Dcvereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 169 



(Devereux, 1937 a) actually takes such a trip. If the fourth soul, which is the 

 real self, does so, the case is hopeless. Yet, even in such instances, people may 

 ask a shaman to do whatever he can for the patient. 



Obscure points. — A number of interesting points could not be clarified. They 

 are: 



(1) Asked whether stillborn babies or (usually half breed) babies who were 

 killed by burying them alive (Devereux 1948 d) could return to cause ghost 

 pregnancies, Hama : Utce : and Pulyi : k replied : "We do not know — we are 

 not shamans." 



(2) Given the fact that ghost pregnancies are called "anus pain ghostly," 

 several informants were asked whether the ghost of the dead child entered its 

 mother's body via the anus or was eventually expelled via the anus.^ This 

 question was also motivated by the Mohave belief that young girls who eat 

 mesquite sap become barren (Devereux, 1948 b), and by the practice of "mar- 

 ried" Mohave transvestites first to constipate themselves with a decoction of 

 mesquite and then to deliver a "fecal child" (Devereux, 1937 b). Informants 

 were unable to answer this question. 



(3) The Mohave differentiate between "complete" and "incomplete" beings 

 (Kroeber, 1925 a, Devereux, MS., 1935). Hence, informants were asked whether 

 only "incomplete" (e.g., untattooed) dead babies returned to the womb. Un- 

 fortunately, no one was able to answer this question. 



(4) Several informants spoke of the role of the various secretions in the hiwey 

 lak group of diseases. A shaman's story, published by Kroeber (1925 a), states 

 that Halypota, the primordial spider, grew from the "himata hakamalya" of 

 the killed gigantic Sky Rattlesnake. Kroeber translated this Mohave expression 

 as "body form," whereas my informants translated It as "body foam." This 

 latter translation is both logically and mythologically more plausible than 

 Kroeber's." Indeed, quite apart from the fact that all over the world mythologies 

 mention dangerous creatures born of the secretions (blood, etc.) of a .slain mon- 

 ster, the rest of Kroeber's own account makes it almost mandatory to assume that 

 "body foam" is meant, since all the other disagreeable and dangerous creatures 

 bom from the corpse of Sky Rattlesnake were formed out of the various sticky 

 fluids of its body: its blood, sweat, and the "glue of its Joints," i.e., precisely 

 from the type of secretions which certain sick Mohave see in their dreams not 

 only when they have hiwey lak nyevedhi : but also when suffering from certain 

 other neuropsychiatric conditions (pts. 2, pp. 42-46 and 4, pp. 128-150). 



Erroneous diagnoses of hiwey lak. — The number of cases (45, 46) in which 

 the patient was erroneously believed to have hiwey lak is greater than is the num- 

 ber of all other recorded cases of false diagnosis. This suggests that hiwey lak 

 is a "fashionable disease," not only among Mohave laymen, but even among 

 shamans, perhaps because its symptoms are sufficiently numerous and vague 

 to fit a great variety of illnesses. In addition, hiwey lak is also, in a sense, the 

 prototype of "not straight" illnesses, since it is believed to occur quite often in 

 conjunction with other diseases (e.g., nyevedhi:). As a result, it appears to 



*" Compare Harav He :ya's comment on "gas" and Hikye :t's remarks on Internal smoke 

 (pt. 1, pp. 9-17). 



*' Although the Mohave are quite preoccupied with the concept of "taking a certain 

 shape," Kroeber (1025 a, p. 775) himself appears to have been puzzled by the highly 

 abstract Idea of something being made out of the "body form" of a dead creature, since 

 he himself placed these words in quotes. 



