520 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



A cultural analysis of this reaction to white pressures must seek 

 to discover why the attrition of almost all sexual controls did not 

 turn the Mohave into an American equivalent of the detribalized, 

 slum-dwelling African native (Carothers, 1947; W. Sachs, 1947), 

 whoso behavior is asocial both in African and in European terms, 

 and why Mohave culture did not disintegrate as a result of the 

 effective removal of almost all sexual inhibitions. 



It is of some importance to find a correct answer to these ques- 

 tions, since, according to what I, for one, construe to be 

 crypto-deviant psychoanalytic theory, instinctual frustration is an 

 indispensable prerequisite of socialization and of educability. This 

 untenable thesis is only partly supported by the observation that 

 many originally ritualistic and more or less puritanical societies 

 actually disintegrated as a result of excessive sexual laxity. 



In Mohave society, however, sexual indulgence was always a major, 

 and culturally approved, pattern of behavior (Devereux, 1950 a). 

 Hence, the extreme attrition of the few traditional sexual controls did 

 not constitute a radical modification of the basic themes of Mohave 

 culture. It merely broadened the scope and exaggerated the value of 

 a behavioral theme which was already an important component of the 

 traditional Mohave way of life. Had sexual indulgence been alien to 

 the Mohave w^ay of life, its sudden efflorescence would perhaps have 

 brought about a complete breakdown of the traditional way of life. 

 However, since the Mohave had always been qiute free in their sexual 

 behavior, an increase in promiscuousness merely meant a relatively 

 minor quantitative shift in basic interests, and not a qualitative inno- 

 vation in the tribal way of life. It involved a moderate readjustment 

 of the hierarchy of existing values, rather than an incorporation of 

 new values into Mohave culture. In other words, the increasingly 

 promiscuous acculturated Mohave was in the position of being able to 

 be promiscuous in the traditional way. 



Summing up, even after the IMohave were prevented by external 

 pressures from pursuing aggressive goals, they still had ample oppor- 

 tunities to cultivate another set of socially determined ambitions. 

 Hence, they did not become marginal men, or promiscuous and worth- 

 less loafers, lacking ties either with Mohave culture or with American 

 society. They became, instead, Mohave sex specialists, i.e., persons 

 consistently engaged in the pursuit of what was formerly a culturally 

 accepted "alternate" (Linton, 1936) behavior pattern. This did not 

 mean, however, a discarding of the warrior ideal — witness the 

 Mohave's unwillingness to think of the drunken bully as a hero and 

 the eagerness with which even middle-aged Mohave men served in 

 both World Wars. 



