Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 531 



deprivation and castration (criterion i>). Wliiskey is coordinated 

 with the symbolic equations milk = saliva = semen (criterion c). It 

 is used to express both certain aboriginal conflicts — phallic and oral 

 aspirations — and a conflict arising from acculturation : Because of 

 her mixed blood, the girl m question had had a harsh childhood, and 

 grew up to be a very positive, "phallic" sort of person (criterion e) 

 who is also a good provider. This dream, like other important 

 dreams in Mohave society, was remembered for more than 20 years 

 (criterion /). 



CASE 134. (Informant Modhar Taa:p.) : 



The following incident was related by a young adult man, Modhar Taa :p (Penis 

 cover=foreskin=condom), who had frequent anxiety dreams and quasi hal- 

 lucinatory experiences. "I was drunk one day and was walking homeward 

 through the brush, when I saw something that looked like a white snake. I 

 almost collapsed from fright. People believed that this vision was an ominous 

 one; that it was, in some way, connected with someone's death." (This man's 

 younger sibling died in utero when his mother died in labor (Devereux, 1948 e). 

 This trauma is reflected in several of his dreams. ) The informant, as well as his 

 friends, treated this alcoholic hallucination on a par with nonalcoholic dreams 

 and hallucinations (criterion f ) . 



This alcoholic quasi-hallucination is mentioned also in Case 26. 



The dream (Case 133) and the hallucinatory experience (Case 134) 

 just reported satisfy all criteria except (d). In view of the fact that 

 the material satisfies five of the six criteria, it seems reasonable to 

 assume that a more extensive collection of Mohave dreams would con- 

 tain items in which alcohol and drinking are part of the latent dream- 

 content (criterion d). This is all the more likely, since Wallace's 

 recent study (1947) reveals an appreciable degree of acculturation 

 both in the manifest content of Mohave dreams and in the attitude of 

 the Mohave toward dreams. 



(g) That alcohol should be referred to by at least one Mohave self- 

 given name. This point is of some significance, since such Mohave 

 names tend to emphasize the afi^ectively significant elements of Mohave 

 culture, and to highlight the Mohave value system, especially by derid- 

 ing undesirable traits. In brief, Mohave names straddle the spheres of 

 culture and of psychology. 



Two Mohave names pertaining to drinking were recorded : The first 

 is Yakapetk' IIapa:r( = when-drunk hollers), which is the self -given 

 name of a person who disapproves of this type of intoxicated behavior. 

 The fact that this critic of intoxication did not call himself, e.g., 

 "when-drunk fights," strongly highlights the fact that most intoxi- 

 cated Mohave Indians are only vocally aggressive. This interpreta- 

 tion is supported by the fact that fighting over food distributed by a 

 white, who butchered a steer and gave the Mohave the offal of the car- 

 cass, is explicitly referred to in the personal name : Vaha Munyu := 

 guts fights-over. The second name referring to alcohol is of even 



