Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 135 



tion) or apen nyevedhi : ( = beaver ghost) ; the term "beaver" referring 

 specifically to wliites, who were formerly known as apen kutctha:ny 

 (= beaver eaters), though nowadays they are called "hi:ko" by the 

 older generation and — even when speaking Mohave — "Americans" or 

 "whites" by the younger people.^^ 



On the whole, Mohave xenophobia — which formerly led to the killing 

 of half breed infants (Devereux, 1948 d) — appears to have been quite 

 an effective barrier to miscegenation, since, as late as the 1920's, the 

 reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs listed fewer halfbreeds 

 among the Mohave and the other Yumans than among many other 

 tribes. 



The last point to be considered is the tendency of the Mohave to 

 think of the alien disease as the most basic of all disorders. Hikye :t 

 (pt. 1, pp. 9-17) more or less equated ahwe : nyevedhi : with ku : na : v 

 nyevedhi :, and so did Pulyi : k. This latter term means, rouglily speak- 

 ing, "the foreordained ghost (disease)."^* The implication of this 

 name is that the disease in question was already foreseen and fore- 

 ordained at the time the human world was first organized and that it 

 was mentioned by Mastamho as the prototype of diseases. Tliis was 

 taken for granted by all informants, though it should be noted that 

 Kroeber's (1948) version of the Mastamho myth does not discuss this 

 illness in any way. This omission does not cast doubt either upon the 

 accuracy of the text recorded by Kroeber, or upon the veracity of my 

 informants, since everything that exists is automatically held to have 

 been foreordained in the beginning. Furthermore, since the Mastamlio 

 myth does account for the origin of various nations, even before it 

 accounts for agriculture, etc., it is clear that national differences are, 

 in the opinion of the Mohave, among the most fundamental categories 

 of the human order. This, in turn, necessarily implies that diseases 

 due to contact with aliens must, ipso facto, be among the most basic 

 of all disorders. 



ahwe: hahnok 



The first set of data to be presented pertains nominally only to the 

 ahwe: hahnok entity, though it will be noted that it contains many 

 references to ahwe : nyevedhi : as well. In fact, it seems evident that 

 certain passages supposedly pertaining to ahwe: halinok refer pri- 

 marily to ahwe : nyevedhi :, which is believed to be a closely related, 

 though more complex, disorder, whose nature is supposed to shed light 

 upon the nature of the simpler ahwe : hahnok disorder, and vice versa, 



^ The word "hi :ko" also denotes Negroes, perhaps because — according to M. A. I. 

 Nettle, M.D. — a Negro cavalry regiment, commanded by white oflBcers, was once stationed 

 in Mohave territory. 



" Ku : na : V can be translated as : foreordained, prophesied, a prophecy, telling (in an 

 impressive manner), to inform, something told. 



