Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 221 



among primitives. One of the rare exceptions is an Attawapiskat 

 Cree of northern Ontario (Honigmann, 1954) who had a handwashing 

 compulsion. As for the Dobuan mentioned by Fortune ( 1932) , whose 

 constant urge to work was exploited by the other members of the 

 tribe, one camiot be certain whether he w^as a genuine obsessive-com- 

 pulsive or something else. 



The problem of the Yurok (Kroeber, 1925 a; Erikson, 1943) is 

 more complex. Members of this tribe have a basically anal character 

 structure, and devote all their thoughts and actions to the acquisition 

 of money. While their unbridled pursuit of wealth, implemented by 

 many rules and avoidances, is certainly pathological from the psychi- 

 atric point of view, we are dealing in their case not simply with an 

 aggregate of individual obsessive-compulsives, but with an inherently 

 sick society, which produces an obsessive-compulsive ethnic character, 

 whose symptoms are provided by Yurok cultui'e itself. Thus, there 

 seem to be three varieties of obsessive-compulsive personalities : The 

 culturally deviant obsessive-compulsive neurotics exliibiting, like the 

 aforementioned Attawapiskat Cree, some concrete and circumscribed 

 non-cultural symptom, such as a handwashing compulsion; the cul- 

 turally deviant, though sometimes socially somewhat useful, obsessive- 

 compulsive character, who may become an overmeticulous "red tape 

 artist," and, finally, the Yurok representative of a basically obsessive- 

 compulsive ethnic character (basic personality), who, even though he 

 is fully adjusted to society, represents a "group ideal" (Eoheim, 1932), 

 and has no idiosyncratic "private symptoms," is nonetheless emotion- 

 ally sick, because he is generally tense and has fundamentally a high 

 level of anxiety. Ackerknecht's attempt (1943) to dub this latter type 

 of personality "autonormal," though "heteropathological," is an eva- 

 sion of both psychiatric and cultural realities, and fails to prove 

 that such personalities are not very neurotic (Devereux, 1956 b). 



HYPOCHONDRIASIS 



Severe and chronic hypochondriasis is often a prodromal stage of 

 acute psychosis. Although serious hypochondriasis seems absent 

 among the Mohave, minor "imaginary illnesses" are known to occur. 

 Thus, a very young girl (Case 46) as well as a middle-aged woman 

 (Case 45) mistook their pregnancies for hiwey lak, while two other 

 women (Cases 24 and 63) greatly exaggerated the severity of their 

 pains and the seriousness of their condition. 



The following case was, unfortunately, recorded in such a manner 

 that it does not disclose the sex of the patient. It may, perhaps, be 

 identical with Case 18. 



