Method Nature Doesn’t Even Offer An Easy Way Out

[DepressedDude]

I was walking through a nature reserve and looking around thinking how would someone a thousand years ago kill themselves. There's cliffs they could jump off, a river or ocean they drown in, and a few poisonous things they could eat like plants / mushrooms.

I can't see someone figuring out to tie a noose with a vine or cutting their arms with sharp rocks, but I guess that would maybe work too.

So 5 methods all up, maybe 6 if they ran up to a pack of lions or something.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I think suicide wasn't such a big topic back then as it is in our society bc humans then lived in and from nature closer to animals than to modern society. Our way of living - far off our natural habitat where we actually should live - is one of the major reasons for considering suicide for some of us, among other things.

In regards of sharp rocks, there are very sharp rocks in nature, afaik the sharpest one is obsidian (if it is broken in the right way) that can be as sharp or even sharper as blades.

Life is not made to kill itself that's the natural principle of life.

 

[Otaku]

I think Praestat_Mori is right about what she says,
People were not suffering mentally so much, as they are today. It was much much harder to survive and getting a full stomach each day.

And humans didn't get to very old in that time period. I think if someone reached 40, he would be one of the few in his age. And such people, were often important.

Wars, and raidings was part of the human culture all around the world. Much much more, than it is today.

They didn't have a pharmacy back then, and people would rely on "Shamans/seers/priests hoodoo" you know.. What the majority would call superstition.
The only thing there was, was doctors from that time, with very little knowledge, and it was very little, what medicine there was.

And people had to work almost all day.. So its makes sense they didn't have time to think about suicide.

At least that's how it is portrayed today, it was back then. If you didn't help your tribes or village, you would not survive for very long. ( Someone is free to correct me if i'm wrong :P )

 

[DEATH IS FREEDOM]

It is impossible to know how long humans have been committing suicide but man presumably began to kill himself a long time ago. The need for suicide when humans lived in nature was probably not as big as today because the Stone Age man used to die of external causes before he became old. However, people who live in nature know which plants that are poisonous and deadly. Today´s hunters and gatherers treat a substance from plants and larvae with heating in a complicated way and then squeeze out a poison that can kill a large animal. In ancient times of the Nordic countries, people have voluntarily jumped off cliffs in nature when they became old, sick and a nuisance to their relatives. Drowning has been a common method of suicide for centuries, perhaps for millennia. At least in today´s society, we have more methods to choose from than the man who lived in nature.

 

[willitpass]

Suicide always existed, however not necessarily for the same reasons we do it now. Each culture had different attitudes towards it, some saw it as more dignifying than bringing dishonor to your family for something you had done. There were religious suicides. Martyr. Hell, there was an entire play written about two lovers who offed themselves to be with each other (I know I oversimplified the plot, don't come for me). I'm not sure how prevalent mental illness inspired suicide was, but it is not a novel concept, our perceptions of it and reasons for it have just changed. And yes obviously the methods have changed as lifestyles have evolved.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

1000 years? You mean more like 100,000.