Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSTCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 395 



ing with them only in dream. Moreover, even if such dreams are 

 incestuous, they will not cause the witch to become insane. By con- 

 trast some truly incestuous witches "act goofy" as Tharavi:yo 

 (Hukthar Havi:yo) did (Devereux, 1939 a). 



An equally strong motivating factor is the belief that only if the 

 witch is killed can he maintain forever his hold over the souls of his 

 victims, and go in their company through subsequent reincarnations. 

 Indeed, should the witch die a natural death, or should he himself 

 become a victim of witchcraft, his control over his victims automati- 

 cally comes to an end ; the souls of his victims are immediately liberated 

 and proceed to the land of the dead, where they join the ghosts of their 

 own relatives and spouses, instead of staying with the ghost of the 

 witch who had killed them. Finally, if a witch waits too long before 

 deciding to join his victims, they may be kidnaped by another witch, 

 who incorporates them into his own retinue of ghosts. 



In brief, a shaman who embarks on a career of witchcraft knows in 

 advance that he will not be able to reap all the potential benefits of his 

 evil deeds unless he sees to it that he is killed before anyone kidnaps 

 his victims, and/or before he himself dies of illness, witchcraft or old 

 age (Devereux, 1937 c). 



(c) Unconscious suicidal impulses and cultural motivation form a 

 structurally unified pattern in Mohave life and culture. From the 

 psychological point of view, cultural specifications regarding the ad- 

 vantages to be derived from committing vicarious suicide perfectly 

 dovetail with the subjective aggressivity, guilt feelings, and reactive 

 self-punitiveness of the Mohave witch. Moreover, the longing of the 

 shaman for the companj'' of his victims not only dovetails with the 

 generalized Mohave belief that ghosts seek to lure the living to the 

 land of the dead (pt. 4, pp. 128-186) , but also helps one to visualize the 

 degree of ambivalence which actuates such "indirect" or imaginary 

 forms of aggression as witchcraft. It is therefore entirely reasonable 

 to assume that, given the Mohave shaman's firm belief in his own 

 powers (Kroeber, 1925 a), the existence of the beliefs just mentioned 

 actually enables the shaman to rationalize and to justify his suicidal 

 impulses. From the cultural point of view the imputation of suicidal 

 wishes to the witch alleviates the witch killer's guilt feelings, since, 

 in killing a witch, one supposedly does him a favor which he himself 

 is said to crave. In fact, it is possible to suggest, at least tentatively, 

 that one of the chief functions of these cultural reasons for commit- 

 ting vicarious suicide is to make possible the actualization of subjec- 

 tive unconscious suicidal wishes in a socially approved manner. 

 Indeed, it is quite probable that if the Mohave witch were not cul- 

 turally encouraged to believe that it is to his advantage to be killed, he 

 might, instead of causing himself to be killed, simply become psychotic 



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