Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 515 



order to explain his conspicuously deviant behavior, the most atypical part of 

 vrhich was not the incest, but the robbery — an almost unheard-of thing in 

 Mohave society. ( Cf . also Case 15. ) 



A systematic discussion of the motivation of drunken aggressive- 

 ness must emphasize primarily divergences between Mohave and 

 white conceptions of what constitutes "adequate provocation" justi- 

 fying aggression. 



(a) The following excerpt from Case 24 illustrates the type of 

 drunken aggressiveness which l^.Iohave and white opinion alike w^ould 

 describe as "unprovoked brutality." 



CASE 129. 



O :otc, whose half-sister allegedly helped her husband kill a witch (Devereux, 

 1948 f, and Case 104), was faithful to her husband and behaved the way a 

 good wife should. However, she left him in the end, because he drank to excess 

 and abused both her and their small son. While separated from her husband, 

 she too began to drink to excess, but denied having had affairs during that 

 period. Eventually she married a sober and kindly man and was, by 1938, 

 simply a very moderate "social drinker." (Cf. also Case 24.) 



(b) The question whether, in the case histoiy about to be cited, 

 the provocation was sufficient to elicit extreme physical violence, will 

 be answered in one way by the Mohave and in another way be a 

 member of our own society. White moralists, lawyers, and psycholo- 

 gists will hold that the provocation was more than adequate, since 

 their basic frame of reference is the axiom that premeditated sexual 

 infidelity, especially when "insult is added to injury," automatically 

 justifies aggression. The Mohave, on the other hand, feel that only 

 an intoxicated or unreasonable person would degi*ade himself to 

 the extent of fighting over a mere matter of infidelity, even 

 though they too would mianimously characterize the wife's behavior 

 as objectionable.^ 



CASE 130 (Informants: Hiusu : Tupo:ma and Hama : Utce:) : 



P. lived "near the ball-place" with his wife G., who had formerly been J.'s 

 mistress. One day when P. had bought some liquor, J., who happened to be 

 visiting them, winked at his former mistress, thereby asking her to help him 

 get P. drunk. J. even pretended to drink heavily himself, although he managed 

 to stay more or less sober. After a while P. became quite drunli and began to 

 doze off. "You go outside and wait for me," J. told G. After her departure, 

 he continued to force drinks on P., until he believed that the husband had 

 "passed out" completely. He then locked the door from the outside, imprisoning 

 P. in the house, and went to join G. The husband, less drunk than J. had 

 supposed, became suspicious however, and managed to struggle to his feet in 



"It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the merits of the Mohave point of 

 view regarding jealousy. Yet, one cannot help being amazed by the tenacity with which 

 modern psychologists — including even an extremist like Wilhelm Reich — cling to the 

 view that jealousy is, in its entirety, a natural and innate sentiment, in the face of at 

 least partly contradictory evidence furnished not only by anthropologists and historians, 

 but even by students of primate zoology (Maslow, 1940). Homines id quod volunt 

 credunt ! 



