Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 265 



times, many of these modern juvenile delinquents would, sooner or 

 later, have become shamans. 



The public attitude toward a turbulent child was neatly expressed 

 by Hivsu : Tupo :ma, when he witnessed the destructiveness of a cer- 

 tain boy. Instead of expressing moral indignation, Hivsu : Tupo :ma 

 simply said: "This boy behaves badly, because he is going to be a 

 medicine man ; he already shows the destructive tendencies typical of 

 future shamans." Nevertheless, the unusual actions of a child be- 

 lieved to be a future shaman give rise to a great deal of gossip, whose 

 Leitmotiv is not "How awful!", but rather: "Have you heard the 

 latest trick of so-and-so?" Otherwise stated, disapproval is, in such 

 cases, always tempered by amused curiosity. 



Now, it is of special interest that, insofar as I am able to determine 

 on the basis of extensive data collected in the course of a half a dozen 

 fieldtrips spread out over two decades, all turbulent and sexually 

 hyperactive children whose behavior fitted the "pattern of miscon- 

 duct" expected from future shamans did, in fact, become shamans 

 and/or witches — or, if they could not, or refused to, become shamans, 

 eventually developed a psychosis (pt. 2, 57-71, and Case 64) — but did 

 not become simple (nonshamanistic) delinquents. 



It is possible that this is due, at least in part, to the social evaluation 

 of, and reaction to, the supposed "significance" of their misconduct, 

 which may have encouraged them to define themselves as shamans. 

 On the other hand, the fact that, unlike Nepe:he (Case 76), they did 

 not steal, or violate in some other manner the type of patterned mis- 

 conduct expected from budding shamans, and finally "settled down" 

 into the shamanistic pattern, strongly supports the thesis (Deve- 

 reux, 1956 b) that the conflicts of the future shaman are rooted 

 in the unconscious segment of his "ethnic personality" and differ 

 from those of other individuals only in their intensity. This, in 

 turn, explains why socially expected and provided symptoms appear 

 to enable them to cope — at least for a while — with their internal 

 conflicts and ego-dystonic impulses, without having to supplement 

 them with truly idiosyncratic symptoms of their own devising. Thus, 

 like the rest of the Mohave, they are able to use sex as their chief 

 generalized safety valve — albeit in a more symptomatic and excessive 

 form than ordinary persons — and, unlike, e. g., Nepe :he (Case 76), do 

 not have to resort also to symptomatic theft. Likewise, they find 

 magical aggressions (witchcraft) — and sometimes also the socially 

 sanctioned killing of other witches — a sufficient outlet for their ag- 

 gressivity and do not also have to abuse physically, e.g., a helpless 

 small sibling, the way Hamteya :u did ( Case 77) . 



The same is also true, mutatis mvitandis, of Mohave transvestites, 

 whose basic difficulty is an "ethnic neurosis," as this term was defined 



