[the_devils_advocate_666]

I swear I once read/heard that Eskimo elders, if they felt as though they were becoming a burden on their family/community, were known to walk off into the wilderness never to be heard from again. I searched the web looking for any citations on this but found nothing. This certainly would classify as suicide but at the same time would it not be an honorable act of selflessness?

[wagglebee]

I swear I once read/heard that Eskimo elders, if they felt as though they were becoming a burden on their family/community, were known to walk off into the wilderness never to be heard from again. I searched the web looking for any citations on this but found nothing. This certainly would classify as suicide but at the same time would it not be an honorable act of selflessness?

There is NOTHING selfless about this.

What it describes is a society that doesn't value human life and ingrains a sense of there being a "duty to die" if someone thinks they are a "burden" on society.

It is no different from other societies that didn't value human life and used gas chambers, forced starvation and mass execution on people they think are a "burden" to society.

[FARS]

I heard they were put on an ice floe and drifted off to never reappear.

The Japanese have a set of suicide customs for their elders