Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 47 



son need not be either magical or incompatible with a person's con- 

 dition. It is normal and desirable for a Mohave to be a good farmer; 

 yet Hilyera Anyay felt certain that he became ill because he farmed 

 successfully for many years (Case 3). Likewise, though it is appro- 

 priate for a culture hero to do great deeds, Mastamho became psy- 

 chotic in the end (Kroeber, 1925 a, 1948) "because he did so many 

 things." ^^ In fact, Mastamho's psychosis is not even comparable 

 to the deleterious consequences of having shamanistic powers, since, 

 unlike shamans, Mastamho did not acquire in dream the supernatu- 

 ral power of functioning as a culture hero. The power he had was 

 as natural a part of him as a human being's maleness or femaleness, 

 sight or hearing, intellectual potential or simple muscle power are 

 inherent parts of that person. As for the owners of gambling 

 charms, while they admittedly acquired these charms as a result of 

 appropriate dreams, their power to gamble successfully resided not 

 within them (in the sense in which the Mohave shaman's healing 

 power is within him, rather than in some charm, or Plains Indian 

 type "medicine bundle") but in the material charm itself. Thus, 

 it is not their own, internal power that turns against them; it is 

 the power of the external charm.^^ 



It may be objected that the distinction between: (1) the psychi- 

 atric sequelae of divine and human hyperactivity; (2) the psychoso- 

 matic sequelae of association with power-laden charms; and (3) the 

 harm resulting from the possession of supernaturalistic powers, is an 

 artificial one, in view of the fact that, according to Mohave belief, 

 even such workaday powers as the capacity to bear children, or to be 

 a successful farmer or hunter, etc., are obtained in dream (Devereux, 

 1956 c) . Were one to stress this point of similarity, one would also 

 be obliged to lump together the pathological sequelae of "lay" hyper- 

 activity with the deleterious consequences of the possession of super- 

 naturalistic powers. 



Wliile this point of view is not without merit, it is felt that the 

 Mohave themselves differentiate rather sharply between lay powers 

 and magical powers. Indeed, whereas the Mohave specify that a per- 

 son who obtained shamanistic powers, but refuses to exercise these 

 powers, becomes psychotic (see pt. 1, pp. 57-71), no one mentioned 

 people who had received the power to hunt or to farm successfully and 

 then went insane because of their refusal to hunt or to farm. In fact, 



^ The psychotic episodes of legendary Greek heroes — and especially the homicidal rages 

 of Herakles and Ajax Telamonldes — may have similar cultural Implications. 



^ Needless to say, from the psychological point of view the purely Internal power of 

 the shaman and the power of the gambler's charm are closely related. It Is, however, 

 hard to decide which of these two types of power is, in the last resort, psychologically 

 more Infantile. 



