@article{ref1,
title="The optimal sacrifice: A study of voluntary death among the Siberian Chukchi",
journal="American ethnologist",
year="2009",
author="Willerslev, Rane",
volume="36",
number="4",
pages="693-704",
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.<p />",
language="",
issn="0094-0496",
doi="10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01204.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01204.x"
}