16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



these two entities can behave normally when the other is absent, sanity 

 being a product of the simultaneous presence of both soul and body 

 and of the proper interaction between the two. This, in turn, implies 

 that "insane" behavior occurs when body and soul are separated. 

 The disembodied soul behaves "crazily" in dream and the soulless body 

 behaves "crazily" while awake. This formulation fits not only basic 

 Mohave psychiatric theory, but also every other primitive soul loss 

 theory of psychosis known to me.^ 



The last pattern to be clarified here is the nexus between psychosis 

 and suicide. The data presented in part 7 suggest that suicide is 

 fairly often a substitute for — and possibly also an escape from — 

 the psychosis that is caused by isolation : schizophrenia. It is there- 

 fore possible to suggest, at least tentatively, that the absence of 

 schizophrenia among true primitives (Devereux, 1939 d) may be 

 'partly due to the primitive's flight from an incipient schizophrenia 

 into suicide. 



It would be hazardous to try to elaborate further the latent pat- 

 tern which seems to underlie the etiological explanations of the vari- 

 ous neuroses and psychoses known to the Mohave, lest we impute to 

 them a more developed latent pattern than they actually possess. 



The preceding paragraphs had a very limited objective. They 

 tried to indicate that the lack of an authentically indigenous and 

 explicitly formulated general etiological theory does not necessarily 

 imply a total lack of coherence and interdependence between the 

 separate explanations of the various neuroses and psychoses. The 

 demonstration of such a coherence does not require the construction 

 of a comprehensive general theory of Mohave psychiatric etiology. 

 It is quite sufficient to show that the various discrete etiological 

 theories have at least one element in common, namely the thesis that 

 a force, disorganized by a conflict, is a major factor in the causation 

 of all mental disorders. 



It is, of course, quite possible that, by exerting oneself to the 

 utmost, one could construct inductively a general etiological theory 

 based on genuinely Mohave data and in harmony with the Mohave 

 culture pattern. However, such an undertaking would be simply a 

 display of ingeniousness, devoid of all anthropological significance. 

 Indeed, the culturally most significant aspect of Mohave psychiatric 

 thought is precisely the fact that, despite its implicit internal coher- 

 ence, it has never been systematized into a general theory, the way 

 theories of dreaming or shamanism have been systematized by the 

 Mohave themselves. The fact that one area of knowledge or interest 



'' The fact that the soul behaves abnormally In dream is self-evident, since dreams result 

 from the interplay of repressed wishes and "primitive" intrapsychic controls. Anyone 

 who behaves In waking life as though he were dreaming is schizophrenic. 



