214 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



ner, so that the pattern only becomes manifest in the course of deep 

 psychotherapy. Anxiety is an excruciatingly painful experience, 

 which has great motivating force. 



The Mohave themselves mention anxiety in connection with a variety 

 of mental disorders, as well as in connection with "pathogenic dreams." 

 The clue to the Mohave Indians' preoccupation with the general 

 problem of anxiety was obtained accidentally, in connection with 

 questions pertaining to obsessive-compulsive states, and led to the 

 discovery of a fairly perceptive Mohave conception of anxiety. 



Anxiety was well understood by the informants, who spontaneously 

 differentiated between "intelligible anxiety" over the major problems 

 of life (which, depending on the nature of one's dreams, may culminate 

 either in a socially valuable sublimation, or else in neurosis or even 

 in a psychotic decompensation), and more or less free-floating "neu- 

 rotic anxiety," whose object is unknown to the neurotic and/or 

 puzzling to the observer. 



In accordance with the policy of using, whenever possible, Mohave 

 categories of classification, I have, for the sake of brevity, labeled 

 these two types of anxiety : "intelligible anxiety" and "neurotic 

 anxiety." It should be emphasized, however, that the use of these 

 terms is a strictly heuristic one, and does not imply that anxiety 

 over the major problems of life, at a time when the responsibilities 

 of adulthood begin to supersede the easy-going irresponsibility of 

 youth,^ is necessarily free from neurotic components, regardless of 

 how valid and intelligible such an "Angst der Kreatur" may seem 

 to the objective observer. In brief, v/e have used the terms "in- 

 telligible" and "neurotic" anxiety solely because they seem to fit the 

 ideas of our Mohave informants. Hence, anyone is free to designate 

 what we have called "intelligible" anxiety by another label which, in 

 his estimate, is more appropriate either in terms of psychoanalytic 

 theory, or in terms of Mohave ideas about the nature of anxiety. 



INTELLIGIBLE ANXIETY 



Tcat&s Statement. — [What is your opinion about tlie inability to "let up," 

 and to relax and enjoy things?] Among the Mohave, boys and girls under the 

 age of 18 or 20 have less knowledge of the bigger things in life (than the adults 

 have). Therefore, they have less worry on their minds, and are able to enter 

 into recreational activities and sports wholeheartedly (Devereux, 1950 e). As 

 they grow older, they are able to think maturely. This causes (hahnok) some 

 weight on their minds, and brings worries in its train. Among the Mohave 

 of long ago, the mature ideas (preoccupations) of young people were the fol- 

 lowing: How to grow their crops, how to develop physically and mentally,*' 



•»" Compare Gladwin and Sarason (1953) for another primitive instance of such ed 

 anxiety. 



" Even the non-shamanistlc fetus in the womb is believed to think of ways and means 

 of developing and of being born (Devereux, 1948 b). 



