Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 517 



CASE 131 (Informants: Hivsu: Tupo:ma and Hama : Utce:) : 



Around 1900, the pregnant wife of Mukoh (to hit against; the name refers 

 to a game), a resident of Needles, left him and married Vaha Munyu: (=guts 

 fights-over). The latter, in conformity with Mohave beliefs concerning the 

 possibility of changing the paternity of an unborn child (Devereux, 1937 d, 

 1949 c), thereupon claimed Mukoh's infant as his own. Mukoh, as the pro- 

 creator, also had a culturally acceptable claim to the paternity of the child, and 

 therefore did not cease to assert that it was his. Relations between Mukoh 

 and Vaha Munyu : were therefore extremely strained, and over a period of 4 

 years the two men engaged in several drunken fights. One day, when both 

 of them happened to be drunk, Mukoh went to Vaha Munyu :'s house and 

 shouted that he would kill him. When Vaha Munyu : replied : "Come on then 

 and kill me," Mukoh picked up an iron rod and hit his rival on the side of 

 the head so hard that Vaha Munyu :'s "brains came out." "You said you would 

 kill me, and now I am as good as dead !" Vaha Munyu : exclaimed as he fell. 

 Mukoh was immediately arrested. When Vaha Munyu : died the next day, his 

 stepfather went to the jail and asked that Mukoh be released, so that the 

 Mohave could even up the score by killing him. However, the authorities trans- 

 ferred Mukoh to the San Bernardino jail. After serving a term in prison, Mukoh 

 settled down among the kindred Yuma Indians, not daring to return to the 

 Mohave Reservation. Nonetheless, he did visit Parker several times, and, in 

 1930, even went to Needles, where the murder had taken place. He was, how- 

 ever, still afraid that someone might wish to avenge Vaha Munyu :'s death, 

 although most of his victim's relatives had died in the meantime. (Pulyi:k 

 professed never to have heard of this incident, which had been reported in 

 detail by Hivsu : Tupo : ma.) 



Comment 



Valia Mimyu:'s almost provocatively passive attitude in the face 

 of certain death is of considerable interest, since it closely approxi- 

 mates the behavior of witches who are about to be killed (pt. 7, pp. 

 387^26). It seems likely that his passivity was motivated by rela- 

 tively intense guilt feelings. This inference does not explain, how- 

 ever, why Vaha Munyu : should have chosen to imitate, out of context, 

 a pattern of behavior which is characteristic of another segment of 

 culture, smce only witches, and, to a lesser extent, the kwanami : hye 

 heroes (Kroeber, 1925 a; Stewart, 1947 c), are expected to accept 

 deatli stoically. The notorious grandiosity of some inebriates also 

 fails to explain Vaha Munyu :'s pseudo-heroic pose, unless alcoholic 

 intoxication were in some way miconsciously related to witchcraft. 

 The possibility of such a nexus between alcoholism and witchcraft 

 will be discussed further below. 



Aggressive actions, committed while drunk, fall into several 

 categories : 



1. Overt aggression. 



(a) Minor explosions of aggressivity due to intoxication pure and 

 simple are exemplified by drunken scuffles. 



(h) Aggression motivated entirely by threats to the individual's 

 subjective security system is exemplified by P.'s wounding of his 

 adulterous wife (Case 130). 



