42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



was denied by Tcatc as well as by other informants, one is inclined to 

 suggest that Mohave society managed to socialize and culturalize the 

 persecutory attitude, by institutionalizing both witchcraft and fear of 

 witchcraft, and by granting cultural recognition and status to dan- 

 gerous dream personages, identified either with ghosts or with witches. 



PATHOLOGICAL SEQUELAE OF SOCIALLY APPROVED AGGRESSION 

 AGAINST game: HUNTEK'S NEUROSIS 



( 1 ) Wliile discussing dietary rules, BQvsu : Tupo : ma stated in 1932- 

 33 that a man who eats his own kill becomes insane." In 1950, when I 

 was seeking to obtain additional information on this topic, Pulyi : k 

 first stated that such a hunter does not necessarily become mad; he 

 will be primarily ill. However, in the very next breath he mentioned 

 that such a hunter has hallucinations ; he sees game everywhere. 



(2) When I cited K. M. Stewart's report (194'7 a) that, when a 

 person first ate squirrel, he placed his sandal on his head, to protect 

 himself against loss of memory, Pulyi : k replied that loss of memory 

 was perhaps too strong a term. Instead, he suggested that without 

 this precaution such a person would become quite "absentminded" 

 ( =nyayu : vomopet'a) . 



Oormnent 



Pacifying or honoring one's kill, while especially conspicuous among 

 certain Canadian Indians, also occurs in the Southwest, e. g., among the 

 Hopi (Devereux, 1946)." These precautionary measures clearly re- 

 flect that guilt and anxiety over the killing of game occur even in 

 hunting tribes (Devereux, 1957 a), and are directly related to scalping 

 ceremonies, which seek to pacify the scalp and to protect the scalper 

 from insanity (see pt. 2, pp. 43-45.) Once more, the interplay between 

 aggression and guilt is in evidence, though, due to a lesser identification 

 with mere animals, it appears to be dealt with by repression (loss of 

 memory) and/or absentmindedness, rather than by more explosive 

 defense mechanisms leading to serious psychiatric symptoms ; in addi- 

 tion, the hunter is not permitted to benefit from his kill. Renouncing 

 the eating of one's own kill is perhaps comparable to the fact that only 

 old men, who no longer went to war, would, or could, marry female 

 prisoners of war, whose proximity was believed capable of causing the 

 foreign psychosis (pt. 4, pp. 128-150) . The socially beneficial effects of 

 giving one's kill to others are, on the other hand, too well known to 

 require discussion in this context. 



^'According to Kroeber (1025 a) the hunter's Infant child may also contract diarrhea. 



'T The ritual art of cutting up a stag In a manner befitting the rules of noble hunting — 

 which Is mentioned, e. g., In the legend of Tristan — may well have the same conciliatory 

 significance. 



