Devereui] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 15 



recall, however, that old Mohave husbands are said to be excessively 

 attached to their young spouses, and if we bear in mind the Mohave 

 belief that "being very much in love" is a ridiculous kind of madness, 

 it immediately becomes apparent that the young wife's desertion is 

 nothing more than a "precipitating situation," which simply provides 

 an opportunity for the actualization of the preexisting, though latent, 

 neurosis of old men whose sexual impulse is already sufficiently de- 

 ranged to cause them to be (by Mohave standard) excessively in love 

 with a wholly inappropriate (i. e,, far too young) woman. 



While the preceding considerations emphasize chiefly the etiologi- 

 cal role of "power" or "actuating force" — which may be supernatural 

 or natural, and external or internal — it is quite clear that the mere 

 presence of a force of some kind is not necessarily a cause of illness 

 or of insanity. Psychiatric disorders are caused not simply by the 

 presence of some power or drive but, specifically, by some derange- 

 ment or disorganization of that force. This disorganization may re- 

 sult from a clash between that force and some other entity, as in the 

 case of the deliberate inhibition of one's shamanistic powers ; from the 

 presence of unspecified factors inhibiting the free manifestation of a 

 natural force, as in the case of persons who have convulsions because 

 they are incapable of experiencing a real orgasm ; from the struggle 

 of a patient's "health" component against the pathogenic power im- 

 pinging upon him, as in witchcraft; from the loss of a previously 

 available channel for the normal manifestation of a drive, as in 

 hi : wa itck, etc. In brief, the basic, albeit implicit, keystone of Mo- 

 have etiological theory appears to be the idea that insanity is caused 

 by some disorganized power or force, whose disorganization is due to 

 some sort of "conflict." This, in turn, means that even the psychiatric 

 symptoms of persons suffering from organic illness may, in a sense, 

 be viewed as products of a struggle between man's preordained 

 "health," which was explicitly mentioned by Ahma Huma: re (pt. 4, 

 pp. 150-175) , and some sort of pathogenic force or principle. 



The notion — reported from many cultures (Clements, 1932; Hult- 

 krantz, 1953) — that psychosis is caused by "soul loss" is represented in 

 Mohave psychiatry by the belief that the dreamer's soul may be enticed 

 to the land of ghosts by the ghost of a beloved kinsman or spouse who 

 visits the dreamer. The person who lost his soul in this manner be- 

 comes both ill and psychotic and, if not treated by a shaman, dies. This 

 seemingly simple etiological theory is, however, far more sophisticated 

 and complex than one may think. Indeed, in dream the "absent" soul 

 behaves as abnormally as does the body deserted by its soul. Thus, 

 since the bodyless soul behaves (in dream) quite as psychotically as 

 does the soulless body (while awake), the theory that soul loss 

 causes psychosis is a gross oversimplification. Apparently, neither of 



