474 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuU. 175 



Cluster E : 



CASE 118 (Informants : Hivsu : Tupo :ma and Hama : Utce :) : 



Name: Pi:it (I). Gens:Nyoltc. Race : Fuliblood Mohave. Sex: Male. Age 

 at death: 25 (?). Marital status : Married. Children : None. Parents: Living. 

 Education: Indian Agency School, Parker. Occupation: Farmer. Date of 

 death: 1901 (?). Cause of death: Suicide. He shot himself in the heart with 

 a .44 revolver. Motive : He was nagged by his wife. 



Name of wife : Hidhi : k. Gens : Tcatc. Race : Fuliblood Mohave. Sex : 

 Female. Age : 30. Marital status : Married. Children : None. Occupation : 

 Housewife. 



Pi: it (I) was a "homebody," whereas his wife was extremely fond of at- 

 tending Mohave dances. Although she did not misbehave at dances, she was 

 so eager to participate in them that she constantly nagged her husband to go 

 to the dances with her, ignoring his repeatedly expressed wish to stay home. 

 One evening some Yuma Indians, on their way from Needles to Yuma, gave a 

 dance at Parker. Hidhi : k again tried to induce her husband to take her to 

 this dance, but, "even though the Mohave love to hear the Yuma sing," she 

 could not persuade him to take her to the dance. She thereupon decided to go 

 to it alone, while her husband went to sleep on the roof, which is a favorite 

 sleeping place of the Mohave in warm weather. While tossing about, he kept 

 thinking of his wife's incessant nagging. Eventually his wife came back from 

 the dance and nagged him some more, trying to prevail on him to attend the rest 

 of the all-night dance. When Pi:it (I) refused once more and said: "Very 

 well! I am going to kill myself and then you will be free to go to dances," 

 Hidhi :k became frightened and begged him not to kill himself. Unmoved by 

 her pleas, he climbed ofC the roof before his wife could stop him, went into 

 the house and shot himself in the heart, even though his wife, who had scram- 

 bled down after him, kept on begging him not to kUl himself. 



Comment 



Pi: it (I) was the paternal half brother of a man (Case 119) who committed 

 suicide some 27 years later. His sister, the wife of Ahma Huma : re, died in 

 childbirth, which severely traumatized both her husband and her son (Devereux, 

 1948 e). 



The present case is somewhat unusual, since the henpecked husband is quite 

 exceptional in Mohave society, despite the fact that the Mohave man is any- 

 thing but a domestic tyrant, and wife beating an almost unheard-of occurrence. 

 On the other hand, extreme gentleness is far from being exceptional behavior 

 in a Mohave husband.* It is also significant that the Mohave seems to be 

 incapable of tolerating, or of coping with, nagging, be it that of a wife or that 

 of a parent (Case 116), and may respond to it by killing himself. This may 

 be due to the fact that, like theft (Case 76), tenacious nagging is an anal char- 

 acter trait, which is beyond the pale of the Mohave value system (Devereux, 

 1951 c), and therefore so unexpected, that cultural means for its control are 

 apparently altogether lacking. 



On the whole, this suicide belongs in the category of suicidal acts triggered by 

 disappointment over the inappropriate conduct of a relative, even though, on 

 the manifest level, it represents — technically at least — suicide motivated by 

 marital discord. 



As regards Hidhi : k's flightiness and thirst for amusement, it fits in every 

 respect the Mohave thesis that women are much flightier than are men. It will 



' Hama : Utce : told me that her husband's extreme gentleness sometimes exasperated 

 her (Devereux, 1937 b). 



