Uevereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 323 



river and — even though every Mohave is said to have been a 

 swimmer (Devereux, 1950 e) — determinedly floated downstream 

 until he drowned; or stuffed his mouth with earth and suffocated him- 

 self. The use of knives, guns, and hanging seems to be modern, and 

 even if one makes allowances for the fact that an old woman would 

 not have found it easy to get hold of a gun, it is altogether compatible 

 Vidth female conservativeness that the last person to suffocate herself 

 by stuffing earth mto her mouth was a woman (Case 123). 



Actually, the means used for committing suicide are probably also 

 closely related to such noncultural factors as the individual's deter- 

 mination to kill himself. Thus, nearly all suicidal attempts involving 

 guns were successful, whereas no suicide who used a knife managed 

 to kill himself. It is also extremely interesting that all suicides who 

 used traditional means (geophagy, datura, drowning) were successful. 

 The hanging — which was executed with extraordinary determination 

 (Case 124) — may have been successful chiefly because it is, fmida- 

 mentally, a modern variant of self-suffocation by geophagy. These 

 facts are simply noted, without attempting to make too much of them, 

 since the data are not numerous enough to permit one to draw from 

 them irrefutable conclusions regarding the nexus between the means 

 a Mohave uses to kill himself and the degree of his determination 

 to die. 



Cultural data which lend themselves to tabulation are presented in 

 table 1. 



