162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



I would sing them.™ Whenever I sang these songs in the presence of these 

 old people, they said that I too would eventually treat hiwey lak, and their 

 prediction seems to have come true. [I commented that his spontaneous re- 

 marks dovetailed perfectly with the conclusions I had previously reached 

 regarding the manner in which "learning" took place in a dream.] What 

 various shamans tell about their suma :tc (dream power) is not always the 

 same thing. But the questions you now ask about insanity refer to something 

 whose causes we can describe as we hear and see them.™ 



(1932) "My songs are in archaic Mohave and relate certain events in a 

 'preaching' (schematic and telegraphic) style. The Yuma, Cocopa, Yavapai 

 and Maricopa, and even some Walapai may understand my songs but the 

 Havasupai and the Dieguefio cannot understand them. Unless the case is a 

 very severe one, it can be cured in one night — the treatment takes place at night. 

 As a rule, the illness is cured before the sun sets next day. In severe cases I 

 (first) tell (in prose) about the songs which I am going to sing, because the 

 sick person miist be helped before the fourth song is finished. If he is not 

 cured by that time, he does not have hiwey lak." 



First song: 



Hamayvi tcamirye, tcami :ye — (heavens, under control, under control.) 

 (Pulyi: k translated it as: heavens, put-down-lower-and-lower.) 



Hamayvi tcami rye, tcami :ye 



Mayvi tcami :ye, tcami :ye 



Mayvi tcami :ye, tcami rye 



Mayvi tcami rye, tcami rye, tcami rye 



Mayvi tcami rye, tcami rye, tcami rye 



Hamayvi tcami rye, tcami rye 



Mayvi tcami rye, tcami rye 



Etc.'" 

 Second song: 



Hamayvi konor(h)yir ko(h)onoryi (as we are on earth, they are in 

 heaven.) (Pulyi rk said it meant: heaven, right down here — patted down 

 with the hand on the patient. ) 



Mayvi kono r ( h ) yi ko ( h ) ono ryi 



Hamayvi kono r (h)yi ko(h)onoryi ko(h)ono ryi 



Mayvi kono r ( h ) yi ko ( h ) ono ryi ko ( h ) ono ryi 



"This is a clear-cut description of the quasi-involuntary and preconscious manner in 

 which ritual knowledge is acquired and explains why these songs are afterward also 

 "relearned" in dream. This process resembles that which Potzl (1917) tested by means 

 of his now famous experiments : He briefly flashed a picture on a screen and instructed 

 his subjects to describe what they had seen. The morning after, he recorded his subjects' 

 dreams. It was found that those details which the subjects had not consciously seen 

 and recalled, appeared as elements in the dreams they had during the following night. This 

 may be due to the fact that uncompleted tasks are remembered better than completed ones 

 (Zeigarnik, 1927). 



'» This concluding remark clearly differentiates between dream knowledge and empirical 

 data (Devereux, 1957 b). 



*" This song goes on for a long time and there is no strict rule as to where and when 

 the meaningless syllable "ha" should be inserted before "mayvi." There is, likewise, no 

 rule as to whether one should repeat the word tcami rye twice or three times in a given 

 phrase. These things vary according to the melody. In fact, the song changes a little 

 every time It is sung. Whenever tcnmi :ye Is repeated three times, the melody becomes a 

 little less monotonous, but this is not an absolute rule. In brief, the song changes whenever 

 the singer wishes to change it. For this reason, only the basic lines of the following songs 

 will be recorded. These lines may be repeated as often as the singer wishes and may recur 

 at any time during the singing of this song. 



