36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



my interpreter burst out laughing, but when the laughter subsided, 

 my informant remarked rather wistfully, "It sounds funny now, but 

 it wasn't funny at all at that time." 



The overall attitude toward the insane was described by Tcatc as 

 follows : 



[Did the Mohave ever kill the insane?] No, they took very good care of them. 

 They used to watch them even at night. [Among the Moi of Indochina, when 

 an insane person becomes obstreperous, they tie him up, throw him into a cave 

 and let him starve to death.] That is horrible. People who do such things must 

 be crazy themselves. [Not so very long ago, the white people kept the insane 

 in horrible bedlams. They beat them, tied them up with chains and charged 

 entrance fees to people who wanted to watch and tease the insane.] That is 

 all the whites ever think about — money ! [When a French doctor called Pinel 

 released the insane from their chains, they called him insane and locked him 

 up too.] All whites are bad. [Sometimes I think that we have more to be 

 ashamed of than any other race in the world.] Yes. 



Throughout this conversation Tcatc's tone of voice and facial ex- 

 pression reflected intense disgust and indignation. 

 An almost identical point of view was presented by E.S. : 



Even if a person was insane, people still took care of him because, despite his 

 insanity, he was their relative. Thus, even though everyone says that O : etc 

 is a kamalo : y, (Devereux 1948 f) and is believed to have helped her husband 

 kill a witch, her relatives are, nonetheless, nice to her when she is around, 

 precisely because she is a relation of theirs (Case 104) . 



There are, however, quite definite limits to what even the Mohave 

 will tolerate from a person who, like a kamalo : y, is not definitely 

 insane. Thus, when, after an interview with me, O : otc hinted that I 

 had made advances to her, she was severely reprimanded by her in- 

 dignant relatives, who told her point blank that they did not believe 

 her accusations since, unlike her, I enjoyed a spotless reputation. In 

 fact, if a married kamalo : y became too obnoxious, her husband's 

 friends sometimes raped and clitoridectomized her at the request of 

 her own husband (Devereux, 1948 f ) . 



A distinction is also made between a person whose misconduct is 

 felt to be caused by the budding of his shamanistic powers, and one 

 who simply misbehaves. The behavior of the former is criticized but 

 tolerated, whereas the conduct of the latter is condemned. 



The Mohave also behave dilFerently toward persons supposedly able 

 to control their obnoxious behavior and those who are obviously un- 

 able to do so. They ridicule the antics of transvestites and of persons 

 sufTering from hi : wa itck, though, in the latter case, they laugh only 

 in retrospect since, as stated above, Tcatc stressed that even though 

 the behavior of a certain hi : wa itck patient seemed laughable in retro- 

 spect, "it was not at all funny" when it happened. They are also 

 critical of women wlio ostentatiously throw themselves on the funeral 



