The epidemiology of Aguaruna suicide suggests that suicide is part of a complex social process linking death threats, homicide, assertions of personal autonomy & relations of domination. Women & young men use solitary acts of violence directed against the self to express anger & grief, as well as to punish social antagonists. Their suicidal actions inadvertently serve to reproduce the very relations of domination & subordination that make self-destruction a compelling behavioural option.