310 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



ture of braves, who know tliat they are not meant to reach old age 

 (Kroeber 1925 a). Here, as in many other contexts, the "official" 

 Mohave reaction seems to be : "It is their nature ; they can't help it." 

 Yet there are indications that this superficial tolerance masks quite 

 a lot of resentment, since the lost warrior's male relatives sometimes 

 frustrate the attempts of a shaman to discover, with the help of a 

 medium, his fate and whereabouts. 



Funeral suicides elicit a rather complex reaction: while the at- 

 tempt itself is, more or less, a minor custom, it is not one which 

 has the xmambivalent backing of Mohave society. The suicidal at- 

 tempt of a widow (Case 109) was ridiculed, because her subsequent 

 marriage allegedly proved her gesture to have been hollow exhibition- 

 ism. A father who threw liimself on the pyre of liis son, whom liis 

 nagging had driven to suicide (Case 111), was criticized more because 

 of his cruelty toward liis son than because of liis suicidal gesture. 

 Finally, males attempting to commit funeral suicide are criticized 

 more than females, since funeral suicide is viewed as a typically 

 feminine gesture. 



Real suicides are condemned more consistently than other types of 

 suicide. This disapproving attitude is present — at least in theory — 

 even where explicit cognizance is taken of the fact that the suicide 

 has been seriously wronged. This, however, simply means that the 

 Mohave criticize not only the suicide, but also those who have wronged 

 him. The suicidal person is considered "weak" or "crazy" and is 

 said to lack the JMohave Indian's traditional strength of character 

 and stoicism. It is worth recalling here that the mercurial Mohave 

 tend to tliink of themselves as liighly stable and almost stolidly 

 stoical persons, even though they are simply skilled in presenting a 

 stoical and stolid f agade to whites, for whom they do not care, or whom 

 they do not know. It should also be noted, however, that the term 

 "crazy" is applied to suicides only when the informants contrast 

 the supposed emotional liability and "weakness" of the younger gener- 

 ation with the imaginary glories of Mohave character in aboriginal 

 times. A further discussion of this point appears in the section on 

 "Suicide and Ethnic Personality" (pp. 298-301). 



In addition to being called "weak and crazy," the person who 

 commits suicide is also blamed for being stubborn, since he re- 

 fuses to listen to well-meaning persons who try to comfort him and 

 to dissuade him from killing himself. It should be noted that the 

 stillborn babies, infants who die at weaning, and twins who volun- 

 tarily return to the land of the dead, despite all efforts to pei-suade 

 them to choose life instead of death, are also blamed for not listen- 

 ing to their "better selves," for being stubborn, and for causing grief 

 to their relatives and to the community. 



