180 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY f^""- ^"^^ 



shaman and funeral orator, who could cure illness caused by a viola- 

 tion of funeral taboos, and could also have functioned as a scalper 

 had his contemporaries been able to engage in independent warfare, 

 he does not appear to have had the power to treat either the alien or 

 the ghost sickness. He might, of course, have acquired these powers 

 later on, had some subjective experience focused his interest on these 

 illnesses, exactly as the death of his wife and unborn child during 

 labor caused Ahma Huma:re, a hiwey lak specialist, to acquire also 

 obstetrical powers, though relatively late in life (Devereux, 1948 e). 



Thus, in a sense, it is natural for the ah we : specialist to treat also 

 the nyevedhi : taha :na illness, since, as Fathauer rightly suggests, the 

 two are fundamentally interrelated, by means of the affective equation 

 alien = ghost. In addition, the dreams of ahwe: nyevedhi: patients 

 greatly resemble the dreams of hiwey lak nyevedhi: patients, not be- 

 cause the "straight" forms of ahwe: hahnok and hiwey lak are the 

 same illness, but because both "nyevedhi:" types are "diseases that 

 are not straight," in that the ghost factor is superimposed on the basic 

 ahwe:, respectively hiwey lak, "straight illness." This, in turn, ex- 

 plains why, even though the ahwe hahnok and ahwe: nyevedhi: 

 specialist can treat also the nyevedhi : taha :na illness, the hiwey lak 

 specialist, who also treats (part of?) liiwey lak nyevedhi:, is not, 

 ipso facto, also a nyevedhi: taha:na specialist. 



Wliat remains to be explained is precisely why the hiwey lak 

 specialist can also treat hiwey lak nyevedhi :, without being, at the 

 same time, also a nyevedhi: taha:na specialist. We can perhaps 

 visualize this situation better if we cite a parallel instance from occi- 

 dental medicine. Thus, even though tertiary syphilis (tabes dorsalis, 

 general paresis, etc.) is, strictly speaking, a neurological disease, most 

 syphilologists are also quite expert in diagnosing and treating this 

 late (neurological) manifestation of syphilis. The Mohave parallel 

 of this is the ability of hiwey lak specialists to treat also the nyevedhi : 

 factor (i.e., the additional ghost sickness) in hiwey lak nyevedhi:, 

 because the two occur together so often. In fact, this combination 

 of illnesses is so common that, as stated above, when asked to describe 

 the nyevedhi: taha:na illness, Aluna Huma:re declared that he had 

 already done so when he described the hiwey lak nyevedhi : illness. 

 At the same time, there are some indications that Avhen the treatment 

 of hiwey lak by means of the specific hiwey lak songs is not altogether 

 successful, the patient is sometimes referred for supplementary treat- 

 ment to a different kind of specialist who, one supposes, is likely to 

 be a ghost illness specialist, or else a healer of bewitched persons. This 

 latter possibility is suggested by the belief that hiwey lak may also 



