128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY £Bull. 175 



who had hikwi:r hahnok?] I don't know why they chose him, rather than 

 some other shaman. He specialized in venereal diseases. If you had been here 

 at that time, and had had gonorrhea, he would have doctored you too. (A 

 typical bit of Mohave banter.) Despite the treatment, this man died within 

 a week after contracting this illness. His wife (Case 61) eventually re- 

 married and had a child by her next husband. No close relative of this man 

 survives; he was the last of his family. The same thing happens in many 

 cases of witchcraft (and incest)— the family just dies out (Devereux, 1939 a). 



Comment 



Tentative diagnosis. — The clinical picture might suggest stomach ulcer with 

 hemorrhage, though, since stomach ulcer is rare among primitives, it is more 

 probable that the man had both tuberculosis and venereal disease. Psychiatric 

 symptoms were denied, though his deliberate defiance of the dangers of a 

 bewitched lake suggests that he had some self-destructive impulses, and that, 

 once the disease became maniiest, he may have had anxieties. This, however, 

 is simply a probability, and not an established fact. 



The diagnosis of hikwi : r was obviously made because of this man's repeated 

 contacts with a lake which contained hikwi : r and was, moreover, under an evil 

 spell. These facts impelled the Mohave to diagnose this case as "hikwi : r 

 hahnok," complicated by witchcraft, even though obvious psychiatric symptoms 

 could not be observed. The combination of hikwi : r hahnok with witchcraft 

 would, in terms of Mohave medical theories, make this a "not straight" (mul- 

 tiple) type of illness. 



THE ahwe: psychoses 



Roughly speaking, the ahwe : disorders fall into three main groups : 

 ahwe: haluiok (or malmok or halinotc) = foreign (enemy) contamina- 

 tion, ahwe: nyevedhi: = foreign (enemy) ghost, and ahwe: ma: n 

 (pt. 2, pp. 43-45). The boundary between the first two conditions is 

 not always sharply drawn. Ahwe: hahnok may only be a simpler, 

 or earlier, or more benign form of ahwe : nyevedhi :, exactly as hiwey 

 lak appears to be a less complex form of hiwey lak nyevedhi :, or as 

 the nyevedhi : element may complicate the hikwi :r ailment. In fact, 

 ahwe: hahnok may even be simply a "straight" disease, and ahwe: 

 nyevedhi: a "not-straight" (multiple) disease, involving also either 

 other disorders or ghosts, or else witchcraft. The third type, i. e., 

 ahwe: ma:n, was discussed elsewhere (pt. 2, pp. 43-45). 



The Mohave themselves spontaneously relate the ahwe: group to 

 the scalper's psychosis (pt. 2, pp. 43-45) that Pulyi : k specifically des- 

 ignated as a form of ahwe:; a juxtaposition that, in the light of 

 Mohave etiological theories, seems perfectly reasonable. At the other 

 end of the scale, ahwe : nyevedhi : is said to be related to hiwey lak 

 nyevedhi :, apparently because the dreams occurring in these two ill- 

 nesses are extremely similar and involve dream interaction with ghosts. 

 At first glance, the fact that dreams about the ghost of a deceased 

 spouse or relative, i.e., of a person who is usually a Mohave, are capable 

 of causing the ahwe : (alien) illness seems utterly paradoxical, at least 



II 



