Revenge Suicide by Lusi Women: An Expression of Power (IN: Rethinking Women’s Roles, ed. by D O’Brien and S Tiffany)

Using data from the Lusi-speaking Kaliai of northwest New Britain, the author demonstrates that suicide is part of a pattern of behaviour for powerless people, that this pattern is communicated in oral literature, that it follows rules, & that it has predictable results. In this context, suicide is a political alternative that permits the powerless, frequently women, to limit the use of power by others. (0 refs.) (LH)