Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 177 



her for me, so that I would never forget her (Devereux, 1951 b). In 

 brief, despite her orthodoxy and her previous refusals to leave so much 

 as a photograph of herself behind her, when Tcatc felt that she would 

 soon die, she made sure that I at least — whom she often called her 

 favorite grandchild — would never forget her. (PI. 9, 6, c.) 



The data concerning nyevedhi : taha :na, about to be presented, com- 

 bine information published by Fathauer (1951) with data obtained 

 when my informants described the powers of (Hispan Himith) 

 Tcilyetcilye, Kuskinave: and Kunyoo:r, who could not only recover 

 souls that had strayed or had been taken to the land of the dead (mat- 

 kwisa: namak=soul leaves, matkwisa: hidha:uk=soul to take), but 

 could also help their clients visit their relatives in the beyond. 

 Kunyoo :r could also cure mental illness caused by dreaming of one's 

 (bewitched?) dead relatives.^* 



The most important aspect of such plamied soul travels is that tlie 

 visitor deliberately exposes himself to the fatal blandishments of these 

 ghosts, who seek to take him to, and keep him in, the land of the dead, 

 even if tliey themselves, being twins, are in heaven, or, being victims 

 of witchcraft, are m the evil shaman's "place." Yet, at the same time, 

 the Mohave greatly dread dreams in which their dead relatives visit 

 them or in which, without being escorted by a shaman, they visit their 

 dead relatives. 



On the whole, there are only five situations in which the living can 

 have contact with the dead, without contracting the ghost disease. 



(1) Association with live twins is not harmful, even though twins 

 are reincarnated ghosts, who must be treated very politely. 



(2) If one observes the relevant taboos, one can safely participate 

 in all funeral observances. 



(3) A mom"ner, and especially the spouse of a deceased person, may 

 be visited by the soul of the deceased during the first 4 nights follow- 

 ing death, and the spouse may even cohabit with that soul in dream, 

 without being harmed by this act. From the point of view of 

 Mohave belief, the innocuousness of "contact" with the dead during 

 these four nights seems to be due to the fact that the newly deceased 

 is not, as yet, a fully fledged ghost already inhabiting the land of the 

 dead, but simply a detached soul revisiting its former haunts and re- 

 peating the major activities of its life on earth (Devereux, 1937 a). 



(4) Witches temporarily delay the transformation of the souls of 

 their victims into fully developed ghosts, by segregating them "in a 

 place of their own." Until they themselves die or, preferably, are 

 killed, they dream of their victims, enjoy their company, and engage in 

 sexual relations with them. Although such contacts do not cause 

 witches to contract the ghost disease, presumably because their 



•♦ No one was able to answer the question whether one dreamed only of dead relatives 

 who had died of witchcraft. 



