194 BUREAU OF AIMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



bird called thu:dhilyk and those of the uro:ta (pelican?) — must be 

 purified by shamans before laymen may own them or use them in the 

 manufacture of war bonnets. As for eagle feathers and the feathers 

 of the atcoo :r hawk, neither of which is used in the manufacture of war 

 bonnets, they may only be owned by shamans and may not be used 

 for war bonnets. In fact, when the shaman dies, these feathers are 

 not even cremated with the rest of his possessions, but are buried in the 

 mud. It was not ascertained whether the feathers of the saksak — who 

 is either the fish eagle or else the white osprey (Kroeber, 1948) — may 

 also be owned only by shamans. This is a regrettable gap in our 

 knowledge, since anyone who dreams of Mastamho, after he turned 

 into a saksak, is said to become insane (Krober, 1948 and pt. 4, 

 pp. 116-117). 



I also failed to investigate who may bury the deceased shaman's 

 eagle and atcoo :r hawk feathers, without incurring supernatural 

 risks. It seems reasonable to suggest that this was done by some other 

 shaman, who is presumably a funeral orator. On the other hand, 

 it is not altogether impossible that even a lay mourner may bury these 

 feathers and that the general purification of the mourners may also 

 effectively protect such a lay person from the dangers which he in- 

 curred by burying a shamanistic relative's stock of feathers. 



The chief point to be stressed in this context is that these feathers — 

 and apparently also the feathered staves — are not burned but buried. 

 This is at variance with accepted Mohave funeral practices, since the 

 Mohave only bury stillborn children (Devereux, 1948 e) and living, 

 but unwanted, halfbreeds, and puppies (Devereux, 1948 d). The one 

 known violation of this rule occurred when a Mohave woman venge- 

 fully caused her dead child, whose father refused to recognize it, 

 to be buried in the Parker cemetery (Devereux, 1950 f). The prac- 

 tice of burying feathers remains, therefore, unexplained and deserves 

 further investigation. The only lead to a possible explanation is 

 provided by the fact that these feathers seem rather unique in that, 

 in spite of their being, like charms, laden with autonomous power, 

 unlike charms they do not necessarily turn against their legitimate 

 owners in the end (pt. 4, pp. 202-212). Even this statement must be 

 partly qualified, since there were some vague indications that funeral 

 orators, too, may become insane, independently of the fact that, in 

 their role of scalpers, they are exposed to the scalper's insanity 

 ( pt. 2, pp. 43-45 ) . Another question to be clarified by future field work 

 is whether these staves, which clearly resemble the feathered staves 

 that tribal officers carry into battle (K. M. Stewart, 1947 c; Fathauer, 

 1954) , are actually identical with the latter. The answer will probably 

 be in the affirmative, since the memorial rite is, itself, a kind of mock 

 battle, commemorating important tribal officials. 



