Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 127 



In this case, however, it is the impending improvement that is heralded 

 by a dream, perhaps because the heart temporarily resumed its normal func- 

 tioning. The crawling of the snalies on the belly and chest may be related 

 to the existing shortness of breath ' and their departure may have been 

 dreamed of at the precise moment when the functioning of the heart im- 

 proved. The choice of snakes as dream figures is hard to interpret with 

 any degree of confidence. In general, psychoanalysts find that the dream per- 

 sonage pressing down on the dreamer in the nightmare is a parental figure 

 (Jones, 1931), and curing by blowing was interpreted by R6heim (1932) as a 

 symbol of cohabitation. However, in this instance at least, the primary 

 determinant of the appearance of snakes in the dream may be the fact that, 

 the husband having had snake dreams causing hikwi :r hahnok, the wife felt 

 unconsciously motivated to adopt a similar dream symbolism.^ Howevex', since 

 reality factors (illness, and also the dream of the husband) seem to account 

 for much of the dream's content and symbolism, and since the dream was not 

 obtained in a psychoanalytic situation and the personal associations to the 

 dream are relatively meager, it would be hazardous to interpret fully the 

 unconscious content of this dream and the interplay of psychic forces in the 

 dream work that caused Mrs. Hilyera Anyay to have this particular dream.* 



CASE 30 (Informants: Tcatc and E. S.) : 



Hu:kyev Anyay (=to bring together light), whose English name is for- 

 gotten, belonged to the Mu : th gens, and was married to Nyortc Kupu : yha. 

 This couple had no children." Nyortc Kupu : yha was a very nice (pretty?) 

 girl, and had lovely hair. Hence, she frequently sent her husband to get 

 mud for a shampoo from Red Lake, which is some four-fifths of a mile from 

 Parker, near Ben Butler's farm. This lake had been bewitched by the shaman 

 Hamuly Huk' y6 : ra, simply because he was a shaman, and shamans do just any- 

 thing to be odd. He did it just because people kept going to that lake. Hu : kyev 

 Anyay had heard of the spell cast on the lake, but he kept going there all the 

 same to get mud, because he did not believe in the spell. This happened 

 around 1910, about the time the land allotments were made. As a result of his 

 doing this, he became quite ill. He didn't do anything strange. He did not 

 even talk or move the way Le:va (Case 35) did, who wa^ also bewitched by 

 the same shaman. He merely had an abdominal hemorrhage and, when he 

 died, his stomach was puffed up with blood. He was treated by Hukuwalyevalye 

 (=Kuwaly) who had hiku : pk suma:tc (venereal disease dream power), and 

 was famous for having been the husband of more than one male transvestite 

 (Devereux, 1987 b)." [Why did they get a hiku : pk shaman to doctor a patient 



^ Suflfocation is characteristic of tiie true nightmare (Jones, 1931) and Is specifically 

 referred to in the German term Alpdruck. 



* Parallel dreams of closely associated persons, in which the dream of A. serves as a 

 "day residue" for the dream of B., are l^nown to occur. The most extreme forms of such 

 a psychic interdependence are "folie h deux" and the "deputy lunatic" (Devereux, 1956 a). 



^ The interpretation of dreams to which ther» are few associations, especially if the 

 dreamer's personality is not well Isnown, is a highly speculative undertaking and may 

 lead to off-the-cuff interpretations bordering on a psychoanalytic parlor game. Such over- 

 interpretations have no standing in responsible psychoanalytic research. 



"The designation of the wife as Nyortc, instead of Nyoltc, shows that she had given 

 birth — presumably in a previous marriage — to at least one child, who died (Kroeber, 

 1925 a). 



" If a transvestite happens to be a shaman, he or she is always a very powerful one 

 Indeed. However, a shaman married to a transvestite Is not, ipso facto, an exceptionally 

 powerful Bbaman. 



