Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 433 



a penalized or forbidden act should be committed.^^ Indeed, in this 

 instance it is the act itself, rather than a particular way of commit- 

 ting some act, which is both prescribed and forbidden. This type of 

 ambiguousness appears to arise chiefly in connection with once highly 

 prized, but increasingly obsolescent, pattems.^^ 



A clear grasp of the ambiguous position of funeral suicide in Mo- 

 have culture is indispensable for a real understanding of the funda- 

 mentally ritual character of this grand but empty gesture, of the 

 predictable failure of nearly every attempted funeral suicide and, 

 finally, of the frequent lack of a true and generally understandable 

 subjective and specific motivation. Moreover, only if these points 

 are clearly understood is it possible to perceive the fundamental con- 

 nection between funeral suicide and the throwing of property on the 

 funeral pyre. 



The act or gesture. — At the cremation of a spouse or member of the 

 immediate family, the chief mourner sometimes tried to kill himself 

 by jumping on the funeral pyre of the deceased. According to the 

 Mohave, women were more prone than men to attempt this form of 

 suicide — possibly because women are less ready than men are to ac- 

 cept irreversible losses with dignified stoicism. This statement, if 

 taken literally, is not supported by the four available case histories, 

 hftlf of which pertain to men. Nor do the case histories seem to sup- 

 port the further assertion that women are more prone than men to 

 attempt suicide by leaping on the pyre of a deceased spouse^ since one 

 of the two persons who tried to do so was a man, though his attempt 

 was obviously far less resolute than that of the suicidal widow.^^ It 



8" The binding character of such specifications is quite definite (Devereux, 1940 a). 

 Such patterns are marlcedly present in criminal activities which Tannenbaum (1938) 

 rightly views as institutional. Moreover, the ritual nature of patterns of misconduct is 

 especially apparent in the activities of the Thugs, whose murderous activities had a reli- 

 gious character, derived from a special justificatory myth. The same is true, albeit to a 

 somewhat lesser extent, of the so-called criminal tribes of India (Cox, 1911 ; Cressey, 1936 ; 

 Hasanat, n. d. ; Owens, 1941; M. Taylor, 1839; etc.). 



37 In early 20th century Hungary the duel had a similarly ambiguous position. Women 

 were proud of having a duel fought over them, though they trembled for their men and 

 knew that having a duel fought over them could impair their reputation, while making 

 them, at the same time, the envy of other women. Society despised the man who did not 

 fight a duel when it seemed proper to do so, but, at the same time, enacted laws against 

 duels. The law itself was equally ambiguous. It defined dueling as a crime, but specified 

 that it was not a "dishonorable" crime. Convicted duelists were Imprisoned in a "fortress" 

 (run like a country club), rather than in an ordinary jail. They were confined to the 

 fortress, but it was forbidden to lock them in their cells, which they were permitted to 

 redecorate before being imprisoned, just as they could order their food and beverages from 

 the outside. The law was, moreover, administered by judges and prosecutors who were 

 quite as ready to duel as everyone else, and who, after prosecuting and convicting a duelist 

 in strictest accordance with the law, visited him in the fortress with basketfuls of roast 

 fowl and wine, and played cards with him day after day. 



^ Insofar as one can discuss "statistics" In connection with only four cases, the only 

 significant differences between men and women are that: (o) the only would-be suicide 

 who had an understandable subjective motive was a man, and (b) that whereas a father 

 attempted funeral suicide when his son (child of the same sex) died (identification), a 

 mother tried to leap on the funeral pyre of her son (child of the opposite sex) who had 

 just died (counter-oedipal impulse). 



