Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 55 



like some other shamans, may end up by becoming witches, whose 

 self-destructiveness is notorious (Kroeber, 1925 a; Devereux, 1937 c). 



On the other hand, certain other semishamanistic cycles cited by 

 Kroeber, such as Halykwpa (Halyeku : p, grebe) , Halypuka (Halyepu : 

 k, loon), AhakioaHlya (dragonfly larva, which may or may not be 

 shamanistic, and Sampulyka (mosquito), may not be related to ill- 

 nesses and may therefore fit Kroeber's concept of semishamanistic song 

 cycles better than do the previously listed song cycles. However, even 

 in this context a certain amount of caution is in order, since Kroeber 

 (1925 a) specifies that {a) the singers of halyeku : p shout like birds at 

 memorial rites, and (b) are said not to live long. The first specification 

 possibly suggests that halyeku : p may be known only to funeral 

 ritualists, who are, by definition, also scalpers and shamans qualified 

 to cure the foreign sickness (pt. 4, pp. 128-150) . The second specifica- 

 tion has very distinct overtones of witchcraft, since, in another pas- 

 sage, Kroeber (1925 a) states : "Doctors and brave men are alike. The 

 latter say : 'I do not wish to live long.' The doctor says : 'I shall not 

 live a long time. I wish to die. That is why I kill people.' etc." The 

 fact that Kroeber's text does not differentiate between doctor and 

 witch lends substance to my informants' hints that the singers of semi- 

 shamanistic song cycles may become not only healers but, possibly, 

 also witches. 



The total impression created by Kroeber's account is that he was 

 not fully aware of the real scope and pervasiveness of the Mohave be- 

 lief that supernatural powers may deteriorate and turn against their 

 owners, causing them to embark, both psychologically and behavior- 

 ally, upon a course that leads to inevitable disaster, just as, in a Mo- 

 have myth (Kroeber, 1948) the deer inevitably go to meet Mountain 

 Lion, who is both their maker and their doom. Kroeber did perceive, 

 however, that the acquisition of certain powers, as exemplified by the 

 power to sing semishamanistic songs, sets off a psychological drift 

 toward shamanism. He also reported correctly that all doctors can be- 

 witch and then crave death. On the other hand, he failed to perceive 

 the unity of these two processes, because he did not see that becoming 

 a witch is simply a further evolution of some "real" ( = strong) healing- 

 shamans, whose initial defenses against their aggressive impulses, as 

 represented by their healing activities, begin to decompensate, and, 

 therefore, ultimately permit the eruption, first of overt, though magi- 

 cal, aggression and then of the self-punitive wish to be killed. 



In summary, the singer of semishamanistic song cycles, so called, 

 drifts first into therapy, then into witchcraft, and then into vicarious 

 suicide, through a process which the Mohave themselves define as a 

 gradual corruption of power, and which, from the psychological point 

 of view, represents, first, a piling up and expansion of defenses, and 



