From John Lubbock 27 February [1870]1
High Elms
27 Feb.
Dear Mr. Darwin
I must apologise for leaving your note so long unanswered, but I am sure you will excuse my having done so.2
Tanner in his “Captivity” mentions that the Redskins sometimes commit suicide,3 but as far as I can remember it is very unusual among savages.4 The Fiji & Japanese customs are of course familiar to you. Other races are very indifferent to life, but that is not the same thing.
I do not think Savages ever regard suicide as a crime.
I send you the Abstract of the Phil. Trans for 1773, & hope it may perhaps answer your purpose.5 Pray keep it as long as you like.
I hope Mrs. Darwin is better.6
Believe me | Yours most sincerely | John Lubbock
C Darwin Esq
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Barrington, Daines. 1773. Experiments and observations on the singing of birds. [Read 22 April and 6 and 13 May 1773.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 63: 249–91.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Tanner, John. 1830. A narrative of the captivity and adventures of John Tanner (U.S. interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie,) during thirty years residence among the Indians in the interior of North America. Prepared for the press by Edwin James. London: Baldwin & Cradock.
Summary
Suicide is rare among savages [see Descent 1: 94].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7118
- From
- John Lubbock, 4th baronet and 1st Baron Avebury
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- High Elms
- Source of text
- DAR 80: 166–7
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7118,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7118.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18
