Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 541 



dead relatives are either incestuous or else feeding (cannibalistic) 

 dreams, and partly because the Mohave have a variety of obvious 

 fantasies of oral impregnation (Devereux, 1937 b, 1947 a, 1948 f). 

 It may therefore be considered as proved that the Mohave tend to 

 incorporate dead love objects, thereby appeasing their longing for 

 something lost. The guilt feelings resulting from such fantasied 

 acts of incorporation are probably responsible for the subsequent 

 illness, or self -destructive behavior, of the bereaved. 



At the same time, the beliefs just cited also reflect a longing for 

 something miattainable, i.e., for reunion with the lost love object. 

 Mohave culture provides a fantasied gratification of this wish, by 

 means of the belief that one can be either temporarily, or else perma- 

 nently, reunited with the dead. Thus, "ghost doctors" (Fathauer, 

 1951), such as Kunyoo:r of Needles, and, according to some, also 

 (Hispan Himith) Tcilyetcilye (vulva hair curly, or stick up), of the 

 Masipa: gens, are believed to be able to lead the souls of the living to 

 the land of ghosts, so that they may visit their deceased relatives, and 

 then lead them back again to the land of the living. On the other hand, 

 if the living desire to be permanently reunited with the dead, they must 

 hasten their own death, since dead souls, after going through several 

 metamorphoses, cease to exist altogether. According to the Mohave, 

 this belief is responsible for funeral suicides, for the vicarious suicide 

 of witches (pt. 7, passim), and for the fact that some people, who 

 dream of their dead relatives, die shortly after the death of the lost 

 love object (pt. 4, passim) . 



The manifest death wishes of certain alcoholics (Case 138), the self- 

 destructive behavior of other heavy drinkers (Case 137), and the 

 damaging confessions of intoxicated witches (Cases 139, 140), alike 

 suggest that, in a state of intoxication, the Mohave manage to blend 

 the wish for something lost with the wish for something miattainable; 

 they do so by identifying the lost love object with its ghost and then, 

 by means of incorporation, identifying themselves with both the love 

 object and its ghost. 



Since the Mohave are not, as a rule, oral dependent personalities, 

 but psychosexually mature givers, who tend to control and to sublimate 

 their oral desires (Devereux, 1947 a) and to translate them into genital 

 terms, it is easy to understand why incestuous dreams about the dead 

 should be deemed especially dangerous to the living and particularly 

 likely to induce an intense longing for the dead. The tendency to 

 express the oral component genitally is made evident by the fact that 

 the Mohave equate gastrointestinal disorders with pseudocyesis and 

 consider both these ailments to be "venereal diseases." This tendency 

 to "genitalize" oral elements may be partly responsible for the tendency 

 to blend the wish for the lost love object with the wish for the unattain- 

 able (incestuous) love object. 



