62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



obscene, perverted, or aggressive behavior, which reflects the attempt 

 of the ego to express, and yet come to terms with, painful and disturb- 

 ing psychic material, which erupts, or, rather, reerupts, at an un- 

 manageably rapid rate. Otherwise expressed, the repressed material 

 returns at a greater rate than the adolescent's ego — already over- 

 burdened with the task of managing his suddenly intensified sexual 

 tensions — can handle, without being overwhelmed by it.*^ The fact 

 that society ultimately rewards the shaman for his fantasies further 

 aggravates the situation from the psychological point of view, since 

 it further increases the rate at which repressed infantile material is 

 permitted to reenter consciousness. The Mohave Indian's semihumor- 

 ous tolerance for the misconduct of the future shaman, rationalized 

 as : "It is his nature, he cannot help it," also has the same effect. 



While the adolescent's ego may, conceivably, be able to cope with 

 gradually reemerging conflictual material by means of improvised id- 

 iosyncratic defenses, the fact that society itself encourages the 

 massive eruption of the repressed obliges the adolescent to utilize 

 also, and even primarily, certain socially prepatterned defenses 

 against, and means for, the distorted and partial expression of these 

 ego-dystonic urges. As a result, he incorporates into his psychic 

 structure the culturally determined "type solution" of the shamanistic 

 pattern, whose ultimate expression is the self -definition : "I am a 

 shaman." 



Even though this symptomatic compromise or type solution is 

 culturally prepatterned, individual phrasings thereof occur both 

 among the Mohave and among other tribes. In fact, the Mohave 

 shaman is so notoriously touchy about the validity of his particular 

 phrasing of shamanistic powers, that, if the views of another shaman 

 differ from his own, he will seek to bewitch the heretic. This "nar- 

 cissism of small differences" clearly indicates that having shamanistic 

 powers is an important restitutive mechanism, enabling the shaman 

 to cling at least to the outer fringes of sanity and conformity by 

 means of a culturally patterned "specialty" (Linton, 1936). The 

 effectiveness of this culturally provided defense is, in turn, largely 

 determined by its close articulation with the most characteristic type 

 conflicts and tensions of Mohave society (Devereux, 1957 b) . 



It is extremely important to realize that even tliough the sha- 

 manistic solution is, for the time being at least, relatively effective, it 

 is not a genuine "cure with insight," but simply a partial restitutional 



<2 This specification is of great importance, since inhibited people are prone to imagine 

 that giving free rein to fantasy and impulse is necessarily a pleasant and cathartic ex- 

 perience, affording considerable relief. By contrast, one of the most important technical 

 objectives of the psychoanalyst is to regulate the rate at which repressed material re- 

 enters thi; field of consciousness, since too massive and sudden a return of the repressed 

 Is likely to overwhelm and totally disrupt the neurotic's weak ego. 



