38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BnU. 175 



sider them quite as human as themselves and entitled to the same love, 

 care, and consideration as others.^^ 



It may be worth mentioning that McNichols (1944), in an ethno- 

 graphically accurate (Kroeber, 1944) novel about the Mohave, makes 

 repeated references to the occasional appearance in Mohave territory 

 of homicidal maniacs expelled from other tribes. McNichols de- 

 scribes in some detail the manner in which such a psychotic Paiute was 

 hunted down by a Mohave youth, who was "name traveling" with 

 a youthful white friend; the slaying of this Paiute was accepted by 

 all, save only the oldest members of the tribe, as a suitable climax to 

 name traveling. "^Vlien this young Mohave was persuaded that he 

 had been bewitched by contact with the insane Paiute's magical ob- 

 jects, which, apart from being inherently dangerous, also carried 

 foreign contamination, he went into a near psychotic panic, but 

 promptly pulled out of his seemingly catatonic condition when a 

 matter-of-fact Mohave shaman told him that his fears were un- 

 founded. This temporaiy collapse did not diminish in any way the 

 value of this young man's feat in getting rid of the psychotic Paiute 

 witch. 



^ The above considerations imply that brutality toward the insane and the failure 

 of early psychiatrists to tackle the problem of mental disorder with insight and empathy 

 are closely related phenomena. 



