TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2009//
TI  - The optimal sacrifice: A study of voluntary death among the Siberian Chukchi
JO  - American ethnologist
A1  - Willerslev, Rane
SP  - 693
EP  - 704
VL  - 36
IS  - 4
N2  - 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 /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0094-0496
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2009.01204.x
ID  - ref1
ER  -