Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 121 



CASE 27 (Informants : Ahma Huma : re and Hama : Utce :) : 



A bunch of snakes lived along the banks of the Colorado River, near Needles. 

 There was a white man who used to go there, looking for the skins of these 

 snakes. A Mohave man told this white that he shouldn't take the (sloughed-off ?) 

 skins of these snakes, because he would be sure to contract some sickness. 

 Despite this warning the white man came and took one of these skins. Not long 

 afterwards he was taken ill. The Mohave man, who had warned him not to 

 take the snake skins, thereupon visited him and told him that he was dying 

 because of what he did. He said that he had warned him that some day those 

 snakes would come to him in his dream and take away his soul. [Which of 

 his four souls?] I know of only one soul.** 



Finally, they took this man to Los Angeles and he died there. 



In the dreams of persons suffering from this disease, these snakes are some- 

 thing like a hayiko (white person). They even use guns and bayonets! When 

 a person dreams that this snake did something to him with a gun — that he 

 stabbed or shot him with it, etc. — he awakens from his dream with a severe 

 headache and has no appetite. Sometimes such a patient also hemorrhages 

 from the mouth and becomes insane (delirium?). He will do a lot of talking 

 about anything and everything. He will die from this disease. He also has a 

 tendency to run away. [Was that the disease old Mrs. Uta: c (Case 38) had?] 

 I don't know what her illness was. The (principal?) place where these snakes 

 live is known as A mat kupa:ma (earth to-go-out, or earth to-exit), which is 

 near Prescott, Ariz. This snake is also called hikwi : r nyamat (snake earth). 

 These snakes are ipa: (persons), and whites are also persons. 



Comment 



We already stressed that this particular account contains references to objects 

 of foreign origin (guns, bayonets) which are integrated with a basically Mohave 

 belief, and that it compares white people to supernatural snakes. (The Mohave 

 routinely refer to whites as beavers (apen), which are semiaquatic.) In addi- 

 tion, it shows that even a white man, who is culturally alien and therefore 

 skeptical of Mohave beliefs, may contract this illness. Similar harm also befell 

 a Mohave who disregarded this tribal belief (Case 30). The "stabbing" and 

 "shooting" of the guns owned by these snakes can, I think, be at least tentatively 

 thought of as symbolic of the nefarious thrusts of the penis mentioned in 

 Hivsu : Tupo : ma's account. It is also noteworthy that whereas the skin of real 

 snakes causes only impotency, that of the hikwi : r causes a more serious illness. 



Tcatc's statement {WSSy. — There is a lake where people used to get mud 

 for their shampoo (Kroeber, 1925 a). I don't know exactly what there is 

 about that lake, but after Hamuly Huk' ye : ra did something to it, they began to 

 call it Hanyeo Masthidhe:. Before that it was known as Hanyeo Kwaahwat 

 (Lake Red). They believe that if anyone now bathes in that lake, or takes 

 mud out of it, he will have headaches and may even hemorrhage from the 

 mouth, because the lake was bewitched by putting some hikwi : r into it. This 

 is a snake "all by itself" (i. e., unique). [Interpreter E. S. remarked that he 

 had never seen one.] It is not a rattlesnake. It is the kind of snake men- 

 tioned in the English version of the Halyeku : p song cycle, which you read 

 to me out of Kroeber's book (1925 a). I saw one of these snakes myself. 



••This Is manifestly inaccurate (Devereux, 1937 a). 



1 Though Tcatc was a laj^voman, she was extraordinarily well informed. Her account 

 dovetails with the others perfectly and adds new and significant data to them. 



