Deverenx] MOHAVE ETHNOPSTCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 391 



witched that person must be there to grab this creature before nn owl, who Is 

 said to be there at the same time, can get hold of it, and must throw it into the 

 river. If, however, the owl gets hold of this creature before the witch does, 

 the owl takes it to its nest in a cottonwood tree. Then, at night, it takes this 

 creature on its back and teaches it to call out the name of the witch. The witch 

 does not like that at all and that is why he tries to kill this owllike being before 

 an owl can get hold of it. If the owl gets hold of this creature before the witch 

 does, after a while this being turns into an owl. Then it goes about calling out 

 the witch's name and saying ku :t, ku :t, which is the last syllable of naku :tk 

 (= father) . In other words, this creature calls the witch "father." [What does 

 this creature say if the witch is a woman?] It says ku:t all the same. In the 

 old days there were few female shamans, but now there are a lot of them. How- 

 ever, if the shaman can get hold of this creature, he throws it in the water, 

 where it drowns. Then the shaman bathes and abstains from salt for 4 days. 

 [Does the shaman bathe in water in which arrow weed has been steeped, the 

 way people do when they seek to purify themselves?] No one knows — the 

 witch does these things in secret. This being is the heart of the victim and it 

 is alive. [What happens to the heart of a person who did not die of witch- 

 craft?] Nothing — it burns like all the rest." ^' At this point the interpreter, 

 E. S. said: "When I was acting as an interpreter for Dr. Ruth Underbill, Big 

 Dick, a Mohave who lives at Yuma, told us that the unburned parts of the body 

 turn into various other kinds of birds ; only the heart became an owl." Tcatc 

 shrugged her shoulder and said : "Perhaps so — Big Dick knows more about these 

 matters than I do. Anyhow, the owls are Mohave, since they are the hearts 

 of the Mohave. This owl-being appears (emerges from xmderneath the pyre) at 

 an indeterminate time of the day. Only the shamans know when it appears 

 ... I think it probably appears at night. [When someone's corpse rises on the 

 pyre, showing thereby that he died of witchcraft, do his relatives lie in wait 

 for the witch who may try to get hold of this owllike creature?] Yes, sometimes 

 they do that ; at least, they did it formerly. They don't do it now, because now 

 witch killing is considered murder (by the whites). The braves used to do the 

 witch killing. Anyhow, this owl-being not only calls out the name of the witch, 

 and does not only say ku:t, ku:t, as I just told you, but it also says kidhi: 

 khi :yu = come and see. [Does it say what one is supposed to come and see?] 

 No. The Mohave believe that if an owl of this kind visits a home, one may 

 expect bad news, such as news of the death of a relative." At this point, E. S. 

 the interpreter, said : "Not all owls are that way. Once I killed an owl and it had 

 tattoo marks on its chin : One line dovm the middle of its chin and two rows of 

 dots. [That is the way men tattoo their chins, isn't it?] Yes. (Kroeber, 1925 a, 

 Taylor and Wallace, 1947, fig. 1 j.) That owl — it was a bewitched man's heart. 

 Even the ears of these owls look something like the ears of human beings. Thus, 

 only one kind of owl is the heart of a bewitched person. These owls are big 

 ones — they are about a foot and a half high and gray in color. Only this kind of 

 owl comes out of the cremation pit. All witches who grab and drown these 

 owl-beings are bad people. Not only do they cause epidemics, but, when they 

 bewitch a particular person directly, they kill that person twice, first by killing 

 him and then by killing also his heart." 



CASE 93 (Informant E. S.) : 



"Once I had a very strange experience with an owl. I was living with my 

 brother who, at that time, was married to D. T. My sister-in-law had been ill 

 for some 6 months, so we told her to go to the hospital. She agreed to do so 

 and stayed in the hospital for 2 months. Then she came back and stayed 



w» The bewitched Matavllye's heart waa stolen by Coyote (Kroeber, 1948). 



