418 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



nee mentula nee colei sunt." One man even exclaimed: "(Di me perdant) ni 

 concumbam et tecum et cum 'viro' tuo! Est isti feminae id quod habes et tu !" 

 But don't tell your husband I said so, because your husband will be angry with 

 me." ^ However, tlie girl was getting so tired of being teased that she ended 

 up by complaining of all these sneers to Sahaykwisa :, who became so angry 

 that she told her wife to leave. The girl replied : "If you tell me to go, I shall go," * 

 and left Sahaykwisa : forthwith. 



After a while Sahaykwisa: found herself another wife, who also had to endure 

 a great deal of teasing and ridicule. In addition, people also jeered both at 

 Sahaykwisa :'s former wife and at her new husband, who, be it noted, was not 

 the man she had married after first running away from Sahaykwisa :. People 

 would tell this man : "Age, fodita eam digito : hoc est quod amat ; utere digito : 

 hoc solita est. Ne perdideris mentulam tuam in ilia !" " To make matters worse, 

 Sahaykwisa :'s former wife took it upon herself to tease the hwame:'s current 

 wife: "Non ignoro quid tibi contingat! Digito volvam tuam fodicat ; adhuc 

 dolet mea, ubi ista unguibus rasit." Sahaykwisa :'s current wife resented all 

 this teasing and complained to her "husband" who, this time, instead of getting 

 angry, haughtily replied : "Never mind what my former wife tells you ! She 

 wants to come back to me — that is all !" Sahaykwisa :'s wife insisted that this 

 was not true, but the hwame : retorted : "I know better," and let it go at that.' 



Eventually Sahaykwisa : and her current wife met the former wife and the 

 latter's husband at a dance. When the former wife once more heaped ridicule 

 on Sahaykwisa :'s current wife, the latter felt that she had stood more than 

 enough and decided to have it out with the former wife. At first the two women 

 only hurled insults at each other, but when the men who were present began 

 to egg them on, they actually began to fight. As for Sahaykwisa : and the former 

 wife's current husband, they remained seated, and maintained the dignified 

 bearing befitting men when women are fighting over them. The rest of the 

 crowd behaved, however, in a quite undignified manner and began to jeer at 

 the transvestite : "The hwame : is proud now ! Fingit, puto, sibi mentulam 

 esse!" Finally a practical joker pushed the fighting women on top of Sahay- 

 kwisa:, so that all three rolled around in the dust. Soon after this incident 

 Sahaykwisa :'s current wife also decided that she could not bear the insults any 

 longer and deserted the hwame :. 



The desei'tion of her second wife disappointed Sahaykwisa : a great deal and 

 made her so resentful that she painted her face black, the way a warrior on the 

 warpath, or a man going to fight his wife's seducer does, picked up her bow and 

 arrows and went away (apparently giving people the impression that she was 

 going to fight her eloping wife's paramour.) * We think, however, that she must 



®* It Is Impossible to decide whether this man Ironically pretended to be physically afraid 

 of a pseudo-man, or whether he was actually afraid that Sahaykwisa : would bewitch him. 



1 Compare this wording to the typical Crow expression : "You told me to do It — now I 

 did it," (Lowle, 1935) or to MollSre's celebrated : "Tu I'as voulu, (Jeorges Dandin !" 



* Quod maxime conclnnum videtur esse cum Mohavlorum mentis ratlone, qulppe qui 

 dignitatem quandum niiMitiilae incsso existinient. Itaque cum muller quaedani coitum ab 

 ano posceret, vlr Indl^nabundus : "Pudor," huiult, "est mentulae nieae." Hoc quoque 

 demonstrat Mohavios fastidire quln pudenda muliebra manu tractent, "quia male olentes 

 hoc faclt manus." 



» It seems reasonable to assume that Sahaykwisa : was not only voicing the traditional 

 Mohave belief that a woman who wantonly insults a man is In love with him, l)ut was also 

 objectively right In assuming that her previous wife still struggled with the desire to renew 

 their former relationship. 



* It is noteworthy that Sahaykwisa : — though professing to be a man — took only her 

 bow and arrows and not the war club, which is reserved for senior braves, nor even a 

 straight club or stick of the type which the Mohave use to settle formal fights within the 

 tribe (pt. 7, pp. 356-371). 



