Silence is not Always Golden

Robin Williams’ death brought to the fore how little we know about mental problems, and how much we need to speak out when we have heavy stuff bugging us. I feel that our society is too cautious with discussing issues regarding mortality, worse when it’s suicide. It’s actually taboo to openly discuss it, even when people are at the funeral of someone who killed himself. Close relatives would rather attribute the death to another affliction than reveal that one of their own killed himself. Having a suicide in the family is associated with evil spirits. People prefer to skirt around serious discussions but it costs lives to keep quiet. Silence is not always golden.

I listened to Billy Crystal deliver a moving eulogy of Williams and marveled at the different ways in which our societies handle suicides. I knew just a little about how people in my part of the world handle funerals of people who would have committed suicide. When someone dies, people wail and some throw themselves to the ground to express their grief. Even those who didn’t really like the deceased will put up an act of bereavement, just so they won’t be viewed as witches. But after someone has committed suicide, people are actually not allowed to cry. A person who commits suicide is buried almost like a dog, no coffin should be bought, and no vigil should be held. It is believed that the person would have chosen an undignified exit from the world, so there should be no dignity bestowed on them.

I wanted to learn more about this way of doing things and consulted my father. As soon as I mentioned that I wanted to know more about how burials of people who committed suicide were conducted, he immediately became cagey. He interrogated me about why I was talking of suicide and I explained that I only wanted to write about it. He was not convinced and only responded two hours later, after careful consideration, I’m sure.

He said culturally, giving a person who has committed suicide a decent burial is like condoning what he would have done. Just literally throwing him away is meant to put his family members off suicide, because no-one would ever want to be buried like that. After one dies a natural death, his belongings are distributed amongst relatives so that they can have keepsakes. But when someone kills himself, all his belongings, clothes, and blankets are buried with him because people fear his spirit might still be lingering on his earthly possessions and might induce more suicides. If the person hangs himself in the bush, a grave is simply dug beneath him, the rope is cut and he indecorously falls into the grave. That is believed to make the deceased realise that his relatives were revolted by him and his choice of death, thus he wouldn’t come back to haunt his living family and push them to commit suicide too. I heard that traditionally a person who hangs himself is supposed to have his corpse beaten up first before the rope is cut. I don’t know if that is still practiced.

I just thought all this bad treatment of corpses is rather sad. Regardless of how someone dies, I believe they deserve a decent burial. Just because someone has died in a way we view as unacceptable doesn’t mean we have to forget all the good things they did while they were still alive.

Abusing corpses doesn’t help, talking about the scourge that is suicide helps. People are, however, not likely to come forward if they feel suicidal for fear that they would be viewed as being possessed by evil spirits.