198 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



job at Needles, Calif., he left town and moved to Parker, Ariz., in order to 

 escape her influence.^ 



As a result of his fight, his condition improved for a while, although, in some 

 obscure way, he always knew in advance when Kumadhi : Atat would visit 

 Parker, and he would have a fit. Thus, the day before his death he happened 

 to be at my house, visiting my cousin's ailing son, when, all of a sudden, he 

 stood up, exclaimed: "She is coming!" and had a fit. He kept on frothing at 

 the mouth even while they were taking him back to his house. The next day 

 he got up again, and began to walk about restlessly. He paced the floor and 

 said over and over again : "She is coming ! She is getting closer !" Then he had 

 another fit. A little later on, about 20 minutes before his death, he said : "She 

 is here. She is on the last lap of her trip. She is already at the Colorado River" 

 (i.e., some 5 miles from his house). Then, around 5:00 p.m., he died and, sure 

 enough, 20 minutes later Kumadhi : Atat did arrive. 



[Why did she kill her husband and children by witchcraft, when she knew 

 that she would not be killed anyhow?] It is true that nowadays she is not 

 likely to be killed and would therefore be unable to retain her hold over her 

 family, the way witches retain their hold over the ghosts of their victims. On 

 the other hand, as long as she is alive she would still have the satisfaction of 

 feeling that they belonged to her, and would dream of them at night. In addi- 

 tion, by killing her husband before he deserted her, and by delaying his subse- 

 quent reincarnations until she, too, died (Devereux, 1937 c), she made sure 

 that he would belong to her also in the other world, though not the way a 

 victim belongs to his bewitcher, but the way a husband belongs to his wife. 

 That would not have been the case if he had already deserted her for another 

 woman. "* 



As for Pi : it Hi : dh Kwa-ahwat she will lose her grip on him if, as seems 

 certain, she does not die a violent death (Devereux 1937 c). However, in the 

 meantime he does belong to her, since she put him in a certain place, with her 

 other victims. Until she dies, she can dream about him and have intercourse 

 with him in dream. That may explain why, unlike other women, she remained 

 a widow and did not have affairs with men. 



At any rate, she never confessed that she had killed her family, as well as the 

 man she loved. There would have been no sense in her doing so. Since now- 

 adays she cannot hope to be killed, a public acknowledgment of her deed would 

 only have made things unpleasant for her. 



Comment 



Suggested Mohave diagnosis. — Epilepsy, due to magical courtship (pt. 2, 

 pp. 83-87). 



Tentative diagnosis. — Epilepsy, culminating in death while in status epilepti- 

 cus. The triggering mechanism of the seizures appears to have been the patient's 

 culturally determined belief that he was a victim of witchcraft. 



Special considerations. — According to one informant, Pi : it Hi : dho Kwa- 

 ahwat's mother was that O : otc, of the O : otc gens, who was responsible for 

 Hipily Tcukup's suicide (Case 126). Since Pi : it Hi : dho Kwa-ahwat too was 

 of the O : otc gens, his mother appears to have been guilty of gens incest. Hence 



'=" Cf. riivsu : Tupo :ma's flight from Parker to Needles, while In his late teens, to escape 

 the obnoxious, but nonmaglcal, advances of an older, syphilitic woman (Devereux, 1050 a). 



^ The notion that the members of a family stay together in the course of their various 

 reincarnations In the Hereafter only if they die at approximately the same time, is re- 

 sponsible for the funeral suicide of wives (Devereux, 1942 a). 



