442 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



mourner.^" The few nonfuneral suicides triggered by the death of a 

 person not a member of the mourner's immediate family were, more- 

 over, preceded by a long period of brooding and led to informal, non- 

 ritual attempts to commit suicide in private (pt. 7, pp. 459-484) . It is 

 therefore this latter type of suicide — actuated by a subjective delayed 

 mourning reaction — rather than funeral suicide which reflects an ex- 

 ceptionally intense emotional involvement, and, significantly, it is this 

 type of suicide which the Mohave themselves explain, in case after case, 

 in strictly psychological terms. 



This being said, it is perhaps desirable to stress that the ready 

 availability of some relatively "respectable" social motivation may 

 partly inhibit the development of a more subjective motivation, or 

 else encourage a partial repression of an effective subjective motiva- 

 tion. This thesis is not incompatible with the view expressed else- 

 where in this work that all action results from the interplay of 

 sociocultural and subjective motives. 



Fy/neral suicide and the cremation of property. — Funeral suicide is 

 closely articulated with the total cremation pattern, which involves 

 not only the burning of the corpse, but also of the deceased person's 

 entire estate and dwelling.^^ The prospect of being suddenly left 

 without a roof and of having to burn even (some of?) their personal 

 property which the dwelling inhabited by the deceased contains, in- 

 duces many young couples to leave their aged parents and to seek 

 another shelter which, while possibly less comfortable, is less likely 

 to have to be burned down in the foreseeable future. In brief, the sev- 

 erance of the child's bonds with its prenatal — or prehuman — existence 

 is stressed quite as consistently as the severance of the relationship 

 between the living and the dead. 



The bonds which tie the dead to the land of the living are severed 

 through the cremation of his corpse, his dwelling, and his property, 

 since, if this is not done, the ghost will return to earth to get what 

 belongs to him.^^ The dead man's corpse and his property are piled 

 on one and the same pyre and are cremated so as to insure that the 

 "soul" or "essence" of his property will go with him to the land of 

 ghosts. Hence, many otherwise generous persons even begin to hoard 



™ Kinsmen and friends were expected to help a needy person, but only if his immediate 

 family was unable to provide assistance. 



"The only death which docs not malie the burning of the dwelling and all it contains 

 mandatory is that of a cliild whose "house" is still the cradle (Devereux, 1948 c) and 

 whose soul does not go to the land of the dead, but into a rat hole, since the child did not 

 live long enough to have its chin tattooed. In such cases the cradle is broken and thrown 

 Into the Colorado River. 



62 When there is a scarcity of goods or crops in the land of the dead, two ghosts, who 

 will be born as twins, are sent to earth to obtain additional funeral property (pt. 7, 

 pp. 348^56). 



