2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



historians of psychiatry. For this reason each section contains not 

 only the relevant field data, but also some psychiatric comments and 

 explanations, which the anthropologist who is not interested in such 

 considerations can easily identify and skip. The psychiatrically 

 interested anthropologist will, on the other hand, find these discussions 

 and explanations sufficiently explicit to help him understand the 

 psychiatric significance of the material. 



Every work that is addressed to two different groups of specialists 

 must use and explain two sets of basic concepts that are almost 

 truisms for the representatives of one discipline, but are likely to be 

 unknown to the specialists in the other field. The anthropologist 

 who finds certain passages elementary will, one hopes, bear in mind 

 that these explanations may be useful to the psychiatric reader, and 

 vice versa, of course. 



The present monograph has, thus, three major objectives: 



(1) Anthropology. — To describe that segment of Mohave ethnog- 

 raphy that deals with primitive science and its practitioners, and to 

 show the articulation of this set of data with the Mohave culture 

 pattern in order to increase our understanding of that pattern (soci- 

 ology of knowledge) . 



(^) History of psychiatry (a branch of culture history). — To pro- 

 vide exhaustive information about one early system of psychiatry. 



(S) Theoretical and clinical psychiatry. — To provide practice in 

 thinking through familiar data and problems within a different frame 

 of reference, in the hope that this "exercise" will stimulate the evolv- 

 ing of new insights into various aspects of mental disorder (e. g., 

 pt. 2, pp. 56-71 in regard to the pathogenic effects of the inhibition of 

 abilities and functions.) This seems possible, since Mohave psychi- 

 atric theories do fit the clinical realities obtaining in that tribe rather 

 well. (See pt. 8, passim.) 



The data on which this monograph is based were collected in the 

 course of three extended field seasons (1932-33, 1936, 1938). Several 

 brief visits, lasting only a few days each (1935, 1947, 1949, 1950), 

 served to fill in small gaps and to clarify minor obscure points. 

 Probably 99 percent of the data were obtained in the course of the 

 three extended field seasons, mostly at Parker, Ariz., with three brief 

 excursions to Needles, Calif., to visit informants Nyahwe: ra, Harav 

 He : ya, and Apen Ismalyk. 



The exact date of these field trips is of some importance, since the 

 far-reaching congruence between Mohave psychiatric theories and 

 psychoanalytic views may suggest to some that my questions may have 

 influenced my informants. During my first and second regular field 

 seasons the bias, if any, was frankly antianalytic, while during the 

 third and last prolonged field season my bias, if any, was one of 



