296 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



Ethical theory is exceptionally useful for the anthropological inter- 

 pretation of Mohave data, since the place of suicide in the Mohave 

 value system, as reflected by Mohave attitudes, is of crucial interest 

 to the anthropologist. The Mohave seem to view suicide as a means 

 to an end, rather than as a self-contained action. Specifically, in 

 terms of Allport's scheme (1937), Mohave suicide seems to be due 

 quite often to "pull" rather than to "push," in that some Mohave 

 suicides seem to seek something better than what is, more than they 

 seek to escape some present evil. This is especially conspicuous in 

 the vicarious suicide of witches, who cause themselves to be killed 

 because they wish to join their beloved victims in the land of the dead 

 (pt. 7, pp. 387-426), in the suicide of twins who simply decided to re- 

 turn to heaven (pt. 7, pp. 348-356), and also in the symbolic suicide 

 of a person marrying a kinswoman (pt. 7, pp. 356-371) who uses his 

 symbolic death as a stepping stone to "incestuous" marital bliss. The 

 situation is less unequivocal in other types of suicide, so that each 

 reader will have to decide for himself to what extent, if any, other 

 forms of suicides are motivated by pull rather than by push. 



Anthropological vs. psychological interpretations. — The precise re- 

 lationship between the psychological and the sociocultural interpreta- 

 tion and understanding of a given event is one of the most vexed 

 problems of the interdisciplinary field of ethnopsychology and 

 ethnopsychiatry. A basic discussion of this problem is not only be- 

 yond the scope of the present study, but also quite unnecessary, since 

 we repeatedly urged that there exists a complementarity relationship 

 between the simultaneous sociological and psychological understand- 

 ing of a given event. Indeed, the more fully we understand at a 

 given moment the psychological motivation of, e.g., a certain suicide, 

 the less fully we understand, at the same moment, its sociocultural 

 determinants (Devereux, 1945 a). This problem is further discussed 

 in part 7, pages 371-431. 



Broadly speaking, the anthropologist is entitled to view suicide as 

 an institution, albeit as an aberrant one, which represents a "pattern 

 of misconduct," in Linton's (1936) sense. The anthropologist's task 

 is therefore practically completed once he has clarified the institu- 

 tional basis of suicide in a given society and has described the socio- 

 cultural determinants and meanings of recorded suicidal acts. In 

 fact, he may even be quite legitimately indifferent to whether an 

 attempted suicide was actually successful or not, or else may be in- 

 terested in its outcome for statistical purposes only. His main con- 

 cern is the sociocultural position of suicide in a given group, and, 

 in his capacity as an anthropologist, he is entitled to take into ac- 

 count only sociocultural motivation. Thus, as anthropologists, the 

 focus of our interest must be the elaborateness of ideas pertaining 

 to suicide in Mohave society, and the variety of occurrences that 



