452 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



of grief as well as of ordinarily repressed destructive, hostile and self - 

 destructive impulses, and therefore, by intensifying mourning be- 

 havior during the funeral, tends to abridge intrapsychic mourning, 

 which the ISIohave seek to limit to 4 days J^ 



It may, conceivably, be objected that we imputed to the Mohave a 

 hostility toward the dead and an acquisitiveness which are not con- 

 firmed by their ordinary behavior. This objection is both anthro- 

 pologically and psychologically untenable. The Mohave Indian's 

 hostility to the dead is revealed by his habit of wailing before the 

 patient is actually dead, his former proneness to place the body on 

 the pyre before the sick person was actually dead (McNichols, 1944; 

 see also Case 6), and his fear of ghosts, who seek to lure the living to 

 the land of the dead and whose very name he intends to forget. The 

 repressed acquisitiveness of the Mohave Indian, though perfectly 

 controlled, and even sublimated into generosity, in his daily life, 

 is revealed by the fact that he imputes a marked acquisitiveness to 

 ghosts, and especially to those ghosts who return to earth for additional 

 property in the shape of twins (pt. 7, pp. 848-356). This sudden 

 "change of character" — for the worse — which the Mohave impute to 

 the dead is the perfect psychological equivalent of the process which 

 requires occidental man to impute a change of character — for the 

 better — to the dead, and which he voices by means of such expressions 

 as "my sainted grandmother" or "de mortuis nil, nisi honumy In 

 fact, the characteristics ascribed to ghosts are usually those which 

 people have to inhibit — or have markedly failed to manifest — in life.'^° 

 The most telling argument in favor of the legitimacy of imputing 

 even to the warmliearted and generous Mohave certain hostilities and 

 some acquisitive and hoarding impulses is that such impulses are uni- 

 versal human characteristics. The Mohave are not kind and generous 

 because they lack all hostility and acquisitiveness, but because a series 

 of historical accidents led them to evolve a culture which facilitates 

 the control and suhlhnation of these impulses to an unusual extent. 

 The fact that their finest traits represent sublimations of less desir- 

 able ones does not cancel their good qualities any more than the 

 manure used to fertilize a flower garden impairs the scent of roses. 



Acculturation. — The dates of the case histories, recorded in 1936, 

 indicate that, already two decades ago, funeral suicide was rapidly be- 



''^ During the 4 days which follow a death, the name of the deceased can apparently be 

 mentioned, and one may even dream of sexual i-elatlons with the deceased without con- 

 tracting a ghost illness (pt. 4, pp. 128-186). The parents of a dead child must, however, 

 refrain from coitus, lest the woman should become sterile (Devereux, 148 b). 

 After the 4 days have elapsed, the name of the deceased may no longer be mentioned, his 

 property and dwelling are destroyed, and dreams about the deceased cause a ghost illness, 

 since, at the end of the 4 days, the deceased ceases to revisit his old haunts and proceeds 

 to the land of the dead. 



■"> The same is, of course, true of the characteristics imputed to "the enemy," which 

 further proves that the Mohave equate the dead with enemies (Fathauer, 1951 ; and 

 pt. 4, pp. 128-150). 



