440 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



suicidal mourning reactions. This inference is strongly supported by 

 the fact that adequately motivated people would manage to commit 

 funeral suicide successfully, no matter what precautions the secondary 

 mourners may take to prevent it.*^ 



The most telling argument in support of the thesis that funeral 

 suicide is simply a ritual gesture is, however, that Mohave Indians 

 whose suicidal mourning reaction is genuine nearly always manage to 

 put an end to their lives. Those who have conscious^ but purely sub- 

 jective, mourning depressions kill themselves in private (pt. 7, 

 pp. 459-484), those whose conscious subjective suicidal urges are rein- 

 forced by certain esclidtologlcal heJ'iefs maneuver others into killing 

 them (pt. 7, pp. 387-426), while those whose suicidal mourning re- 

 actions are more or less unconscious allow the ghosts of their deceased 

 spouses or relatives to lure them in dream to the land of the dead, and 

 develop one of several potentially "fatal" ghost diseases (pt. 4, pp. 

 128-186) which represent "psychic suicides" (Brill, 1934 ; Mauss, 1926 ; 

 Yawger, 1936) . All of these three types of suicide are usually success- 

 ful, presumably because they are subjectively motivated and because 

 the person wishing to kill himself does not indulge in a grandiose pub- 

 lic gesture, but kills himself, or causes himself to be killed, in private, 

 and in the most efficient manner possible. 



The conspicuous absence of a subjective motivation in most Mohave 

 fmieral "suicides" can be readily correlated with the type of affective 

 involvement ("libidinal bond") approved of by Mohave society. The 

 traditional pattern of such commitments (pt. 3, pp. 91-106, pt. 7, pp. 

 298-326) was a broad network of moderately intense involvenients. 

 Hence, in aboriginal times, all strong subjective reactions to the loss 

 of a spouse or sweetheart were considered extreme, those exceeding a 

 certain limit being defined as hi :wa itck (pt. 3, pp. 91-106) . Althougli 

 this pattern has changed somewhat in modern tim.es (pt. 7, pp. 308- 

 326), the ideal type of emotional involvement continues to be the ami- 

 able, helpful, and affectionate, but not excessive, devotion of a person 

 to his spouse, his kin, his friends, and the tribe as a whole, xit first 

 blush, the atypical pattern of excessive emotional involvement appears 

 to be present also in funeral suicides. This, however, is an entirely 

 misleading impression. For example, the real motivating factor in 

 Anyanyema :m's attempt (Case 111) was not so much tenderness and 

 love, as guilt over liaving driven his son to suicide. Utu ira's gesture 

 (Case 110) was so conspicuously halfhearted that it can barely rate 

 as a sucidal attempt, and therefore does not suggest that he was too 

 intensely involved with his deceased Avife. Mu:th (Case 108) did 

 seem to be very devoted to her son, but her devotion represented a type 



*8 Every psychiatrist knows that really determined people manage to commit suicide 

 even while physically restrained and constantly watched. 



