378 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



INTERPLAY OF CULTURAL AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IN VICARIOUS SUICIDE 



Anthropologists as well as historians possess incontrovertible evi- 

 dence that standard cultural beliefs, functioning as motives, are strong 

 enough to neutralize even so basic a drive as the instinct of self-preser- 

 vation. Hence, from the cultural point of view, the Mohave belief 

 that a witch must get himself killed, if he is to retain forever his hold 

 over his victims, is as satisfactory an explanation of the Mohave 

 witch's suicidalness as the Manichaean belief that apostasy means 

 eternal damnation is a satisfactory explanation of the Albigensians' 

 readiness to be burned at the stake rather than accept the religion of 

 their conquerors. 



Evidence of this nature is so massive and so irresistible that one 

 tends to lose sight of the very important implications of the fact that 

 some Mohave shamans did not seek to be killed*" and that some 

 Albigensians did become converted in order not to be burned at the 

 stake. 



As a rule, students of society and culture explain such "derelictions 

 of duty" in terms of the insufficient socialization and ethnicization of, 

 e.g., the individual Mohave witch who does not try to get himself 

 killed, or of the individual Albigensian who preferred conversion to 

 a martyr's death. In less extreme cases even students of psychody- 

 namics ascribe the individual's failure to neutralize some basic im- 

 pulse by pitting against it some social ideal — or, more often, dogma — 

 as evidence of a defective superego development.*^ 



Partially true though this explanation may be, it has the disad- 

 vantage of completely obscuring an aspect of compliance with social 

 standards which may be of paramount importance for the correct 

 understanding of effective socialization and ethnicization. Indeed, 

 it seems likely that compliance with social demands is only possible 

 for persons whose personality makeup — be it sick or healthy — happens 

 to be compatible with these demands. Where the demands are rational 

 and constructive, compliance is made possible by the individual's 

 healthy ego and ego ideal. Wliere the demands are irrational and 

 destructive, compliance is possible only for superego-ridden indi- 

 viduals, who happen to have the proper kind of psychopathology 

 (Devereux, 1939 c). 



It is felt that the cultural beliefs which motivate the vicarious suicide 

 of certain witches are irrational and destructive and therefore become 

 effectively operative only in the case of witches who also have marked 



*° Compare Hivsii : Tupo : ma's Insistent pleas that his confession of witchcraft, made 

 while Intoxicated, he kept confidential (Devereux, 1948 1). 



*i This Is the "official" view, which, as was shown elsewhere In detail (Devereux, 1956 a), 

 utterly falls to differentiate between superego and ego ideal and also between rational and 

 Irrational demands regarding the proper management of the Impulses. Compliance with 

 Irrational demands Is made possible by the superego. Compliance with rational and creative 

 demands 1b made possible by the ego Ideal. 



