PAKT 8. CONCLUSION 



HavTa dela Kat Travra avdpdcKiva 

 — Hippocrates. 



GENESIS AND VALIDITY OF MOHAVE PSYCHIATRY 



The Introduction stressed the accuracy of Mohave clinical descrip- 

 tions and the unsystematic, spotty but extensive compatibility of 

 Mohave psychiatric thought with modern psychoanalytic theory and 

 indicated that these two phenomena stood in need of explanation. 



Neither of these two facts would surprise the Mohave themselves, 

 since they ascribe universal validity to their psychiatric thories. Thus, 

 the "highstrung" personality of an American was believed to have been 

 due to premature sexual relations (Devereux, 1950 a), another 

 was believed to have the hikwirr illness, while still another is 

 said to have had the atcoo :r hanyienk type of convulsions. In fact, 

 whites are believed to be relatively immune only to foreign sickness. 

 Yet, even in that connection one Mohave at least suggested that, despite 

 the relative weakness of the Mohave Indian's "blood," contact with a 

 Mohave may also have mildly deleterious effects on whites. In addi- 

 tion, Ahma Huma:re specified without any prompting on my part 

 that he could cure even whites who had hiwey lak, while Tcatc 

 spontaneously gave me "supportive psychotherapy" at a time when I 

 was supposed to have hi :wa itck. Even Hivsu : Tupo :ma, who de- 

 clared that he was not able to treat white patients, freely interpreted 

 some of my dreams. Finally, even though some of the information 

 which I provided about the symptoms of white and Sedang Moi 

 neurotics or psychotics elicited consternation, and while the Mo- 

 have are always ready to draw invidious comparisons between their 

 ethnic character and that of whites, the symptoms of alien patients 

 did not seem to impress them as "non-human" and "beyond empathy." 



Before we attempt to account for the presence of these extensive 

 congruences, we must seek to explain why there is any Mohave folk 

 psychiatry at all. 



THE GENESIS OF MOHAVE PSYCHIATRY 



Neither science nor pseudoscience comes into being for its own sake, 

 but always in response to a socially significant challenge, which has 

 an appreciable "social and/or cultural mass" ( Devereux, 1940 b ) . Yet, 

 even though the mentally deranged person possesses a great "social 

 mass" — i. e., the capacity to trigger social action and to influence the 



485 



