Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 103 



verts) were at least permitted to figlit with their successful rivals. 

 In brief, the man was expected to respect the new situation, and to 

 accept it, while the woman was allowed the privilege of "taking it 

 out" on lier successful rival. This inhibition may explain why hi : wa 

 itck occurs only, or chiefly, in men, and is limited to cases of complete 

 desertion followed by the establishment of a new relationship. 



(/) Funeral suicide results from a situation wliich is irreversible 

 (pt. 7, pp. 431-459) . Once more the culture pattern demands that the 

 male should accept it completely, while the female is permitted one 

 last emotional outburst, m the form of attempted funeral suicide, 

 which, if successful, enables her to go through subsequent metamor- 

 phoses at the side of her husband, thus restoring the status quo even 

 beyond the grave. It should be added that a wife who dies long after 

 her husband's demise cannot catch up with liim, due to the lack of 

 synchronization between their successive metamorphoses, which occur 

 in a strict sequence (Devereux, 1937 a) . 



Summing up, male suicide is an equivalent not of hi : wa itck, but 

 of the more aggressive attempts of women to restore the status quo. 

 Female funeral suicide, on the other hand, is, within limits, the 

 equivalent of hi : wa itck in the male, who is usually the senior spouse, 

 and is a response to a situation, which, in theory and very often in 

 practice as well, is irreversible. It may be added that the general 

 failure of attempted funeral suicides, often followed by the re- 

 marriage of the widow, causes the Mohave to laugh and shrug their 

 shoulders at these would-be suicides. Considering the flightiness of 

 IMohave women, we may say that they reconcile themselves more 

 easily to objective, man-made reality (desertion), than to the irrev- 

 ocable dictates of fate (final breach or death). Culture supports 

 them in this attitude, by permitting them a certain leeway of ag- 

 gression.^^ 



{g) Absence of formal therapy for hi: wa itch. — Although the Mo- 

 have had rites for the cure of most types of insanity, they lacked a 

 formal therapy for hi : wa itck. This absence suggests that Mo- 

 have culture was not prepared to deal with very strong "object 

 cathexes," of a highly individualized kind, and that such cathexes 

 were felt to disturb the public order. A similar practical passivity 

 existed also with regard to mcest and suicide. At the same time, the 

 fatal outcome of suicides somewhat mitigated the contemptuousness 

 of public opinion, which was, however, manifested toward the would- 

 be suicide who failed in his design. 



Ambivalence was also less pronounced in cases involving death by 

 murder-and-suicide, perhaps because of the Mohave fear of ghosts. 



^ A similar outlet Is the frantic destruction of excess property not belonging to the de- 

 ceased, which is thrown on the funeral pyre (Devereaux, 1942 a; cf. pt. 7, pp. 431-459). 



