Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 349 



welcomed to the earth with formal speeches, are told of life on earth, 

 and are given absolutely identical presents.® The parents of twins 

 feel honored to have been chosen by these heavenly beings to be their 

 parents on earth, and will have very good crops afterwards, as will 

 persons visiting the babies. Twins must be given preferential treat- 

 ment, and children are "told to be especially kind to twins." 



The secondary pattern presents twins in a very different light. Ac- 

 cording to this second set of beliefs, twins are the reincarnated, ac- 

 quisitive ghosts of deceased persons, who return to earth from the land 

 of the dead, in order to accumulate additional property, which will 

 eventually be burned on their funeral pyres, so that it can be trans- 

 ferred to the land of the dead (Case 87). The parents of twins are 

 less happy than are the parents of ordinary children, since they do 

 not feel that the twins truly belong to them, the way ordinary chil- 

 dren belong to their parents. Moreover, in returning to earth for ad- 

 ditional property, twins prove themselves to be acquisitive, which is 

 a serious violation of Mohave ethics. Finally — and even though no 

 informant actually described such an attitude — it seems reasonable 

 to assume that at least some Mohave may feel uncomfortable about 

 associating with "reincarnated ghosts," since contact with the dead 

 is, by definition, harmful (pt. 4, pp. 128-186). Yet, despite the 

 existence of this secondary set of beliefs, the actual treatment of twins 

 conforms in every respect to the rules laid down in the primary pat- 

 tern, which defines twins as honored heavenly visitors. 



The one real convergence between these two patterns is the belief 

 that twins have adult minds from birth, either because they are 

 eternal beings, or else because they are ghosts who had already lived 

 on earth. 



Although these two patterns seem mutually contradictory, they are 

 psychologically complementary, in that each of these two sets of 

 beliefs elaborates one aspect of Mohave ambivalence toward twins. 

 In fact, the primary pattern itself contains at least two explicit allu- 

 sions to this ambivalence. The first of these is the specification that 

 people approaching twins must "watch their tongues" lest they should 

 make remarks which the twins may resent. Clearly, there is no need 

 to watch one's tongue in the presence of a person whom one loves and 

 admires miambivalently. The second fact which reveals the presence 

 of an ambivalence is that children are told to be especially nice to 

 twins, which would not be necessary if the adults themselves were 

 unambivalently enthusiastic over the birth of twins. In brief, it is 

 precisely the elaborateness of the precautions taken to avoid giving 



•Thus, should each of two persons prepare an absorbent cradle pad for the twins, the 

 two pads will be presented to them by one person only, since, despite the Identity of the 

 presents, the twin who did receive a pad from one person, but not from the other, will feel 

 disliked and discriminated against. 



