Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 329 



factor. Where the chief trauma is loss of love and trust, life seems 

 meaningless and suicide, often without murder, the only possible 

 means of escape. 



The preceding considerations also have major methodological im- 

 plications. It is quite evident that certain basic "psychological" re- 

 action patterns, fantasies, etc., are institutionalized in certain cul- 

 tures by means of standardized beliefs and practices, even though, in 

 other cultures, these selfsame beliefs may either be wholly repressed, 

 or else may be reflected in culture only in a highly disguised, dis- 

 torted, or even inverted form. Precisely which basic psychological 

 reaction will be overtly implemented in a given culture, and which 

 will be repressed, depends on the nature of the culture under con- 

 sideration.'^" A systematic study of a set of cultures in terms of the 

 basic reaction patterns which each of them implements culturally, 

 respectively refuses to take cognizance of, would be a difficult, but 

 also highly rewarding, undertaking and might shed new light on the 

 nature of differences between various cultures. A pendant to such 

 a study would be an analysis of the manner in which one and the 

 same idea or fantasy is implemented in a variety of cultures: in 

 myth, religion, medicine, material culture, humor, or daily practice.^^ 

 A study of the exact context in which each of a set of cultures 

 implements a given basic fantasy would also increase one's insight 

 into the nature of cultural differences.'^^ These two fields of inquiry 

 are, so far, more or less unexplored. 



PSYCHOSOMATIC SUICIDE 

 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



Three types of death are, from the Mohave point of view, definable 

 as psychosomatic suicide, i.e., as deaths caused by physical illness of 

 psychological origin : Stillbirth due to a malposition of the child in 

 utero (pt. 7, pp. 340-348), the death of the infant who, because of the 

 mother's new pregnancy, must be weaned rather suddenly (pt. 7, pp. 

 340-348) and the death of one or both twins before they have con- 

 tracted marriages (pt. 7, pp. 348-356). 



The idea that psychic distress can cause— sometimes fatal— physical 

 illness has a long history. The possibility that death may be caused 



™ This finding has Important implications for therapeutic worlc with neurotics from other 

 cultures. Thus, whereas it proved safe to interpret to a Plains Indian professional cowboy 

 his castration anxieties fairly early in his treatment, his hidden passive dependent needs 

 had to he passed over in a short-term treatment, because, in his culture, dependency must 

 be severel.v repressed (Devereux, 1951 a). 



"iFor a tentative examination of the fantasy of the "retractlble or reversible penis," 

 cf. Devereux, 1954 b and 1957 a. For a scrutiny of the fantasy of "people without an anus," 

 cf. Devereux, 1954 c. This latter study could have been greatly expanded, had Norbeck's 

 essay (1955) been published earlier. 



^2 It was stressed years ago (Devereux, 1942 e) that cultures differ more in the manner 

 in which their constituent "elements" are put together, than in terms of discrepancies 

 between their culture element inventories. (Cf. also Devereux, 1951 a.) 



