416 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



(a) As regards the equating of marriages and affairs, the difference between 

 the two is quite minimal in IMohave society. As reported elsewhere (Devereux, 

 1950 a), Melyikha : could not get credit at the Parker stores for quite a while, 

 because no one quite knew whether, on any given day, Hivsu : Tupo :ma was her 

 husband and Ahma Iluma :re her lover, or vice versa. Even the criterion of liv- 

 ing under one roof is not always readily usable, since in many instances a married 

 woman has an affair with a man who lives in the same house, as a relative or 

 as a long-term boarder who has no other home."" 



(b) As regards the equating of assorted kinship ties with each other, not only 

 do classificatory kinship systems equate with each other kinship bonds which 

 are considered quite different in our own kinship system, but it is also important 

 to realize that the unconscious is not an anthropological expert on kinship, and 

 therefore readily confuses not only mother and mother's sisters, but also mother, 

 mother's sister, father's sister, mother-in-law and aunt by marriage.*^ 



CASE 105 (Informant: Hivsu: Tupo:ma, Interpreter: Hama : Utce:) : 



Sahaykwisa: (i.e., Masahay Matkwisa : = giii's shadow or soul), a fullblood 

 Mohave woman of the Nyoltc gens, was born around the middle of the 19th 

 century and was killed toward the end of that century, at the approximate age of 

 45. She was a lesbian transvestite, formally referred to as a hwame:, which 

 suggests that she may actually have undergone the initiation rite for female 

 transvestites (Devereux, 1937 b). Even her personal name appears to have 

 been of the masculine type, since Mohave men often select names referring to 

 women — usually in a derogatory manner — just as some women select names 

 which are a slur on men (Devereux, 1947 a). 



Sahaykwisa : was apparently not a hermaphrodite, since all informants agreed 

 that she was feminine in appeai-ance and had large breasts. On the other hand 

 she allegedly never menstruated in her life. How credible this last statement 

 may be is hard to decide in retrospect. Since Sahaykwisa : professed to be a 

 man, she would certainly not have discussed her menses vsdth anyone. On the 

 other hand, given the fact that the Mohave had no menstrual pads at that 

 time, had she menstruated people could have noticed traces of her menses on 

 her skirts and thighs, although they may have chosen to ignore these telltale 

 stains which were incompatible with her socially accepted "masculinity." 



Her dress, too, was described in somewhat puzzling terms. She is said to have 

 worn short skirts "like a man." Taken literally, this statement is self-contra- 

 dictory, since Mohave men originally wore breeclicloths (Drucker, 1941). Per- 

 haps the informant simply meant to suggest that, unlike most of her female 

 contemporaries, Sahaykwisa : did not wear a Mother Hubbard. Moreover, since 

 she occasionally prostituted herself to whites, it seems necessary to assume that 

 her attire — though unconventional in terms of Mohave standards prevailing at 

 that time — was a predominantly feminine one."* Finally, all inform- 



^ This Is an important specification, since, if such a relative or boarder dies, the liouse 

 must apparently be burned down, exactly as tliough he had a proprietary riglit to, or 

 equity in, the house. 



*i Thus, just as we are puzzled by the habit of some primitives of applying the term 

 "mother" also to the motlier's sister, so those primitives would no doubt be puzzled by 

 our "illogical" and "incompreliensible" tendency to call both the father's and the mother's 

 sister "aunt," while reserving tlie term "mother" both for the real mother and the step- 

 mother. Tlie unconscious simply goes one step further and equates all women of the 

 mother's generation with the mother. 



»- In the old frontier days white prostitutes wore relatively short skirts In saloons and 

 dance lialls. The tendency of primiti\es to consider white women masculine is well known, 

 and is furtlier supported by evidence from the psychoanalysis of a i'iains Indian woman 

 (Devereux 1953 b). The unconscious tendency to consider prostitutes "masculine" is a 

 well documented psychoanalytic fact. 



