72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



powers, and the misconduct of the bewitched woman, into whom an 

 evil shaman injects his own powers. The misconduct of the sliaman is 

 rationalized by saymg : "It is his nature, he camiot help it" ; hence, 

 no one tries to therapeutize him. The misconduct of the bewitched 

 woman is, by contrast, defined as ego-alien and exogenous ; she is held 

 to be psychiatrically ill and attempts are made to therapeutize her. 



Of course, the intellectual belief of the Mohave that the shaman 

 is not, strictly speaking, "yamomk" is a cultural tenet rather than a 

 psychiatric linding, and is therefore not a valid "certificate of sanity." 

 In fact, the Mohave themselves seem to sense that the shaman is not 

 really sane, since, when a new sexual outrage perpetrated by a shaman 

 becomes known, people tend to exclaim: "All shamans are crazy." 

 While, from the cultural point of view, the term "crazy" (yamomk) 

 is used here in a strictly pejorative and nondiagnostic sense,^^ from 

 the objective point of view this venting of feelings more nearly ap- 

 proximates psychiatric realities than does the official cultural tenet 

 that the practicing shaman is not, strictly speaking, "yamomk," even 

 though some of his actions resemble those of a psychotic. 



In brief, it is a cultural bias, and not psychiatric insight, that leads 

 the Mohave to diilerentiate between "yamomk" and "not yamomk" 

 on the basis of whether the misbehavior is due to "illness" or else 

 to ego-alien magical powers on the one hand, or to the subject's o\^^l 

 miruly powers and/or basic makeup on the other hand. Tliis "etio- 

 logical" theory is of interest solely as a cultural fact, but has no 

 psychiatric validity, except insofar as it seems to suggest that the 

 Mohave have a dim insight into the diUerence between a (shamanistic) 

 charaxiteT neurosis and a (yamomk) symptom neurosis. 



This point will not be elaborated further in the present context, 

 since the entire problem of the Mohave Indian's differentiation 

 between "yamomk" and "not yamomk" is analyzed in detail in part 

 1, pp. 24-35. Furthermore, since the present monograph is devoted ex- 

 clusively to the study of Mohave psychiatric ideas, no consideration 

 will be given to the perversions, which the ]\lohave do not consider 

 "yamomk," and which, moreover, have been fully described in a series 

 of previously published essays (see appendix to this section, p. 89). 



ATCOO : R IIANYIENK 



The investigation of convulsive seizures Avas begun by describing 

 to Tcatc the "fits" of a certain American man, who may or may not 

 have been a true epileptic. Tcatc diagnosed his condition as atcoo : r 

 hanyienk, and, in reply to a question, stated that no Mohave known to 



^ In the same way, an American may exclaim : "You must he out of your mind," with- 

 out following up this pseutlodiagnosls with the recommendation that his interlocutor 

 consult a good psychiatrist. 



