Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SXHCIDE 253 



human being, including the even small child, has a normal intelli- 

 gence. Wliether or not this normal endowment does, or does not, 

 manifest itself in normal performance depends to a large extent 

 on whether the individual has the proper power-giving dreams 

 (Devereux, 1956 c), exactly in the sense in which a woman's dreams 

 enable her to become a mother or a man's dreams enable him to be a 

 good hunter, etc. 



This being said, the Mohave describe a type of monstrous neonate 

 who is clearly grossly feebleminded. If the husband of a pregnant 

 woman, or the pregnant woman herself, kills a snake, the woman will 

 give birth to a snakeheaded monster, whose bite is said to be poisonous 

 and who is therefore not nursed at the breast. Such an infant is kept 

 alive by feeding it in one of two ways : 



(1) Its jaws are pried open with two sticks, or 



(2) Its jaws are kept open by inserting in its mouth a corncob or a piece 

 of wood. 



The milk is then squirted into its mouth, without allowing its lips 

 to touch the nipple, lest it should bite and "poison" its mother. 



Other informants said that such babies are fed only gruel or mush, 

 by means of a small stick. 



This mode of feeding is sometimes successful, since, in 1933, there 

 died an old Yuma woman, who had been a snakeheaded monster and 

 who had been fed in this way when she was a baby. 



The real cause of such monstrous births is far from certain. The 

 most plausible guess would be that such infants are either congenital 

 syphilitics or the victims of maternal rubella (German measles). In 

 still other cases such cranial and facial defects may be due to birth 

 injuries. 



The most important point to be noted is that, in discussing such 

 monsters, the Mohave did not describe them as feebleminded, and 

 neither did the Yuma. This is probably due to the fact that the ma- 

 jority of such babies die in early infancy, as do most defective children 

 born into a primitive tribe,*^ so that their mental defect has no chance 

 to manifest itself.^^ However, at least one such Yuma girl did live 

 to a ripe old age. 



Since feeblemindness of this type is not correlated by the Mohave 

 themselves with yamomk (craziness), neither a detailed discussion of 

 this defect nor the presentation of one, very dubious, case is called for 

 in this section, especially since these data have already been cited in 

 part 5, pp. 248-251. 



^' The Tltality of feebleminded children Is usually much lower than that of normal 

 children. 



^ It is possible that some twins, who supposedly die voluntarily, are actually defective 

 babies, injured during delivery, or else are congenitally abnormal (cf. Case 85). 



