A PECULIAR case of attempted suicide, which developed into a tragedy, oc curred here last week.

A native woman, married and with three children, for some time had been quarrelling with her husband. She had frequently threatened suicide, once going so far as to tie a towel tightly round her neck. Her husband pulled it away and then used it to chastise her.

This time, she evidently intended to give him a serious fright. Standing on a kerosene tin, she tied a thin strip of “kiriau” (the bark of the burau tree) round her neck and onto a rafter, waited till she heard voices approaching the shack and then kicked away the tin, hav ing taken the precaution while standing

on the tin, to leave a knife sticking out of the thatch.

But the best of plans go oft agley. The husband remained outside, talking, till a cry from the baby brought him in. In the dim light of the lamp, seeing his wife apparently trying to frighten him once more, his anger rose and he rushed out side to find a stick with which to beat her.

A friend entered the shack while he was out, and immediately realised the seriousness of the case, and called the husband and tried to break the “kiriau.”

But, as everyone knows, kiriau is extra ordinarily strong.

Both men thereupon ran out for a knife —the one the woman had placed in readi ness being not easily seen from the floor.

With all the running hither and thither about fifteen minutes had elapsed, and life was extinct, when the body was cut down.

This is not only the first case of sui cide by hanging, but also the first proved suicide to occur on this island. It is peculiar how very often natives will threaten suicide, but, hitherto, have not brought themselves to actualities.

The woman was given decent burial.

But, just as the coffin was being put into the grave it was turned over, on its face, in order that the spirit would have diffi culty in finding direction and re-visiting the scene of the tragedy!