118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BulL 175 



tion, 1954) noted in the course of his most recent field trip to the 



Mohave. 



(3) The same account implicitly relates supernatural snakes to 

 white people, thus connecting the snake illness with the ah we: 

 nyevedhi: (foreign ghost) illness. This implicit nexus is indirectly 

 suggested also by Tcatc's remark that the snakes appearing m path- 

 ogenic dreams wear the kind of funeral feathers that cause the insanity 

 which affects misbehaving funeral ritualists (pt. 4, pp. 186-195), who 

 are also shamans specializing in the cure of ahwe: nyevedhi: (foreign 

 illness) . This fact further increases the plausibility of the suggestion 

 (cf. pt. 4, pp. 128-186) that aliens are more or less thought of as dan- 

 gerous ghosts. 



(4) Two of the three case histories are autobiographical, and in- 

 clude dreams. 



(5) The same two case histories are those of a married couple, and 

 suggest that the wife's "pathogenic dream" may have been influenced 

 by her knowledge of her husband's pathogenic dream, parts of which 

 provided material ("day residue") for her own dream. 



(6) One of these two case histories underscores the dual function 

 of snakes, which both cause and cure the snake illness. This dovetails 

 with the Mohave belief that shamans can both send (cause) and cure 

 certaui ailments. In fact, in one of our cases the appearance of two 

 hikwi : r as dream healers coincided with a real improvement in the 

 patient's condition, but also served as a basis for the diagnosis of her 

 aihnent as the snake disease. (Cf. also Case 94 for healing in dream.) 



Although three of the four accounts converge extensively on the 

 manifest level, and the fourth also appears to be in harmony with the 

 other three, provided that one accepts the symbolic equation snake = 

 phallus, it seems expedient to reproduce the four accounts separately, 

 in the order in which they were obtained, so as to illustrate the 

 range — as well as the coherence — of Mohave psychiatric theories. 



However, in order to obtain a real understanding of Mohave ideas 

 concerning the hikwi : r halinok illness, it is first necessary to describe 

 briefly Mohave beliefs concerning snakes in general. As will be seen, 

 snakes — be they real, imaginary, or mythical — play an important role 

 in Mohave belief, custom, and fantasy. 



(1) Concrete snakes. — If a Mohave is bitten by a rattlesnake he may not eat 

 the first crops produced in the course of that year, lest he should "dry up" 

 (huyatc avi : rk=breath finished) like an old witch who had spent his powers. 

 If the penis touches any part of a rattlesnake's skin a permanent erectile im- 

 potency ensues. The penis becomes "paralyzed," and the paralysis will eventually 

 spread also to the rest of the body (Devereux, 1950 a). If a pregnant woman 

 or her husband kills a rattlesnake, she gives birth to a monster, whose head 



