282 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU.175 



Comment 



Tentative diagnosis. — From tlie Mohave point of view, Case 78 is neurotic 

 only in that he is aggressive and cruel to Hcimteya :u. In fact, he was inter- 

 viewed partly in response to Haiuteya :u's plea (Case 77) that I should ask 

 Case 78 to stop tormenting him. This aggressivity, which fits the rest of the type 

 of behavior that one expects, by definition, to observe in a boy who wishes to 

 become a shaman (Devereux, 1937 c), is also reflected in the drawings that he 

 decided to make for me. All of these drawings (pi. 2) represent rough-looking 

 men with threatening guns or teeth.'" It should be noted, however, that, in 

 1938, Case 78 was not considered (as yet?) to be a budding shaman, though 

 of the three boys interviewed only he expressed the desire to become a shaman. 



Apart from his aggressive behavior toward Hamteyaru, Case 78 makes a 

 favorable impression and is, on the whole, simply a typical, exuberant and un- 

 inhibited Mohave youngster. The occasional truancy impressed only the white 

 school principal as a sign of maladjustment, but was ignored by the boy's own 

 family, as well as by various informants, who unanimously denied that he was 

 neurotic. His extreme exuberance is, however, clearly narcissistic and exhi- 

 bitionistic, as is shown, e.g., by the ornate manner in which he wrote his ini- 

 tials and also his full name (not reproduced in this work). 



His aggressivity toward Hamteya :u appears to be triggered in part by the 

 desire to make Hamteya :u cry, the way E. S. makes him cry. This is a typically 

 infantile way of mastering an injury, by "handing it on" to someone weaker 

 than oneself. It should be noted that, unlike Hamteya :u's aggressive ill-treat- 

 ment of his baby brother (Case 77), Case 78's aggressivity is not directed at 

 a helpless infant, but at a playmate his own size, and is not as obviously an 

 expression of neurosis as Hamteya :u's aggression is. Otherwise stated, Ham- 

 teya :u's victim is actually helpless, because he is a mere infant, while Ham- 

 teya :u can be victimized by Case 78 only because his neuroticism makes him 

 a "sissy." 



BOEDEKLINE PSYCHOSES OF YoUNG SHAMANS 



It is proposed to present in this section an account of the abnormal 

 behavior exhibited early in life by the female shaman Nyoltc Hukthar 

 (Nyoltc coyote= "crazy Nyoltc") who, according to the Mohave them- 

 selves, suffered all her life from a disorder of the sexual impulse called 

 ya tcahaetk (Case 13) , as well as from "nervousness" (hukthar hit'i :k) 

 (Case 79). 



The theoretical objective of this section is to demonstrate the valid- 

 ity of the general thesis (Kroeber, 1952; Linton, 1956; Devereux, 

 1958 b) that, even though the shaman is socially more or less 

 "adjusted" (Ackerknecht, 1943) and performs socially valued fmic- 

 tions, he or she is, nonetheless, psychiatrically a genuinely ill person, 

 and is specifically recognized and diagnosed as such by other members 

 of the tribe. Since this point of view is expressed also in other chap- 

 ters of this work, the present discussion is limited to an account of this 

 woman's behavior in her childhood and youth, followed by certain 



^ Biting Is equated with Bhootlng, e.g.. In Ahma Huma :re'8 account of the hlkwl :r 

 Illness (pt 4, pp. 117-128). 



