290 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETKNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



off by psychic and/or psychosomatic processes does not justify a 

 psychologizing of physiology any more than the influence of brain 

 lesions or of drugs upon our psychic functioning authorizes us to 

 physiologize psychology. A reminder of such basic facts is, per- 

 haps, especially necessary in an age of interdisciplinary research and 

 may seem less bigoted when it comes from a student working in an 

 interdisciplinary field, than it would be if it came from a more nar- 

 rowly specialized scholar. 



THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 

 METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MOHAVE SUICIDE 



Delimitation of the subject matter. — The present portion of this 

 work seeks to study the Mohave Indian's conception of suicide, regard- 

 less of the fact that certain occurrences and activities viewed by the 

 JSIohave as suicides are not suicides in the modern, scientific sense 

 of that word. Plence, no distinction will be made between deaths 

 actually due to suicide and deaths — or symbolic deaths — which are 

 obviously due to other causes. It also seemed desirable to accept 

 unquestioningly, and to operate primarily in terms of, the categories 

 of suicide defined by the Mohave themselves. Thus, we will consist- 

 ently differentiate between funeral suicides and suicides not committed 

 during funerals, even though it is possible to show that many of the 

 latter are also due to more or less disguised and delayed mourning 

 reactions. 



A systematic adherence to this policy is greatly facilitated by the 

 fact that the Mohave are a relatively small tribe. Were the Llohave 

 very numerous, one would no doubt meet with many cases that it 

 would be hard to assign to one category of suicide only. Thus, in a 

 very large tribe there would almost certainly be cases of twin braves 

 straying into enemy territory, of shamans killing themselves because 

 of the infidelity of their wives, etc. As is, every single real or alleged 

 case of Mohave suicide could be unhesitatingly assigned to one suicide 

 category only, and this despite the fact that several types of suicide 

 appear to have highly similar basic motivations. 



METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 



The ^''cultural mass^'' of the idea of suicide in Mohave society. — Tlie 

 basic datum in any discussion of suicide in Mohave society is the 

 enormous sociocultural "mass" (Devereux, 1940 b) of the idea of sui- 

 cide. The magnitude of this "mass" can be ascertained (Devereux, 

 1957 a) by demonstrating that a number of occurrences which can- 

 not be called suicides by any objective standard are forcibly brought 

 within the scope of suicide, by establishing an "artificial compend- 



