Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 189 



lieve the world of the dead to be an "upside down" symmetrical rep- 

 lica of the world of the living, where, e.g., big is small and vice versa, 

 also fits the tentative assumption that ghosts are sometimes uncon- 

 sciously viewed as representatives of man's socially tabooed and 

 psychologically repressed urges. 



This hypothesis gains additional support from the fact that some 

 basic behavior patterns are violated not only by the dead, but even 

 by those who are preparing for death. Thus, Kroeber (1925 a) re- 

 ports that old women sometimes hoard property, in order to have it 

 cast on their funeral pyres. He mentions, however, that an old 

 woman could be persuaded to sell him some of this property. She 

 rationalized her act by saying that she would invest the money in 

 food, which would pass into her body, and thus, in a way, would still 

 be burned with her. Equally striking is the fact that when Tcatc, 

 who had repeatedly refused to violate Mohave custom by allowing 

 herself to be photographed, thought she would die in the near future, 

 she dressed up in her best finery, and had herself photographed by a 

 young Mohave, whom she then instructed to send me this photograph, 

 so that I would not forget her (Devereux, 1951 b). This was a 

 definite violation of the Mohave rule that the dead should be for- 

 gotten as soon as possible, and that no memento of them should be 

 kept.^* It is even conceivable that modifications of behavior were 

 permitted to elderly people because of an unconscious feeling that 

 they must be allowed to prepare themselves for the socially abnormal 

 behavior befitting ghosts. Tlius, Tcatc stated that, owing to her ad- 

 vanced age, she felt free to speak up in all-male councils and to 

 usurp also certain other male privileges.^^ This hypothesis is appre- 

 ciably strengthened by the fact that not only a ghost, but even a hope- 

 lessly ill person on the verge of death may, according to Pulyi:k, 

 be referred to by the Mohave as "nyevedhi:" ( ghost ).^^ 



Given this psychological situation, which is largely determined by 

 the internal readjustments necessitated by death in the ingroup, and 

 also by the socio-economic deprivations resulting from the death itself, 

 as well as from the destruction of property and from other funeral 

 expenses, it is probably unnecessary to argue that one purpose of 

 funeral rites is to control or replace an unstructured psychic upheaval 

 by an anxiety-binding ritual (Freud, 1924 a). How easily psycho- 

 logical mourning may turn into a genuine psychotic depression may 



"The discarding of mementoes calls for a real effort In every society. Thus, when 

 Hama : Utce :'s beloved father-in-law died, her husband toyed, throughout the wake, with 

 the fine bead belt she had recently made for the deceased (Case 107). 



'" The widespread lifting of sex-linked taboos In the case of post-menopausal women may, 

 perhaps, have a similar basis. 



^« It Is Interesting to note In this context that the Crow call objectionable people "ghost- 

 like" (Lowie, 1935). 



