Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 173 



CASE 44 (Informants: Hivsu: Tupo: ma, Ahma Huma: re, and Hama: Utce:) : 



(Hivsu: Tupo: ma) : Sudhu: ra of the Mah gens is the sou of Atci: Akw(o)- 

 ath, who is very old fashioned and antiwhite. Sudhu :ra impregnated his second 

 cousin Tcatc (N), whereupon his mother made him marry the girl (Case 90). 

 Tliis incestuous marriage worried the girl so much that she died of tuber- 

 culosis. Then Sudhu :ra, too, fell ill. He was taken to the Agency hospital 

 with pulmonary tuberculosis, but he got worse and worse and the doctor gave 

 liim up. He was then taken home and I was asked to treat him for an old 

 horse kick. I work with you during the day and at night 1 treat him. 



(Hama: Utce:) : Poor old Hivsu: Tupo:ma is singing himself hoarse every 

 night to cure Sudhu :ra, who keeps on saying that it is Hivsu : Tupo :ma who 

 had bewitched him. For a while some of Sudhu : ra's relatives were even talk- 

 ing about beating up Hivsu: Tupo:ma, but they finally gave up the idea, 

 because they are afraid of the American law."" It just about broke the old 

 man's heart to have his kinsman Sudhu: ra accuse him of having bewitched 

 him, when he was actually trying to cure him."^ 



(Ahma Huma:re) : Since, despite the treatment he had received so far, 

 Sudhu :ra kept on getting worse, I was asked (on January 5, 1933) to take 

 over the treatment and I agreed to do so, Sudhu: ra is getting worse and is 

 also badly constipated."^ It is because of this "stomach" trouble that I was 

 consulted. He believes that two sisters, Mah (W) and Mah (E), who belong 

 to a family of witches, bewitched him, causing him to die conscious and in 

 great pain.*" Perhaps some of his relatives made him think that. He suffered so 

 much that he begged his relatives to shoot him. I decided that he was suffering 

 from hiwey lak and hiwey lak nyevedhi :, and that his illness was caused by the 

 ghost of his deceased wife, who was also his second cousin (Case 90). I treated 

 him exactly the way I told you I treat this illness. I had also treated a certain 

 old woman in exactly the same way. I am supposed to have improved his condi- 

 tion somewhat, thus proving that he had hiwey lak and hiwey lak nyevedhi:. 



(Hama : Utce :) : Ahma Huma : re is quite proud of his success, which greatly 

 increased his reputation as a shaman. However, in the end, Sudhu :ra died 

 of tuberculosis. There used to be quite a lot of people in that family, but 

 whenever incest occurs people seem to die off. That family practically died 

 out on both sides (i.e., on the right (husband) and on the left (wife) side.) 



Comment 



Diagnosis: Tuberculosis. Anxiety reaction with paranoid components. 



The belief that Sudhu: ra's fatal illness was due partly to his having con- 

 tracted an incestuous union, and partly to the ghost of his wife — who was also 

 his second cousin — fits both the standard Mohave theory of hiwey lak and 

 beliefs concerning the fatal consequences of incest (pt. 7, pp. 356-371). Hence, 



"» The fact that Hivsu : Tupo :ma, though already In his fifties, was still a huge and 

 powerful man, as well as the fact that he, too, was a member of the Mah gens, may also 

 have had something to do with the decision not to beat him up after all. 



" When Hivsu : Tupo :ma confessed to me that he had bewitched his half brother and 

 his nelce, he denied that he had bewitched Sudhu :r4 (Devereux, 1948 i). 



•' Constipation Is rare among the Mohave and therefore causes concern. It is a relatively 

 common symptom in the terminal stages of tuberculosis. The possibility of a symbolic 

 unconscious nexus between constipation and incest cannot be disregarded (Devereux, 

 1939 a). 



^ If tuberculosis spreads to certain parts of the nervous system, the pain is sometimes 

 very severe. Whether that happened in this case is not known. 



