382 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



for the understanding of the relevant Mohave beliefs as well, may be 

 stated as follows : 



(1) Either psychological (neurotic) motives or cultural beliefs can 

 provide a sufficient and convincing explanation of the vicarious suicide 

 of witches in Mohave society. 



(2) Seen psychologically, a Mohave witch unconsciously contrived 

 her own murder by maneuvering herself into a position in wliich some- 

 one was subjectively motivated to kill her. Thus, her lover was an- 

 gered by her infidelity, and by his awareness that he was but a substi- 

 tute for his own dead father ; moreover, he wished to avenge his father, 

 whom Sahaykwisa: admitted having killed. All these are basic, 

 "culturally neutral" human reactions. 



(3) Seen culturally, Sahaykwisa: wished to be killed in order to 

 join forever the ghost of her loved and hated victim. Hence, in ac- 

 cordance with the Mohave pattern, she confessed her misdeed to her 

 victim's son, thereby culturally motivating him to murder her, who, 

 being a witch, was, by definition, likely to bewitch him next. Thus, 

 seen culturally, Sahaykwisa :'s killer simply implemented a major and 

 basic Mohave cultural rule. 



(4) Sahaykwisa: also used psychologically (i.e., neurotically) de- 

 termined maneuvers to elicit a culturally determined response in her 

 killer. Thus, precisely by becoming her killer's mistress, she uncon- 

 sciously made certain that the latter would — in accordance with Mo- 

 have belief — fear that he was destined to be her next victim, since 

 witches often kill entire families. Moreover, he was also obliged to 

 avenge liis father. 



(5) Sahaykwisa: also used cultural means for eliciting in her 

 killer certain psychological (subjective) murderous impulses. She 

 made a confession in due form, but unconsciously managed to do so 

 while drunk, thereby giving it a certain personalized, involuntary 

 quality. Moreover, she made herself exceptionally available for a 

 culturally prescribed aggression, by being helplessly drunk.*^ 



Summing up, the complex interplay of cultural and psychological 

 factors is one of the most characteristic features of the vicarious suicide 

 of witches — as well as of all human actions — which can, however, be 

 satisfactorily explained either in purely psychological or in purely 

 cultural terms. The subtle convergence of psychological goals and 

 cultural mandates in bringing about the final catastrophe is not only 

 the best proof of the complexity of processes whereby the ethnic char- 

 acter comes into being, but also the most convincing demonstration of 

 the complementarity and the mutual irreducibility of "the psycho- 

 logical" and "the sociocultural." 



** For a discussion of the psychodynamlcs of this aspect of her confession, compare 

 the Comments appended to Case 105. 



