156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



Heaven and the girl is like Earth.*" If they see all the things which He tells, and 

 grasp its meaning and have it in their hearts, it will he in their power to cure 

 hiwey lak and also other ailments of that type."^ In later times this sickness 

 will be very common. At present, however, it is less common, because I am 

 curing it. Hiwey lak is sometimes accompanied also by some other sickness, 

 which makes the cure very difficult. In such cases I do my part and, then, if the 

 patient is still sick, I send him to another shaman who will cure the remaining 

 sickness. When a man receives the power to cure, he calls himself by a name. 

 He folds his arms behind his back and declares to heaven and to all (cardinal) 

 directions that he has the power to cure certain sicknesses and gives himself 

 the name Maikwitcedhom. (Cf. Mastamho calling himself Pahotcate; Kroeber, 

 1948.) 



Now I will tell you also about the different disorders which resemble, or 

 result from, this disease. 



When a man and a women live together, the woman may have a child (who 

 dies?). Sometimes, immediately afterwards, her (menstrual) blood may seem 

 to turn back instead of flowing out, and may cause a sickness called idhotk. I 

 can do some good also in connection with this ailment. Such a woman may 

 (then?) have one or two more children, but, later in life it (idhotk) will come 

 again. It will seem as though the spirit of her dead child had entered her 

 womb again. Yet, even though some people claim that it is a dead child ( that is 

 troubling her), in reality it is only that something is wrong with her blood.** 

 When this condition occurs, I call it hiwey lak nyevedhi : (anus pain ghost) and 

 cure it. Even the woman herself may think that the child's spirit returned 

 to her womb. She may dream that she is pregnant, or in labor and nearing 

 the moment of delivery, or else she may dream that the child, a little tot 

 about one or two years old, is running beside her, or that a slightly older child 

 is playing at a distance and is approaching her, calling her "mother." Then, 

 when people call on me to help, I see it all. I call this hiwey lak nyevedhi : and 

 cure it. I myself have had hiwey lak during my life." 



In such cases the spirit of the child enters its mother in order to kill her. 

 She won't even eat her favorite dishes. Her lack of appetite may even go so 

 far that the very smell of food will nauseate her, so that she will throw up 

 something that has a greenish, or yellowish, or white color." If that happens, 

 it becomes evident that the child tries to go into her and kill her." This too I 

 will cure. Each dream makes the woman a little more ill and every one of her 

 illnesses will be a little worse than the previous one. 



" This appears to be an allusion to that portion of the Creation myth which describes 

 Matavilyo's parents as Sky Male and Earth Female (Bourke, 1889). 



'2 This is, presumably, an allusion not only to the Mohave method of fcrouplnj? certain 

 Illnesses together, but perhaps also to the combining of various specialties, such as hiwey 

 lak and hlku :pk in Harav He :ya's own case, or of hiwey lak and obstetrics in Ahma 

 Huma : re's case. 



•« A childless woman, or one who had no child that died, cannot, In theory, dream of a 

 ghost pre.i^nancy. 



** In many primitive societies the healer is a former patient. It is psychologically of the 

 utmost importance that Harav He :ya mentions his own illness after describing essentially 

 feminine symptoms. This Is clcarcut evidence of a (neurotic) partial feminine Identifica- 

 tion, perhaps related to the belief that transvestite shamans are more powerful than 

 heterosexual ones (Devereux, 1937 b). 



*» Sucklings jealous of an unborn sibling are said to have stools of this color (Devereux, 



1947 a). 



«* Certain bewitched or shamanistlc fetuses also try to kill their mothers (Devereux, 



1948 e). 



