472 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



wife in terms of Mohave ideas, since, soon after being widowed, slie found 

 another hi;sband in the person of Hakatoktare:(w)a. While these observa- 

 tions do not imply that J. A. was indifferent to his wife's infidelity, they force 

 one to suppose that she must have had certain domestic assets, which, for 

 a Mohave man anxious to have a well-run home, would have outweighed the 

 drawback of her notorious infidelity. We might also add that occasionally a 

 Mohave man gets indignant and violent over his wife's infidelities only after 

 he has already "lined up" another, and seemingly more desirable, prospective 

 wife. 



It should also be noted that, in pestering his son to divorce his wife, the 

 father, Kuu :yteva, violated the rule that one should not become involved in 

 the matrimonial quarrels of other persons, lest the spouses should become recon- 

 ciled and make a common front against the meddler. Hence, in an extreme 

 instance, an unfaithful wife's mother did not interfere until the furious husband 

 actually threatened to shoot his wife (Devereux, 1950 a) . 



Another point concerns the apparent inability of the Mohave Indian to cope 

 effectively with real nagging. Since the cultural and personal aspects of this 

 inability are discussed in connection with Case 118, we simply note in this 

 context that Pi :it (I) (Case 118) killed himself because his wife nagged him, 

 without being also unfaithful to him, while Tunayva Kor (Case 111) shot him- 

 self when his father nagged him for racing his swift horse without his permis- 

 sion. In all of these instances the suicide reacted with despair to what he 

 felt to be as a violation of the cultural rule that one's father, relative, or wife 

 should provide approval and moral support under any condition whatsoever. 

 In the present instance it seems quite certain that the father had certain la- 

 tently hostile feelings toward his son, since he gratuitously "worried" that his 

 cuckolded son might "do something desperate," although there is no evidence 

 whatsoever that J. A. was unusually depressed by his wife's misconduct. 



In brief, while it seems likely that J. A. did not relish the role of a cuckold, 

 he did not become suicidal until his father began to nag him and to make an 

 issue of it. Even more important is the fact that the father, by needlessly seek- 

 ing to prevent his son from doing something desperate, actually caused him to 

 kill himself. Such sequences are quite common in cases of overtly oversolicitous 

 but latently hostile overprotectiveness. It is well to recall in this context that 

 Pi:it (II) (Case 119) also did not become suicidal simply because Po :ta ceased 

 to have adulterous and incestuous relations with him ; he became truly depressed 

 only because their relatives made an issue of this affair. 



Finally, mention should be made of the notorious "temper" of the Kunyii :th 

 gens, to which both father and son belonged, though informants did not refer 

 to this notorious "temper" in connection with J. A.'s suicide, but did mention it 

 in connection with the suicide of J. A.'s brother Pa : hay (Case 117). 



CASE 117 (Informant : Hivsu : Tupo :ma and Hama : Utce :) : 



Name: Pa:hay. Gens: Kunyii :th. Race: Fullblood Mohave. Sex: Male. 

 Age when attempting suicide : 33. Marital status : Married. Children : Pre- 

 sumably none. Parents: Dead (?). Education: Sherman Institute. Occupa- 

 tion: Santa Fe Railroad shops. Date of attempt: 1934 (?). Nature of at- 

 tempt: He tried to kill himself by slashing his throat with a small pocketknife. 

 Motive : Wife's infidelity. Comment : Attempt unsuccessful. 



Paihay knew that his wife (Name: Nyortc. Gens: Nyoltc. Race: Fullblood 

 Mohave. Sex: Female. Age 33. Marital status : Married. Children: (?) (her 

 name shows that she had lost at least one child) was deceiving him with his 

 cousin, whose father was Pa :hay's father's full brother. The seducer was 

 Akwep (Gens: Kunyii :th. Race: Fullblood Mohave. Sex: Male. Age: 28.) 



