444 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



as I was of them, and because they had never expected to see me again after I 

 left them in 1933 to go to Indochina, but also because they knew that I was 

 genuinely devoted to the admirable old gentleman whose death all of us were 

 mourning. 



Shortly before her father-in-law's death HamarUtce: had made for him 

 an exceptionally fine Mohave bead belt'" of a type which, even during the 

 depression, commanded a good price from tourists and which takes many scores 

 of hours to make. During the entire cry Sumuramura, an extraordinarily 

 gentle and generous man, most of the time either examined regretfully, or else 

 actually wore his father's fine bead belt. These acts probably meant that, quite 

 apart from its keepsake value, SumuramurJi, in his own gentle and wistful way, 

 was manifesting not only his carefully controlled, and perhaps unconscious, re- 

 sentment over having to destroy so beautiful and valuable an object, but also a 

 certain amount of identification with his dead father. 



If a man so incredibly generous that his own generous wife some- 

 times teased him for being too good-natured (Devereux, 1937 b) 

 showed some reluctance to destroy an object made by his wife and 

 given to his dead father, it seems reasonable to assume that less gen- 

 erous mourners would experience a gi-eat deal of unverbalized resent- 

 ment over the obligatory cremation of property. This, presumably, 

 explains why the cremation of the corpse and of property elicits a 

 great deal of emotionality, which is often whipped up to a veritable 

 frenzy (Hall, 1903; Burbank, 1944; McNichols, 1944; Pickerell, 1957) 

 by the eerie sight of the flaming pyre, the occasional movements of the 

 burning corpse (Drucker, 1941, and pt. 7, pp. 389-392) , the shrill wail- 

 ing of mourning women, the impassioned oratory of funeral officials, 

 and the exhaustion induced by a prolonged vigil and real grief. Such 

 a state of exaltation can — at least occasionally — crystalize into one of 

 two — diametrically opposite — reactions: on the one hand one meets 

 with cases of attempted suicide and, on the other hand, with brazenly 

 scandalous sexual behavior which, in one instance at least, involved 

 the attempt to rape a woman who had offended one of the men present 

 with certain highly improper taunts (Devereux, 1947 a). 



In some cases the destruction is not limited to the objects which 

 actually belonged to the deceased. At certain important funerals the 

 mourners even tear off their own clothes and hurl them, together with 

 some of their other possessions, into the flames, while in at least one 

 instance (Hall, 1903), when there was nothing left to destroy, the 

 Mohave went to town and bought additional things to be cast into 

 the flames. The frenzied nature of such acts clearly indicates that 

 they represent an "aggressive overcompliance" with cultural 

 demands — a type of reaction which automatically implies the presence 

 of strong, but strenuously inhibited, wishes to preserve all of the 

 property for those who had been permitted to use it while its owner 

 was still alive. 



^ In 1933 Hama : Utce : had made a similar belt for me, as a farewell present. 



