Death is Better Than Indignity": Understanding Honor, Black Magic Beliefs, and Suicide Distinction in Northern Pakistan

Abstract

This ethnographic research explains the cultural views of the difference between suicide and honor killing in Gupis Valley, District Ghizer, Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. The study reviews the ways in which traditional beliefs of black magic, Islamic religious structures, and honor codes influence how the local people comprehend self-inflicted death as based on 40 interviews carried out in March 2020. Results indicate a systematic idea of conflation of honor killings and suicide in the official reports due to the collusion of the community and the police in order to maintain the family image. The participants explained 34 recorded cases of suicide (2006 to 2018) by various factors such as love affairs (disguised as suicide), black magic, and family abuse. The paper determines the fatalistic suicide trends in which over social control such as among women generates suicidal tendencies as a way of escaping unbearable restriction. Two survival case studies indicate that prevention of completed suicide is possible through intervention and attitude change in the family. The study makes a contribution to the perception of cultural scripts in Muslim, collectivist societies that underlie the difficulty of preventing suicide and epidemiological surveillance. Some of the recommendations are the decoupling of suicide reporting and honor preservation systems and incorporating mental health services and traditional healing practices. This paper is based on 20 credible sources dating back to 1897-2024.