Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 519 



ious witch might be killed (pt. 7, pp. 307^26) ; a conspicuously 

 olfensive and dissolute kamalo:y might be raped and clitoridec- 

 tomized (Devereux, 19-18 f). Yet, on the whole, life within the 

 Mohave tribe was smgularly peaceful and free of violence and 

 extreme suspiciousness. It was white conquest which brought 

 in its train a radical modification in JMohave patterns of aggression. 



The first decades of reservation life were characterized by a 

 crisis in the management of aggressions, brought about by the for- 

 cible suppression of intertribal warfare. Smce aggressivity could 

 no longer find an outlet through traditional channels, the Mohave 

 had to cast about for new outlets. The crisis was marked by a 

 temporary flareup of internecine killings which, on closer investi- 

 gation, appear to have been substitutes for aggression against the 

 miconquerable whites. Thus, the Mohave murdered a Yuma Li- 

 dian, although the culturally kindred Yuma were their traditional 

 allies. Another Yuma, acting as an emissary for the U.S. Army in 

 negotiations for the release of a white girl, was allegedly threatened 

 with death (Stratton, 1857). Shamans were killed for starting 

 "strange" (i.e., presumably, imported) epidemics (pt. 7, pp. 387- 

 426). Some halfbreed infants were buried at birth (Devereux, 

 1948 d). Each of these mcidents was complicated by the problem 

 of escaping the punishment likely to be meted out by the reserva- 

 tion authorities. Yet, neither private strife with the Yuma, nor 

 witch killings, nor infanticide, ever reached epidemic proportions, 

 probably because the Mohave is not particularly prone to deflect 

 his aggressivity from the strong to the weak. 



The availability of large quantities of alcoholic beverages like- 

 wise failed to open up adequate new avenues for the manifestation 

 of aggressions, perhaps because the stern w^arrior ideal was too 

 deeply embedded in the Mohave group ideal to enable them to 

 accept the drunken bully as an adequate substitute for, and as a 

 reasonable facsimile of, the kwanami :hye hero. 



In brief, precisely because the Mohave were traditionally unwill- 

 ing to borrow the ideology of other groups, they had to grope for 

 a new solution compatible with the basic themes of their own culture. 



In concrete terms, the disappearance of traditional outlets for 

 aggression and the multiplication of new frustrations appear to 

 have been compensated for by the attrition of certain traditional 

 frustrations and controls. In this manner the overall amount of 

 frustration was maintained at a constant level and the frustrated 

 warrior was permitted to gratify his thwarted ambitions through 

 unlimited sexual conquests. 



This reaction to externally imposed pressures can be analyzed in 

 cultural as well as in psychological terms. 



