Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 147 



Comment 



Mohave diagnosis. — Ahwe : nyevedhi : complicated by witchcraft. 



Tentative diagnosis. — Possibly delirium, but more probably involutional melan- 

 cholia. The presence of a serious organic illness is probable. 



The ]\Iohave diagnosis is not easy to justify in cultural terms. It may have 

 been determined by the fact that Le :va cured itcema :v, which Ahma Huma :re 

 related to the ahwe: group of illnesses. The fact that Le:va was bewitched 

 and also called out the names of his dead parents and relatives would suggest 

 to the Mohave that he dreamed of them. This would place his condition in 

 the ahwe : nyevedhi : class. On the other hand the fact that his bewitchment 

 had something to do with the bewitching of a lake into which hikwi :r snakes 

 had been placed by the same witch (pt. 4, pp. 117-128) could have led to the 

 diagnosis of hikwi :r. Finally, the fact that he, who had been able to cure 

 the itcema :v (food) illness, which is related to the ahwe: illnesses, eventu- 

 ally displayed a, possibly neurotic, aversion to food (anorexia nervosa) sug- 

 gested to the Mohave that, in addition to everything else, his illness was also 

 complicated by what we have called "activity psychoses" (pt. 2, pp. 46-56). 

 Given these multiple diagnostic possibilities, the fact that his illness was 

 called ahwe : nyevedhi :, rather than hikwi : r or something else, reveals the 

 importance which the Mohave assign to the dangers of all contact with aliens. 



The tentative diagnosis just offered is, admittedly, speculative, and was deter- 

 mined by the fact that depression, preoccupation with one's dead parents, ideas 

 of being bewitched, and anorexia, occurring at the age of 40 or 50, suggest involu- 

 tional melancholia. The patient's boasting of his skill as a farmer is, however, 

 not typical of involutional melancholia, which is characterized by feelings of 

 worthlessness. The boast may therefore represent a defense against feelings of 

 worthlessness, which are necessary for the development of paranoid ideas 

 (belief in being bewitched)."^ His boast may also have been specifically 

 related to his marked anorexia, because he stressed his skill in producing food 

 precisely at a time when his intake of food was minimal. 



CASE 36 (Informants Tcatc and E. S.) : 



Matkwisa : Namak (Soul leaves) of the Nyoltc gens, a resident of La Paz, was 

 married to Va :hath, and was father of two boys and two girls. He died at 

 the approximate age of 50, around 1890, when I (Tcatc) was about 20 years 

 old. 



This man had ahwe : nyevedhi :. He had a bad dream, which may have been 

 a recurrent one. He dreamed that he was visiting his father and his mother, 

 who had died, and toward the end of the dream he even ate food prepared by 

 his dead relatives. After he woke up, he hardly ever ate anything, because the 

 food he ate in his dream had decreased his appetite. In the end he was nearly 

 starved, because he had no appetite for real food. Every time he ate anything, 

 he would vomit it out again. He had a kind of stomach trouble which they call 

 suma:tc nyevedlii : (dream ghost). This term refers in this context exclusively 

 to the man's gastric troubles. In the later stages of his disease he also had 

 severe headaches. 



^2 Anne Parsons' (195C) recent attempt to differentiate formally between delusional 

 persecutory ideas and the fear of being bewitclied is overinlellectualized psyehodynamics, 

 and also reflects a trend in certain sociological circles to justify at all cost the essential 

 "rightness" of society (or of culture) even If it happens to be one which destroys the 

 human being psychologically. 



