Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 509 



8. ATTITUDES 



Mohave attitudes toward excessive drinking must be differentiated 

 from their attitudes toward excessive drinkers. On the whole, the 

 Mohave do not feel that drinking is a manly act. It is simply a thing 

 which some people do and others do not. Thus, although several of 

 my Mohave friends chided me in 1932 for not inhaling my cigarettes 

 "like a man" (Devereux, 1948 a), none of them ever bothered to com- 

 ment on the fact that I did not drink. A moderate amount of "social 

 drinking," especially if it does not lead to a sexual orgy or to aggres- 

 sive behavior, is viewed as a normal and pleasurable form of relaxa- 

 tion. Excessive drinking is, however, freely criticized. Thus, one day, 

 in the course of an inquiry into the Mohave conception of human status, 

 I asked my octogenarian informant Tcatc to comment on the old adage, 

 "The more I know people, the better I like dogs." She replied : "The 

 things I saw in my youth, when I was old enough to remember what I 

 saw, were better than . . . what one sees nowadays. People behaved 

 differently. Take for example these constant rumors of incest . . . 

 they would have been unthinkable in the old days. In my youth the 

 Mohave did not even know what alcoholic intoxication meant." This 

 comment reveals a severely condemnatory attitude toward alcoholic 

 excesses, since Tcatc paired them with incest, which is one of the great- 

 est crimes in Mohave society (Devereux, 1939 a), especially because it 

 is frequently associated with witchcraft (Devereux, 1937 c). (The 

 psychological significance of this "accidental" pairing of incest with 

 intoxication will be discussed further below.) The Mohave therefore 

 attempt to interfere with the propensities of severe drunkards (Case 

 138) and are not offended when known nondrinkers refuse a drink. 



The Mohave Indian's condemnation of drunkenness is tempered by 

 his regard for the human being who is unfortunate enough to be a 

 drunkard. Yet, none of my informants ever defended inebriates by 

 propounding the traditional plea of temperamental determinism (i.e., 

 "it is his nature, he cannot help it") which, in Mohave society, serves 

 to mitigate and to explain the offensive or antisocial conduct of some 

 individuals (Devereux, 1939 b). On the whole, the intoxicated indi- 

 vidual is usually treated like an ordinary person, and the habitual 

 drunkard is pitied rather than blamed. Thus, even though Hama: 

 Utce: abhorred dnmkenness, she freely admitted that two alcoholic 

 brothers were fundamentally kind and good people (Case 138). 



Occasional drunkenness is not penalized and elicits relatively little 

 gossip. Drunken misbehavior tends to be laughed at and gossiped 

 about, but is condemned less severely than the disorderly behavior of 

 sober persons. In this respect the Mohave pattern resembles not the 

 French, but the American attitude, which condemns drunkenness less 

 severely than disorderly acts committed in a state of intoxication. 



