Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 87 



be partly related to the Mohave belief, that if a girl wantonly speaks ill of 

 a man, "she is as good as his." (Devereux, 1950 a) . 



It is noteworthy that female shamans do not seem to resort to 

 love magic, unless they also happen to be lesbians, who do not find 

 it easy to secure sex partners (Devereux, 1937 b). (Cf., however, 

 Case 49.) 



This illness appears to be related also to sexual insanity due to 

 witchcraft (see below) and to general insanity due to witchcraft 

 (pt. 4, pp. 195-202). 



INSANITY CAUSED BY INCEST 



Although the Mohave did not mention a specific disease entity 

 caused by incest, which automatically means also "incest with a witch" 

 (Devereux, 1939 a), they reported a case of insanity caused by incest, 

 whose symptoms resembled those found in various ghost diseases. 



CASE 19 (Informant : Hivsu : Tupo : ma) : 



The shaman Uto : h (whom others call Tcamadhuly Vaha:) of the Nyoltic 

 gens, his wife O: otc, their two married daughters (both named Nyoltc), and 

 their two sons-in-law lived in the same house. One night, for no known reason, 

 Uto : h cohabited with his younger daughter. Maybe he was crazy. What 

 the rest of the family, including the daughter's children, were doing at that 

 time is not known. The girl was half asleep and — like some other primitive 

 women (see section on Sudhu:rk, pt. 2 p. 77) — thought the man approaching 

 her was her husband. She therefore did not wake up completely, but let the man 

 perform intercourse. When she finally realized that the man was her father, she 

 sat up in bed and cried until dawn. This happened about 40 years ago (1892?). 

 At that time Uto : h was about 40 years old and his daughter about 20. He 

 was not punished, but was ostracized and held to be worse than a dog. This 

 experience did not affect Uto : h's mind, but his daughter became practically 

 psychotic. She thought that someone had bewitched her. She sat and spat 

 about her, with an odd expression in her eyes. She died 2 years later. Her 

 mother and older sister also began to behave queerly. In the end, they too be- 

 came mentally deranged and died within a few years. At present only a son of 

 the older daughter is still alive. His name is Nakue Mahay and he lives in 

 Yuma. The rest of the family is extinct, as so often happens when there is 

 incest in the family. I think this must have been a weak-minded family. 



Comment 



Mohave diagnosis: The symptoms cited are also found in various ghost diseases : 

 stupor, spitting (indicative of the infantile delusion of having swallowed an 

 evil and impregnating substance), etc. The self -diagnosis "witchcraft" may have 

 been determined by the belief that only witches are incestuous. The insanity 

 and death of the other female members of the family would also support this 

 diagnosis, since witches preferably bewitch their own kin. 



Tentative diagnosis: Psychogenic depression caused by trauma. 



SEXUAL INSANITY RESULTING FROM WITCHCRAFT 



Preliminary comment. — The madness which results from witch- 

 craft differs from that induced by love magic. The latter is caused 



