Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 473 



Marital status: Presumably single). Pa:hay repeatedly said that he would 

 commit suicide if the affair did not cease. One day he was looking for the 

 adulterous couple and found them sleeping together in the house of one of his 

 relatives, called Huyatc (Gens: Mah. Race: FuUblood Mohave. Sex: Male. 

 Age: 55). Huyatc was Pa : hay's second cousin; their fathers' mothers were 

 sisters. Pa :hay did not waken the couple, and left Huyatc's house as quietly 

 as he had entered it, believing that no one had seen him. He then returned 

 to his own house, without realizing that he was being followed by Huyatc, who 

 feared that Pa :hay might try to kill himself. Huyatc saw Pa :hay go into his 

 house, where, "not having a gun," he slashed at his throat with a pocketknife. 

 Although this incident took place at night, immediate medical assistance was 

 obtained from Needles, Calif., so that Pa:hay's life was saved. The Mohave 

 still laugh about Pa :hay's abortive attempt to kill himself and joke about the 

 proverbial temper of the Kunyii :th gens. 



Pa:hay's brother J. A. (Case 116), with whom he was on excellent terms, 

 committed suicide some 6 years earlier, because his father had been pestering 

 him to divorce his adulterous wife. 



Comments 



Pa:hay's case is, in many respects, similar to that of his brother J. A. (Case 

 IIG). Both were relatively well educated, worked for the railroad, and were 

 married to women of the Nyoltc gens, who deceived them. Both had reasons 

 to be displeased with the behavior of their own kin : J. A.'s father nagged him 

 to divorce his adulterous wife, while Pa :hay's relative Huyatc went to the 

 other extreme, helping the wife to commit adultery by letting her use his home 

 for that purpose." In both instances, the meddling relative was worried that 

 the deceived husband might do something desperate. The father made explicit 

 statements of this nature, while Huyatc, realizing that Pa :hay had seen the 

 adulterous couple asleep together, secretly followed the deceived husband to 

 his home, thereby presumably saving his life by promptly calling for help. 



In both cases the suicidal attempt was a rather clumsy one : Pa :hay, "having 

 no gun," cut his throat with a small pocketknife and was saved, while his 

 brother J. A. lived several hours after shooting himself in the abdomen, instead 

 of in the head or heart, thereby revealing that his suicidal attempt was a rela- 

 tively halfhearted one. 



It is also permissible to suppose that Pa :hay reacted to his wife's infidelity 

 with suicidalness, because — by Mohave standards — his brother J. A. had prac- 

 tically been forced to oveiYeact to his wife's infidelity. 



In brief, all available data indicate that Pa :hay's suicidal attempt — and 

 even his suicidal threats ^^ — appear to have been heavily influenced by the sui- 

 cide of his brother and model J. A., and also by the expectations which his 

 father Kuu :yteva voiced when J. A.'s wife committed adultery. The fact that 

 he bungled the attempt, by using a mere pocketknife,^^ also suggests that his 

 action did not express real resolution, but only a rather superficial compliance 

 with motivationally inadequate internal and external expectations. 



These factors, when taken together, clearly suggest that the suicides of these 

 brothers are genuinely linked together and form a psychologically coherent 

 "cluster." 



*' As a rule, the Mohave neither Interfere with, nor encourage, extramarital relations. 



«* Compare the father's gratuitous fears that J. A. may do "something desperate" be- 

 cause of his wife's Infidelity. 



»o Would-be suicides who try to cut their throats usually bungle the job. Even those 

 who actually kill themselves In this manner do not, at first, inflict more than shallow 

 wounds (called "hesitation marks") upon themselves. 



