thanatomania

Term: thanatomania

Literally meaning: “a suicidal mania or craze for dye”

Origin: Anc Greek

θάνατος/thanatos(=death) >  θνήσκωthnesko(=dye) > θείνω/theino(=smite, kill)

-μανία/ -mania (=combining form denoting passion, forse, mania, enthusiasm, frenzy) > μένος/menos(=life, vigor)

Coined/History

By physician, anthropologist and protector of Aborigines Walter Edmund Roth (1861-1933) in order to express the fact that the Australian aboriginal patients (Queensland) were under complete inhibition of the will to live induced by the thought of being under a spell.   

  Thanatos  in Grek mythology was a minor daemon (in Roman mythology was translated as Mors). According Greek poet Hesiod   thanatos was the son of Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness) and twin oh Hypnos (Sleep) 

 Sourse : Roth, W. (1984) The Queensland Aborigines, 1984 facsimile edition, Queensland Government Printer; originally Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (1897).

Definition

Thanatomania is

1. the obsession  in the power of evil spirits and magic leading to a fated death.

2. a suicidal  fatalism.