216 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



ties of life, rather than with neurotic ruminations. Yet, Hilyera 

 Anyay's remark, that such intense thinking or planning may lead 

 either to a neurosis, or else may become a source of success and super- 

 natural powers, depending on one's dreams, firmly assigns the entire 

 process to the unconscious, without suggesting, however, that it is 

 primarily an obsessive-compulsive mechanism. Good dreams are, m 

 this context, indications of a successful sublimation, which harnesses 

 the energy behind anxiety to constructive goals, while bad dreams 

 suffsrest a failure of sublimation. 



NEUROTIC ANXIETY 



Hilyera Anyay's statement (1938).— I have known such people, but I can- 

 not tell (recall) their names. Such a person is sane in every way, but there 

 seems to be fear in his heart, a fear of something that he himself does not know. 

 Such people are not very sociable. They keep to themselves and do not seem 

 to know what their worries are. Sometimes they just sit and brood— seemingly 



over nothing at all. 



Tcat&s statement (1938).— People who worry, but don't know what they are 

 worrying about, are hi :wa :ly yamomk him (in their hearts, a little crazy) . Such 

 people are not really insane. One can get along with them, but they just worry 

 and worry. 

 CASE 60 (Informant: Tcatc.) : 



Ave: Pu:y's daughter G. A. is also that way. They say that she is 

 tcitcekwa:r matum (talkative, is-not). (Some Mohave allege that this woman 

 is a kamalo :y, i.e., a psychopathically promiscuous and obnoxious person. Cf. 

 Devereux, 1948 f ; and Case 46) . 



THE HYSTERIAS 



There appears to be no general term applied by the Mohave to the 

 various forms of hysteria. 



(i) Hysterical laughter, screaming and crying.— Tcatc stated that 

 such cases do occur. First she specified that such behavior occurred 

 principally in old women, but promptly contradicted herself when 

 describing the behavior of Nyortc Kupu :ya (Case 61), whose attacks 

 began when she was about 20, and tapered off as she got older.^' 

 " [How do they deal with such crises ? ] We don't do anything to such 

 a person, except tell her that there is nothing to laugh about. After 

 a while such a person gets terribly tired, lies down and sleeps." " 



(2) Hysterical anesthesias.— These occur, according to Tcatc, 

 among old people, and are symptomatic of illness. She was unable, 

 however, to cite a concrete case. It seems extremely probable that 

 she had misunderstood the question and described not true hysterical 



« A decrease in the frequency of hysterical attacks, as the subject grows older, is often 

 characteristic of this neurosis. 



n Sleep following the crisis occurs both In hysteria and In convulsive seizures. 



