Devereus] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 365 



no longer related to him.=^* However, since the Mohave were not 

 cannibals and did not have a system of fines, the real underlying 

 meaning of Tcatc's remark remains a complete mystery. 

 //. Meaning or effect of the rite: 



(1) The rite signifies that the bridegroom is "kind of dead." 

 (Hivsu: Tupo:ma). 



(2) It does not mean that the bridegroom is dead. It only means 

 that the kinship tie between the boy and the girl is dissolved, so that a 

 new boy marries the girl. (Tcatc.) 



(3) The kinship tie between the boy's and the girl's immediate fam- 

 ilies is also dissolved. (Hivsu: Tupo:ma.) (This was vehemently 

 denied both by Tcatc and by one or two other informants, who stressed 

 that the yomig husband remained a member of his own gens and was 

 capable of transmitting membership in his gens to his children. It 

 should be noted, however, that this argument pertains only to the gens 

 and not to the immediate family as such.) 



(4) Since the groom consents to the killing of his horse, which rep- 

 resents him, it means that he is, in a sense, committing vicarious 

 suicide. 



(5) The killing of the horse does not represent symbolic suicide in 

 any way. (This opinion was held only by a minor informant.) 



(6) The chief purpose of this rite was to prevent a subsequent di- 

 vorce. As Hivsu : Tupo :ma expressed it : "People felt that if cousins 

 wanted to get married so badly, and did marry in spite of the fact that 

 they were related, they had to remain married forever." The effec- 

 tiveness of this rite in strengthening the very tenuous Mohave mar- 

 riage bond could, unfortunately, not be ascertained. 



///. Affective reactions: 



( 1 ) The tribe was angry when relatives married. 



(2) People mourned at such rituals, because it was as though they 

 had lost a relative, through the severing of kinship ties. "The boy 

 was as good as dead." 



(3) They mourned because the kinship tie between the two families 

 was severed. The boy's and the girl's immediate families each "lost" 

 a blood relative, which apparently outweighed the fact that — as a 

 compensation— they "acquired" an affmal relative in the course of 

 these events. 



(4) They cried because an incestuous marriage means that the two 

 families will probably die out. As for the incestuous couple itself, it 



2* To take — purely for illustrative purposes — an example more or less at random, the 

 Sedang Mol sharply differentiate between three classes of persons: (1) Those -with 

 whom one can cohabit ; (2) those whose milk one drinks actually or symbolically ; and (3) 

 those whose flesh may be eaten either actually, or else symbolically (Devereux, 1958 b). 

 Relatives belong to category (2). 



