Frazer approaches this subject from a different angle. In the second chapter of his volume entitled _The Dying God_ he tells us that in Fiji self-immolation is by no means rare, and the Fijians believe that as they leave this life they will remain ever after. This is a powerful motive to escape from decrepitude or from a crippled condition by voluntary death. “The custom of voluntary suicide on the part of the old men, which is among their most extraordinary usages, is connected with their superstitions regarding a future life.” To this must be added the contempt that attaches to physical weakness among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and insults that await those who are no longer able to protect themselves. So when a man feels age creeping on, so that he can no longer fully discharge the duties or enjoy the pleasures of life, he calls his relations, tells them he is worn out and useless, that they are ashamed of him, and he is determined to be buried. So on an appointed day they meet and bury him alive. In the New Hebrides the aged were buried alive at their own request. “It was considered a disgrace to a family of an old chief if he was not buried alive.” A Jewish tribe of Abyssinia never let a person die a natural death, for if any of their relatives was near expiring the priest of the tribe was called to cut his throat. If this ceremony was omitted, they believed the departed soul had not entered the mansions of the blessed. Heraclitus thought that the souls of those who die in battle are purer than those who die of disease. In a South American tribe, when a man is at the point of death his nearest relatives break his spine with an axe, for to die a natural death is the greatest misfortune. In Paraguay, when a man grows weary of life, a feast is made, with revelry and dancing, and the man is gummed and feathered with the plumage of many birds and a huge jar is fixed in the ground, the mouth of which is closed over him with baked clay. Thus he goes to his doom “more joyful and gladsome than to his first nuptials.”