104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull, 175 



and also because of the obvious similarity between these situations and 

 the murder-suicide pattern of witchcraft (Devereux, 1937 c) . Hi : wa 

 itck, on the other hand, lacked this tragic aspect and was therefore 

 considered a mental disorder. Public reaction was ambivalent and, 

 in retrospect at least, emphasized the comical aspects of the situation. 



{h) Hi.'wa itck and social integration. — It should once more be 

 stressed that lii : wa itck apparently afllicts chiefly persons who realize 

 that, because of their age, they cannot expect to obtain a substitute 

 love object as attractive as the spouse who may eventually desert them ; 

 such persons are, therefore, likely to invest a great deal of affection in 

 their marital relationship. The special pattern of behavior obtain- 

 ing between an old husband and his young wife should also be stressed 

 in this context. If the wife was immature, the husband acted in loco 

 parentis. He sometimes carried her around on his back and even took 

 over some of the more strenuous feminine household chores, wliich 

 the Mohave male scorns quite explicitly mider normal conditions.^^ 

 Last of all, the senior spouse was often exposed to jocular comments 

 skirting the topic of mcest (e. g., "Wliom are you carrying around on 

 your back ? Is that your daughter ?") (Devereux, 1951 f ) . 



These factors tended to intensify and render more complex the 

 marital relationship, and contributed to the isolation of the couple. 

 Hence, if the junior spouse deserted, the senior spouse found himself 

 isolated emotionally as well as socially, the act of desertion depriving 

 him both of his love object and of concrete comforts. His abnormal 

 behavior must therefore be interpreted also as a manifestation of the 

 iVlohave's sense of aimlessness (Kroeber, 1951) and as sensitiveness to 

 isolation, rather than simply as a reflection of the difficulties involved 

 in managing a simple affective frustration. 



The lack of recent cases of hi : wa itck is balanced by an increase in 

 love suicides. This trend reflects a profound social change; today, 

 self-restraint in the male is no longer rewarded by an adequate in- 

 crease in prestige; the difference between marriage and liaison has 

 become insignificant ; social relations in general are increasingly fluid 

 and superficial. These factors are responsible for an increase in the 

 sense of one's own uniqueness, as well as of that of the love object, 

 and lead to a need for increasingly intense individualized object 

 cathexes, which seem to serve as compensations for the increasing 

 social and affective isolation of the average modern Mohave from his 

 group. 



One further psychological nexus may also be traced. Old malevo- 

 lent shamans, who, through years of dream intercourse with the 



*♦ It shonlcl be noted, however, that braves of established reputation willingly worked 

 for siclt fainllles (Stewart, 1947 c). Cf. in this contest the nursing duties of the Knights 

 of St. John of the Hospital (Devereaux and Weiner, 1950). 



