Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 161 



of the whites, who claim that God gave every power. Mastamho, who came after 

 Matavilye to teach, was the one who did it ; he had the power to teach in dreams. 

 My personal experience of this power is as follows: I see things only at night. 

 As a child of seven or eight, I saw Mastamho in my dreams, and he, who came 

 to me in my dreams, told me about hiwey lak, gave me the power to cure this 

 sickness, and described its symptoms to me. He came only at night '^ and taught 

 me from sunset to sunrise. He said to me, "It is line fi-om sunrise to sunset. 

 Therefore, let your right arm be like the day (the day too, being a dream-bringing 

 "person") and your left arm like the night — for with the left arm you will 

 be able to cure. The power will be in your left arm when you touch people who 

 claim to have this sickness. And if the illness they have is really this one, the 

 touch of your left ai'm will cure them." Thus, if the patient is not cured by the 

 time I am through with the fourth song of the curing rite, he does not have this 

 disease. (Traditionally, right=paternal, life=maternal kin.) 



Hiwey lak nyevedhi : is a form of the hiwey lak sickness. It is caused by 

 dreams of intercourse with the dead and is cured the same way as ordinary 

 hiwey lak. 



Cure: When they bring me a patient who claims to have hiwey lak, I 

 ask him to tell me his dreams, so that I may be sure that he does have 

 hiwey lak and not some other disease. If I discover that he does not have 

 this illness, I will advise him and tell him which shaman he should consult. 

 I must also take into account that a patient's bad dreams may be balanced 

 by his good dreams. I can cure not only Mohave Indians, but also whites 

 who have this disease.'* 



I forbid the patient to eat any kind of watei-melon or pumpkin, other than 

 the grayish-white variety of pumpkin. The rest of his food will be prepared 

 as usual. I prescribe a diet only in very serious cases. No other taboo of 

 any kind need be observed. The patient, his relatives and the shaman are 

 neither painted nor dressed in any special way. The ghost who appeared 

 in the patient's dreams is not contacted and has no connection with the cure. 

 The patient is treated at some convenient place, i. e., generally at the house 

 of the shaman, if the latter is married and has a home of his own. If he is 

 single, or has no home of his own, the patient may be treated wherever it is 

 convenient to everyone concerned. 



Audience: An audience, as numerous as possible, is useful. The audience 

 just sits around and says, "Yes, yes," whenever I sing. I press the patient's 

 abdomen with my left hand, blow on it, and sing my four songs. 



Songs: Before presenting Ahma Huma :re's songs, as sung in 1932, it is de- 

 sirable to quote first his 1938 description of the manner in which he acquired 

 them: 



"I know the traditional songs while some other shamans don't. However, 

 the fact that they do not know these songs does not afi:'ect their healing powers 

 in any way. What matters are not the songs themselves but the power to 

 cure, which one receives in dream. When I was a child, some of my old 

 relatives were still alive. They, too, used to treat hiwey lak " and would sing 

 the songs which I now use. I did not pay much attention to them or to their 

 songs, at that time. Yet, once in a while, these songs would come to me and 



™ The night itself is also a "person" (ipa :) who brings dreams. 



''' Despite this statement, both Ahma Huma : re and Hivsu : Tupo : ma refused to treat 

 me both for a genuine indigestion and a recent "typical hiwey lak" dream. (See dream B, 

 pp. 170-171). 



" Shamanlstic powers supposedly run in certain families. 



