Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 471 



Children: One. Parents: Father alive. Education: Sherman Institute ("better 

 than average"). Occupation: Santa Fe Railroad shops. Date of death: 1928 

 (?). Cause of death: Suicide. He shot himself in the stomach with a .32 

 revolver. Motive: His father nagged him, urging him to leave his adulterous 

 veife. J. A.'s brother Pa :hay, tried to commit suicide 6 years later, probably in 

 1934. 



J. A. was married to: Name: Nyortc Mordmor. Gens: Nyoltc. Race: 

 Fullblood Mohave. Sex: Female. Age: 2.5. Marital status: Married. Chil- 

 dren: One. (Her name indicates that she had lost at least one child.) J. A.'s 

 wife was unfaithful to him and this fact was known both to himself and to his 

 father. His father was: Name: Kuu:yteva. Gens: Kunyiiith. Race: Full- 

 blood Mohave. Sex: Male. Age: 40. Marital status: Widowed. Children: 

 Two sons. Kuu :yteva incessantly pestered his son to leave his wife, "before 

 he did something desperate." This remark is a curious one, since there are no 

 indications that J. A. was thinking of doing anything "desperate." The father's 

 constant nagging so exasperated J. A., that he finally felt that "his father did 

 not like him," presumably because any interference with the relationship be- 

 tween spouses is severely frowned on by the Mohave (Devereux, MS., 1935). 

 One day, at 9 :00 a.m., when his father was again nagging him and telling him to 

 leave his wife, J. A. went into his house at Needles, Calif., and shot himself in 

 the stomach. Since he did not die at once, the Santa Fe Railroad Co., for 

 which he had been working, rushed hun to its hospital at San Bernardino. 

 According to some Mohave, he died on the train, while according to others he 

 died in the hospital. The Mohave then subscribed a sum of money, to cover the 

 expense of having him returned to Needles for cremation. 



Soon after J. A.'s death his wife and child came to Parker. She then married 

 Hakatoktare:(w)a, whose half brother was once allegedly "raped" (sic!) by a 

 certain promiscuous woman in his own bed. 



Comment 



J. A.'s suicide has several features which seem extremely paradoxical to the 

 American mind; he committed suicide not because his wife deceived him, but 

 because his father pestered him to divorce the unfaithful woman. 



Actually, J. A., like some other deceived Mohave husbands, seems to have 

 accepted his wife's infidelity with considerable patience. This passivity is 

 not at all unusual in Mohave society. Thus, the acculturated Hama : Utce : 

 sarcastically remarked in another context: "Some fellows were awful nice 

 about letting people sleep with their wives." A real understanding of this 

 seemingly anomalous patience can only be obtained if one discards the occi- 

 dental notion that marriage is primarily an exclusive love-and-sex relationship 

 and views it instead as a multivalent, functionally multiple relationship. In 

 which a variety of practical reciprocal services wholly overshadow the sexual 

 reciprocity. Otherwise expressed, the core objective of a Mohave marriage is 

 the creation of a home, rather than the establishing of an exclusive sexual 

 relationship. It is to be noted in this context that the informants did not sug- 

 gest that the adulterous Nyortc Moramor was also hard to live with and/or 

 neglected her housewifely duties. In fact, the Mohave definitely specify that 

 some nymphomaniacs (Case 14) are kind persons and good housewives. It is 

 also definitely known that more than one Mohave man is so desirous of finding 

 a wife who takes her domestic work seriously, that he will go to the extreme of 

 divorcing his young and irresponsible wife, in order to marry a better house- 

 keeper, such as his former mother-in-law, or even a male transvestite who 

 glories in performing his "wifely" duties properly (Devereux, 1937 b; Devereux, 

 1951 f). It is also probable that Nyortc Moramor was not a wholly undesirable 



