454 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



stressed elsewhere (pt. 7, pp. 298-308), was one of the cherished self- 

 deceptions of this highly emotional tribe. 



Yet, as usual, the Mohave condemned the act more than the person 

 who performed it, and — except in the case of Anyanyema :m, who was 

 condemned for entirely different reasons (Case 111) — they did not 

 actually tease people who had attempted funeral suicide the way they 

 ridiculed those who tried and failed to kill themselves in a private and 

 nonritual manner. At the same time, they seem to have clearly under- 

 stood the temporary nature of such emotional upheavals at funerals, 

 since, unlike, e.g., the vicarious suicide of witches (pt. 7, pp. 387-426), 

 funeral suicide was not explained — or explained away — by saying: 

 "It is their nature, they cannot help it." Instead, they react to such 

 occurrences by saying : "One feels sorry for them — but, all the same, 

 it is a crazy (yamomk) thing to do." 



The fact that would-be funeral suicides are not taunted about their 

 dramatic gesture afterward as well as Hivsu : Tupo :ma's disapproval 

 of Hama: Utce:'s sarcastic comments about Syuly (Case 109), indi- 

 cates that the ritual nature of the gesture is well understood and fully 

 empathized with by the tribe as a whole. In fact, in the absence of 

 an appreciable subjective motivation, the cultural impetus and char- 

 acteristic "type conflicts" (Devereux, 1956 b) underlying such suicidal 

 gestures must, of necessity, be both exceptionally strong and generally 

 understandable, since otherwise no one would ever attempt to leap 

 on the funeral pyre during the cremation itself, w^hich is usually the 

 high point of the "spectacle" ^^ side of Mohave funerals. 



CONCLUSIONS 



Mohave funeral suicide is primarily a ritual gesture, forming a part 

 of a broader pattern which, in its totality, is, when seen only culturally^ 

 a somewhat antisocial and dysfunctional one. This essentially nega- 

 tive cultural behavior was, however, effectively integrated into the 

 structure of Mohave society and culture, by assigning to it the role of 

 a psychological safety valve in a type of crisis which tends to bring to 

 a head some of the major basic conflicts of the Mohave. It is, in fact, 

 quite likely that culturally destructive patterns can be integrated with 

 the total culture pattern only if they provide — or seem to provide — 

 psychologically necessary gratifications and special means for 

 alleviating tensions usually relieved by other means. 



CASE MATERIAL 



CASE 108 (Informants: Hivsu: Tupo :ma and Hama: Utce:) : 



Mu:th, of the Mu :th gens, an approximately 40-year-ol(l fuUhlood Mohave 

 woman, tried to jump on the funeral pyre of her 20-year-old son, CAlea Hi :wa 



'8 This "spectacle" aspect Is so marked that even whites make coiisiderable efforts to be 

 admitted to the cremation grounds — where they often behave In a highly objectionable 

 manner (Burbank, 1944 ; Plckerell, 1957). 



