46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



the alien that hits the "weaker blood" of the Mohave (Devereux, 

 1937 d, 1949 c ; Stewart, 1947 c) , but also in connection with deflora- 

 tion, menstruation, and bleeding during childbirth (Devereux, 1950 g) . 



It should also be stressed that the witch killer, like the scalper, 

 is always a brave (kwanami : hye) . This is significant, because braves 

 and shamans, as well as witches, have a niunber of traits in common : 

 Misbehavior in childhood, dreams of power (Stewart, 1947 c), a more 

 or less explicit desire not to live long (Kroeber, 1925 a, Devereux, 

 1937 c), a tendency to commit incest (Devereux, 1937 c, 1939 a), and, 

 in the case of scalpers and shamans only, an ability to cure. It 

 should also be added that, by being ostentatiously threatening, the 

 witch seeks to induce someone to kill him (Kroeber, 1925 a; Deve- 

 reux, 1937 c ; see also pt. 7, pp. 387-^26) . 



It is noteworthy that, unlike the hunter's neurosis or the scalper's 

 psychosis, the witch killer's psychosis may actually end in death. This 

 statement, which may or may not correspond to facts, tends to suggest 

 that killing a fellow Mohave, even if he is a witch, arouses more 

 anxiety than does the killing of animals, or the scalping of foes. 

 The fact that witch killers only dream of killing, but, unlike hunters 

 and scalpers, do not seem to dream of being killed, also supports 

 this inference and suggests that so heinous an act as murder, even 

 though it is socially approved, is too traumatic to be mastered simply 

 by dreaming it out of one's system. It is also the only instance in 

 which the sinner dreams that he is practically bathed in blood. This 

 dream imagery may be compared to pathogenic dreams of being 

 covered with the secretions of one's wife (pt. 4, pp. 150-175) . 



The witch killer's dreams, more dramatic and more gruesome than 

 those which occur in related derangements, show that even where 

 aggression is socially sanctioned and defined as useful, man retains 

 a certain degree of independence in his evaluation of good and evil. 

 Wlien his internal moral code is at odds with the social norm, he 

 may comply with the latter, but will experience at the same time con- 

 siderable intrapsychic conflict and anguish. This fact alone casts 

 doubt on the usefulness of social adjustment as a baseline for dif- 

 ferentiating between normal and abnormal (Ackcrknecht, 1943), 

 which is also questionable on many other grounds (Devereux, 1956 b) . 



PATHOLOGICAL SEQUELAE OF IITPERACTIVITT 



The Mohave believe that intensive and significant activity, when 

 engaged in for a long time, may cause insanity and/or psychosomatic 

 illness, especially if such an activity exteiTializes magical powers 

 ("Nyayu: hudhurtc takavekam"=Then his-power comes-back-on- 

 him). Yet, the hyperactivity which eventually turns against a per- 



