ABSTRACT

This chapter explains certain tension in Durkheim's understanding of suicide that continues to operate to this day in Western suicidology: a tension between ascribing the agency and authorship of the act of self-killing to the suicidal subject on the one hand and to an external cause, entity, or power on the other. The problem of intention or comprehension in suicide is intertwined with the taken-for-granted Western concept of a person as a subject-agent whose intentions are only indirectly accessible to others. Interpreting suicide with reference to a causal chain invoking soul-double loss does not simply erode the suicidal subject. An animal sacrifice without actual slaughter presents a striking parallel between the sacrificed animal and a human who lost his or her soul-double. Detached from the example of a cow dying on behalf of its mistress, an interpretation of Jimesh's or Tolui's death as self-sacrifice would resonate with Durkheim's views. This sacrifice then is imposed by society for social ends.