260 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



DEVIANT CHILDREN 

 "Functional" Disturbances 



Data concerning deviant children were obtained chiefly in the 

 course of investigations of Mohave sexuality, psychopathology, and 

 suicide. Thus, in contrast with earlier articles on child rearing 

 (Devereux, 1947 a, 1948 c, 1950 f, 1950 h), which present primarily 

 formal data on child-rearing techniques and the routine life of chil- 

 dren, the present chapter consists mostly of case material. This may 

 create the erroneous impression that a large number of Mohave chil- 

 dren are either deviant or delinquent. 



Indeed, even though child-rearing techniques resist acculturation 

 rather tenaciously, it is, nonetheless, self-evident that the inconspicu- 

 ous lives of most well-adjusted children are more likely to be for- 

 gotten than the escapades of a few young scamps. Hence, case 

 material pertaining to "good" or well-adjusted children, who lived 

 many years ago, would be almost impossible to obtain, even if the 

 Mohave taboo on the names of the dead had not already erased their 

 memory.^^ 



On the whole, if one uses as one's diagnostic base line the Mohave 

 notion that children are entitled to sexual information, as well as to 

 freedom of sexual experimentation (Devereux, 1951 d), the average 

 Mohave child may be described as pleasant, outgoing, and trusting, 

 and also as well behaved by aboriginal Mohave ethical standards; 

 furthermore, the Mohave child usually grows up into a kind, trust- 

 worthy, and generous adult. Even the instability of Mohave mar- 

 riages, which is responsible for the fact that many children grow up 

 in a variety of households, does not seem to undermine the emotional 

 security of most such "displaced" children, because the Mohave give 

 all children a great deal of love and acceptance, even though they do 

 not look after them very consistently. 



Two facts illustrate the Mohave Indian's ready acceptance of the 

 child : 



(1) It is believed that, if a pregnant woman changes husbands, 

 her sexual relations with the new spouse modify the biosocial identity 

 of the unborn and transform the fetus into the biological and social 



»» These remarks are not to be thought of as lending Indirect support to Wallace's (1948) 

 view that Mohave children were sexually less active than my previously published data 

 (Devereux, 1951 d) indicate. When, in the course of a later field trip to the Mohave, I 

 confronted my informants with the discrepancy between Wallace's data and my own, my 

 informants unanimously declared that Wallace's principal informant — well known to all 

 of them, as well as to me — was a somewhat rigid person, as M'ell as an atypical Mohave, 

 known, e.g., to be quite selfish, exploitive, and ungenerous. Psychoanalytically speaking, 

 such "anal characters" are often quite "moralistic," which would account for his puritanical 

 account of the behavior of Mohave children. In addition, several informants, so challenged, 

 supported the statements they made during my earlier field trips by citing autobiographical 

 data, going back to their own childhood. Thus, e.g., Hitcu :y Kutask(w)elv described 

 In some detail his first sex experience, which took place at the age of 7 or 8. 



