Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 53 



leterious aftereffects lies in the fact that, strictly speaking, Mastam- 

 ho's creative activity was natural, rather than magical. It was ac- 

 tivity befitting a deity, exactly as agriculture, hunting, or childbear- 

 ing are activities befitting human beings, and was not a manifestation 

 of some supernatural power acquired in dream, in the sense in which 

 the shaman's power is a supernatural one. If this interpretation is 

 valid, then Mastamho's psychosis sheds light upon beliefs concerning 

 the deleterious aftereffects of ordinary hyperactivity, rather than upon 

 the "spoiling" of truly magical powers. Finally, and at the lowest 

 estimate, it provides the mythical precedent for insanity, in accord- 

 ance with the Mohave principle that every human activity must have 

 a mythical precedent.^^ 



From the strictly cultural point of view, the most important aspect 

 of the legend of Mastamho's insanity is the notion that supernatural 

 beings can become psychotic. While psychotic deities are not common 

 in Mohave mythology, Kroeber (1948) states that Coyote stole 

 Matavilye's heart because he knew nothing and therefore did not be- 

 have like a proper mourner. Mastamho therefore let him go and 

 refused to instruct him. 



I do not want to tell him what I know: I want him to he foolish and know 

 nothing: I do not want him to hear what I say. I will let him go. He will be 

 the only one like that, the one I call Coyote. He will not know his own home : 

 he will want to run about the desert and do what is bad. If someone is not at 

 home, Coyote will go there ; but if a person is in his house, he will not come ; and 

 if anyone sees him, he will run off. (Kroeber, 1948.) 



Tliis passage explains why the term "hukthar" ( = coyote) also means 

 "crazy" (Case 79). The syndrome described closely resembles the 

 type of hebephrenia sometimes found among hoboes and the Mohave 

 narrative clearly represents Coyote as the hobo of the desert. It is 

 probably also significant that Hipahipa, the ancestor of the Hi : pa 

 gens, whose "totemic" animal is, precisely, the coyote, is described in a 

 Mohave historical epic (Kroeber, 1951 b) as an, apparently hebe- 

 phrenic, hermit hobo of the desert. 



Harrington (1908) makes it clear that psychotic deities also occur 

 in the mythology of the Yuma. 



The problem of psychologically disturbed deities is an extremely 

 complex subject, which transcends the limitations of the present work. 

 The only point which needs to be made is that psychotic gods also 

 occur in other mythologies. Thus, Herodotus states that the god 

 Triton was seized by prophetic frenzy, while a variety of Greek 

 sources describe the almost psychotic depression of Demeter when her 

 daughter Persephone married Hades. Other Greek gods, quasi-gods, 



•sThe Yuma also know of insane supernatural beings (Harrington, 1908). Cf. in Greek 

 mythology Demeter's depression, the psychosis of Herakles, etc. 



