DevereuxJ MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 251 



as a result of a liumiliation, became severely withdrawn and spoke so 

 little that he was almost mute at times, invariably mentioned Ms 

 speech disturbance ;?rs^ (Case 77). 



Deaf -mutes : 



According to the late M. A. I. Nettle, M.D., in 1932-33 there lived on 

 the Colorado Kiver Keservation one almost deaf-mute Mohave Indian 

 and several completely deaf-mute Chemehuevi Indians. My own 

 informants did not describe any Mohave Indian as a deaf-mute, though 

 it is probable that at least one of the mutes mentioned in this section 

 was the person whom Dr. Nettle described as an almost deaf-mute 

 ]Mohave Indian. 



Com/nient 



The importance that the Mohave attach to speech disturbances can 

 be partially miderstood in terms of their admiration for orators and 

 clever conversationalists. On the other hand it is possible to suggest, 

 at least tentatively, that the Mohave tendency to emphasize the 

 pathognomonic import of speech disorders in "insanity," may also be 

 partly determined by their xenophobia, since the stranger is, by defini- 

 tion, someone with whom one cannot communicate verbally. While 

 this connnent is admittedly speculative, it should be noted that even 

 in our society people who seek to mimic "insane behavior" usually bab- 

 ble rather than gesticulate, and that grotesque imitations of foreign 

 languages and of foreign accents are often used to poke fun at "those 

 crazy foreigners." ^^ The popularity of dialect jokes may also be due 

 to the tendency to equate foreign speech with grotesque "craziness." 



In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that the only other physical 

 defect the Mohave use as a symbol of psycliic derangement is, according 

 to Kroeber (1925 a), blindness, wliich is understandable since sight 

 is man's main means for testing reality. 



TEEBLEMINDEDKESS 



The Mohave readily understood descriptions of feeblemindedness, 

 but denied its occurrence among members of that tribe. Thus, when 

 asked whether a certain girl named E. (native name not recorded) — 

 who, according to various employees of the Indian Agency, was a 

 mentally defective person — was, indeed, feebleminded, all informants 

 said that there was nothing the matter with her intelligence. In 

 fact, even when describing the behavior of mutes (pt. 5, pp. 248-251) or 



" Such grotesque and derisive Imitations also occur In primitive society. When the 

 headman of Kon Pley visited the Sedang Mol village of Tea Ha In Indochina, his "odd" 

 pronunciation was Imitated for days afterwards and never failed to elicit derisive laughter 

 (Devereux, MS., 1933-34). 



492655—61 17 



