176 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



On the one hand, the Mohave do everything within their power to 

 terminate, once and for all, any connection between the living and the 

 dead. The funeral ritual provides the mournei-s with every oppor- 

 tunity to abreact massively tlieir grief, thus abridging the period of 

 mourning. In addition, the property and dwelling of the dead are 

 destroyed and his name is not mentioned again. 



On the other hand, they dream of ghosts, insultingly mention the 

 name or relationship of a dead person to his surviving relatives (Kroe- 

 ber, 1925 a), and even hire a ghost doctor (nyevedhi: sumartc, ghost 

 dreamer) to take them as visitors to the land of the dead. Such visits 

 are risky indeed, since, should the client become separated from his 

 shamanistic mentor, and should the latter fail to find him before 

 morning, both will be stuck in the land of ghosts. Furthermore, the 

 visitor's dead relatives make considerable efforts to pull him away 

 from his mentor and to induce him to remain in the land of ghosts 

 (Fathauer, 1951). Even a shaman sent to the land of the dead to 

 recover a patient's soul may be kept there by his own dead relatives 

 (Kroeber,1925a). 



It is quite certain that whereas these two formal patterns are, 

 logically speaking, mutually incompatible, psychologically (attitudi- 

 nally) they complement each other, exactly as the two mutually con- 

 tradictory sets of Mohave beliefs concerning twins form a psycho- 

 logical whole, in that they reflect the two aspects of ambivalence 

 toward twins (Devereux, 1941). 



One of the most interesting aspects of Mohave attitudes toward 

 the dead is that they impute to them their own mourning reactions 

 (Devereux, 1956 a) and reluctance to break old bonds and habits. 

 Thus, the data on hiwey lak nyevedhi: (pt. 4, pp. 150-175) are quite 

 ambiguous in one respect, in that it is hard to decide whether, 

 when a living person interacts with his dead relatives in a dream, 

 this represents a visit of the living person's soul to the land of the 

 dead, or a visit of the ghost to the land of the li\dng (pt. 4, pp. 150-175) . 

 In addition, even though persons on the point of death are supposed 

 to do everything within their power to break all relations with the 

 living and with earthly things, and may even already be spoken of as 

 ghosts, there are indications that this cultural demand is not complied 

 with altogether wholeheartedly. Thus, since at the death of a person 

 everything pertaining to him, including even his pictures, are sup- 

 posed to be destroyed, my old friend Tcatc would not allow me to pho- 

 tograph her. Yet, shortly after she died, I was amazed to receive 

 from a young Mohave friend two photographs of Tcatc. In his accom- 

 panying letter this young man stated that, sensing that she did not 

 have much longer to live, Tcatc dressed up in her best clothes, put on 

 her seldom-used aboriginal ornaments, and asked him to photograph 



